Summer Assignment

Assignment Part 1: Reading How to Read Literature Like A Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, REVISED EDITION by Thomas C. Foster

A.      Read and annotate How to Read Literature Like a Professor

a.        Annotation Tips:

• Highlight or underline notable words, phrases, and/or sentences and write questions, comments, connections, and reactions in the margins.

• Questions—write question in the margin for things you do not understand or want to understand better. What does it make you wonder?

• Comments—note instances of interesting word choice, imagery, character motivations, and literary devices that might suggest an author’s purpose or theme. What do the ideas in the book make you think of in your previous reading?

• Connections—make text-text connections (ways the book relates to a book, movie, television show, article, etc.), make text-self connections (ways the book connects to you or your life), make text-world connections (ways in which the book connects to wider society)

• Reactions—this can be something you think is funny or interesting, something you agree with or disagree with.

• Write insights or ideas about the novel on the title page or inside covers of the book

B.      While reading, consider your choice novel and/ or one of the following texts you have read in the past:

• To Kill a Mockingbird

• Twelfth Night

• Romeo and Juliet

• Lord of the Flies

• Animal Farm

• A Separate Peace

• Fahrenheit 541

• The Crucible

• The Great Gatsby

• Of Mice and Men

• “The Most Dangerous Game”

• “The Monkey’s Paw”

• “The Cask of the Amontillado”

• “The Necklace”

C. As you annotate the text, consider the following questions. Make notes, 0n post-its or notecards stuck between the pages on the questions that require a lengthier response than what can be annotated on the page.

1. Identify what is meant by “language of reading” (xxv). How are memory, symbol, and pattern are important for a “language of reading.” What is “symbolic imagination” (xxviii) and how it is significant for a “language of reading”? 

2. Foster writes, “There’s no such thing as a wholly original work of literature” (24) and “there’s only one story” (27). What ideas and connections can you make with this that are not already mentioned in the text?

3. Foster writes, “We want strangeness in our stories, but we want familiarity too” (58). Explain this paradox. How does this idea help you to think more about the significance of allusions in literature? 

4. How are rain and snow are often paradoxical symbols (71-73). Explore some of the different atmospherics and moods that are created by rain and snow, and how they often have contradictory effects. 

5. In chapter 11, Foster describes “lateral thinking” (93) and its impact on literary composition. How does this help you to (re)think the role of writer’s intentionality and what readers can discover in a work?

6. Foster says, “I hate political writing” (116) and then also says, “I love political writing” (117). What are the differences between the political writing he hates and the political writing he loves? What are contemporary examples for each? He also says that, “nearly all writing is political on some level” (118). 

7. After you finish Chapters 19-20 (171-192), read the short story, “Ripe Figs,” by Kate Chopin. It is only 288 words, and yet manages to say so much. You can find a copy here. What is the significance of geography and season in this short story? 

8. What is intertextuality? Foster introduces this idea early on (29-30, 38) and clarifies it in the Interlude (196-199). Identify and explain some examples of “this dialogue between old texts and new” (29). What is an archetype? (198- 200) Explain how intertextuality and archetype support the statement: “There’s only one story.” Make notes throughout as this idea develops.

9. Read the lyrics to “One Little Song” by Gillian Welch. The lyrics are available here. How do these lyrics help you to think more deeply about intertextuality and Foster’s premise that “there’s only one story?” What other song lyrics or poems can you think of to illustrate some of the big ideas in the text? Brainstorm some titles and explain the relationships and connections.

10. In Chapter 25, Foster encourages us to discover possibilities “beyond the literal” (243) to interpret texts. Apply this idea in explaining some of the literary terms used throughout the book. Create or find images and symbols to figuratively represent these words: allegory, archetype, intertextuality, irony, paradox. Explain the symbolic representation you chose.

11. Foster sums up irony as “deflection from expectation” (256) and concludes that irony trumps everything. What do these phrases mean? How do these ideas shed light on your understanding of irony? Can you think of a movie or television show that you have “read” recently where irony was present? What layer(s) did irony add to the film—comic, tragic, wry, perplexing, etc.? Explain. 

