SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT:
12th GRADE ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
Welcome to the St. Joseph High School senior AP English Literature and Composition class.  A reminder - this class is a college level class.  

For your summer reading assignment you will read and annotate the following required books with the following ISBN numbers and publishers.  You are only to purchase these specific editions which were chosen because there is room in the margins for annotations and, when we review the texts in class, we can all refer to the same page numbers.  Books required:
    -The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Translated by Nevill Cohill) ISBN 0-140-42438-5  Penguin Books

      - Go to the following web site also:  www.luminarium.org. At the home page scroll to the bottom. On the left on side click Medieval,  Geoffrey Chaucer.  When you get to this page on the right hand side click “Life of Geoffrey Chaucer” and after that go to “Works of Geoffrey Chaucer”.At “Works of Geoffrey Chaucer” click CT Study Resources (bottom part) and view some of this.  It is the original Old English version with many notes, translations.  See how many words you see that you basically know and that are familiar.  Then back to “Works of Geoffrey Chaucer” and click onto Composite Edition, Librarius”.  Here you can view the Old English and modern translation text, side by side.(Forget ENotes – really not worth it – smile).

-Beowulf  A New Verse Translation  by Seamus Heaney ISBN -0- 393-32097-9 W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.  (Make sure to read the Introduction)
Also go to this web site: www.beowulfmovie.com. Check out the preview for the new movie made on Beowulf, coming out in November, 2007
Then go to this website: www.heorot.dk/beowulf-on-steorarume and scroll all the way down on the left side – it’s a wealth of information about Beowulf.
 
-The Intellectual Devotional, Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class by David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim (Hardcover) ISBN 1-59486-513-2  Rodale -  Note:  You are to read by August through page 42 for this text only.

                Assignment:  Annotations
As you read each book you are required to make frequent, copious marginal written notes (textual annotations. You may use ‘post it’ notes.  You know how to do this from English 11.  Underline important points, literary techniques and then write a notes beside them in the margin with a brief explanation.  When you come to class in August, I will collect all your books – you will be receiving a test grade on your annotations in these books.  Your annotations, of course, must be written legibly and neatly.
                           Required  annotations:
-Vocabulary - Each word you come across that you do not know the definition of, look it up in the dictionary and write a brief definition
-Underline important and interesting passages to you.  Particular vivid images – what effect do they have on the writer’s purpose? Why are they important or interesting?
-Identify literary techniques used by the author- underline them  and write in the margins the effect - if the technique helped bring the author’s point across (e.g. analogy, hyperbole, parody, paradox, personification, voice, tone, tense, themes, alliteration, repetition, metaphors, irony, satire, symbols, etc. - just to point a out a few)
-For The Canterbury Tales know the background of Chaucer, know the historical times he lived in; know chivalry,  courtly love, the church, romance, fabliaux, seasons, description of clothing, physiognomy, irony, sarcasm.
-For Beowulf be aware of history of the Scandinavian countries when Beowulf was ‘written’, the archetypal hero – characteristics of the  Anglo-Saxon hero, tensions between heroic code and other value systems, a good warrior, a good king, Mead hall, kennings, symbolic  /allegorical meanings of monsters, foreshadowing, and scops.
        REMINDER:  YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE READ LAST YEAR AND ANNOTATED:
                -A LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
                -INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
                -THE GREAT GATSBY  by F. Scott Fitzgerald
                -WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte
IF YOU DID NOT READ THESE BOOKS, YOU MUST HAVE THEM READ BY THE NEW SCHOOL TERM.  Especially important are A Light in August  and Invisible Man.  We will be doing major work with these two texts.  If you read the texts and annotated them, you should review them.
Your books must be purchased:
                -Book stores (Education Central in Plaza, Sion Farm Shopping Center)
                -Online (shipping will take several weeks, so please plan accordingly) amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com; ecampus.com;                              mediaplay.com .
                                 -For your convenience, the required book titles are linked directly to amazon.com from  the St. Joseph High School                                   Affiliate Store. Try the St. Joseph High School Amazon.Com Affiliate Store.
Sincerely,
Ms. Brajovic