• AP English Literature and Composition

    Summer Assignment 2024

     

    AP English Literature is an enriching, rewarding, and rigorous course that builds upon the work you have done over the past three years, extending and deepening the emphasis on argumentation, literary analysis, style analysis, research and synthesis, and crafted communication. We will continue to carefully analyze complex and beautiful works of literature, many of which require great patience, attentiveness, and involvement from us as readers. These texts represent a variety of perspectives from around the globe, as well as a variety of genres, time periods, sensibilities, styles, structures, and aesthetics. We also will continue to hone our voices as writers, expanding the range, versatility, and beauty of how we communicate interpretations of texts. We will write about the texts we study—and we will design and craft our own texts.

     

    There is a required summer assignment which sets up our first unit of the year. This work sets the stage for our first series of discussions, our first in-class writing assignments, and our first major paper in the fall. This means that you will not be able to begin the work of the course until the summer assignment has been completed.

     

    This summer, you must closely READ, ANNOTATE, and WRITE ABOUT the following novel:

     

    Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

    by Kathleen Rooney

    ISBN-10: 1250113326

    ISBN-13: 978-1250113320

    You can purchase the book at Beck's Bookstore, Amazon, halfpricebooks.com, bn.com, and from other independent booksellers.

     

    Please read the text closely and carefully, annotating according to the guidelines outlined below. The text is lyrical, poetic, and powerful, and we expect that any student taking AP Literature will be able to independently make sense of this novel. As an added bonus, Ms. Rooney is scheduled to visit with AP English Literature students in August! She too will expect everyone to have done a careful reading of her book.  

     

    TRIGGER WARNING! You should be aware that the novel includes one scene of an attempted suicide.  If this topic is triggering for you, please skip pages 263-265.  

     

    Annotation Assignment

    As you read, carefully and thoroughly annotate for the following:

     

    1. Themes and Arguments: About voice, identity, freedom, choice, beauty, consciousness, gender, grief, empowerment, poetry, humanity, etc. About forging one’s own path in life. About navigating our way through ambiguity, relationships, darkness, illness, etc. About how we understand who and what we value most in life, as well as why.

     

    1. Stylistic / Rhetorical Devices: Pay attention to HOW the text is written—how Rooney incorporates poetry, moves from past to present and back, crafts sentences, chooses words, etc. Use your work from junior year to guide your reading of this novel. Mark sentences that are beautifully crafted and artfully persuasive.

     

    1. Contemporary and Personal Relevance: Consider how this novel speaks to and critiques the world in which we live today and how we have learned to navigate our pathways towards an “idealized” sense of the future. Comment on other themes and arguments that resonate with your life, your family, and your concerns.

     

    You will turn in your annotations on the first day of school in the fall. If you prefer to write your annotations in your notebook or type them, then be sure to refer to specific passages in the book, along with page numbers, in your writing. You will turn in this writing along with your book. 



    Writing Assignment

    Please respond to the following writing prompt in a carefully crafted and edited response of 600-800 words.

    This prompt asks you to discuss how the novel impacted your thinking about a particular experience from this summer—to explore how the story has helped/can help you better understand yourself:

    • Choose a single moment, event, or experience from your summer.
    • Describe the setting (time and place), what happened, and who was involved in vivid details.
    • Connect this moment to the novel in a meaningful way: how has your reading of the novel affected your understanding of this moment/event/experience from the summer? Did you learn something about yourself? About your values? About your relationships? About your identity? Share your new understandings and insights.
    • Please include at least two correctly cited quotations from the novel to support your response.

     

    Be prepared to submit your document via Schoology and Turnitin.com on the first day of school.

     

    We will also be completing two in-class writing assignments when we return to school in the fall. The best way to prepare for these in-class essays is to carefully and completely read the entire novel independently and to review the story and your annotations prior to returning to school.

     

    We are excited about next year and look forward to meeting you in August! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and have a nice summer.

     

    Sincerely, 

     

    Dr. DePasquale, English Department Chair

    Ms. Alongi, AP Literature Teacher

    Mr. Enriquez, AP Literature Teacher

    Ms. LeFlore, AP Literature Teacher

    Mr. Mohyuddin, AP Literature Teacher

     

    PDF - AP Lit Summer Assignment Overview