Summer Assignment Part 2: Choice Novel with Dialectal Journaling

• Select at least one of the texts from the list below. You will spend a lot of time with this book over the course of the school year before the AP exam, so if you start reading it and hate it, select a different one.

• One of the essays on the exam asks you to relate to something you have read that you know well. It offers suggestions. The list below includes books that often appear on the list of suggestions. It is generally a good idea to know 5 novels or plays very well to prepare for this essay. The novels/ plays should represent a variety of literary styles, time periods, and themes. The students who do the best on this essay can provide near quotes without having the book to reference.

• Complete a dialectical journal for the (one) novel. See example and instructions below the book list.

• The Road, Cormac McCarthy. WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).

• Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry. Indeed, Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America—and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun." "The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic." 

• The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams. No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world.

• Native Son, Richard Wright. “If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr. Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

• A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams. The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning. It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared―57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.

• Beloved, Toni Morrison. An unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. This spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

• Heart of Darkness*, Joseph Conrad. The tale concerns the journey of the narrator (Marlow) up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Far upriver, he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, an ivory trader who exercises an almost godlike sway over the inhabitants of the region. Both repelled and fascinated by the man, Marlow is brought face to face with the corruption and despair that Conrad saw at the heart of human existence. In its combination of narrative and symbolic power, masterly character study and acute psychological penetration, Heart of Darkness ranks as a landmark of modern fiction. It is a book no serious student of literature can afford to miss.

• Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens. Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

• Life of Pi, Yann Martel. Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction: Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

• Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst and alienation, and as a critique of superficiality in society. The novel also deals with themes of innocence, identity, belonging, loss, connection, sex, and depression. The main character, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage rebellion. Caulfield, nearly of age, gives his opinion on a wide variety of topics as he narrates his recent life events. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

* Difficult read

The authors and works represented here have all appeared on the College Board’s AP English Literature Exam or released practice exams. AP English is considered a college-level course and, as such, may include readings with mature language and themes.

Dialectical Journal

The term “Dialectic” means “the art or practice of arriving at the truth by using conversation involving question and answer.” Think of your dialectical journal as a series of conversations you are having with the text to as you read it. Use the journal to record your personal responses to the text, the themes you identify, and the important ideas you think throughout reading the text. This will help you track your own understanding, as this process is meant to help you develop a better and deeper understanding as you read of both the text itself and your own learning processing throughout the journey of it.

• As you read, choose passages that stand out to you and record them in the left-hand column of the page. A passage should be at least a sentence, but no longer than three sentences.

• You must have a minimum of 10 passages (quotes) from the novel that include a meaningful quote and a purposeful well-written response. You may (and I encourage you to) do more than 10. Notice in the example that one quote can evoke several responses. The more you can respond to a particular quote the more insight you will get into it and the text as a whole.

• In the right-hand column, write your responses to the text (ideas or insights, questions, reflections, and comments on each passage).

• In the middle column indicate which type of response it is using the provided codes.

• Correctly QUOTE and CITE using MLA formatting:

  • Periods go AFTER the citation, NOT in the quotation marks (except for VERY RARE circumstances).

  • Your page number should be indicated by the number alone—there should NOT be any other indicator that it is a page number (ex. p. pp. pg.)

  • Quotes should be indicated with quotation marks.

    • If your quote has a quote within it, use proper quote within a quote format. Notice in the example below the quote starts with normal double quotation marks. The section that would have been in quotation marks in the text becomes single marks.

    • Example: If you are starting a quote, “He said, ‘do not eat that’ and then added that ‘it might make you ill’” (45).

  • Quoting and citing rules can be found at Purdue OWL. Be sure that you select MLA 9 when you are looking for answers to citation or quoting rules on Purdue OWL.

• Submit the dialectical journal to Turnitin.com AND provide a printout on the first day of class.

Example Dialectical Journal from To Kill a Mockingbird

Grading Rubric for Dialectical Journal