AP Literature
Required Reading and Assignment
The AP Literature and Composition course is meant to function as a college-level Introduction to Literature class, where the basics of literary analysis are applied to texts of high literary merit. AP students should be ready, on the first day of class, to demonstrate their mastery over high school level analysis and plunge into discourse on a collegiate level. Literary analysis moves well beyond a decoding of the literal events in a text, into a discussion of author’s craft.
Students entering into Advanced Placement Literature and Composition MUST complete the following two assignments:
Students should take careful notes on form, structure, literary and poetic devices, and diction.
Students should be prepared to complete a FRQ (Free Response Question) upon return to school.
Read a text from an author outside the United States (aligned with summer reading theme) from the provided list, or select a text of equal literary merit (Nobel Prize, Man Booker Prize, National Book Award Winner).
List of Suggested Titles (please note that you are not limited to this list by any means):
Afterlives - Abdulrazak Gurnah
The Association of Small Bombs - Karan Mahajan
Flights or Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Takarczuk
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Orphan Master’s Son - Adam Johnson
Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Adichie
Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
The Sympathizer - Viet Than Nguyen
The White Castle - Oran Pamuk