Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition 2014 Summer Assignments

Dr. Heather Held, Collins Hill High School

Welcome to Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition! Know that this will be a challenging course, but I

am sure you will all rise to the task. I am very excited to be teaching you all next year. Get plenty of rest this summer; we

will be hitting the ground running in August!

You have three summer assignments. They are:

I. Read and annotate Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. If you do not know how to annotate, please

first read the attached excerpt from Mortimer J. Adler’s essay. The annotation of this novel will be a daily

grade in the first week of school. Make sure your name is clearly written on the inside of the book’s cover so I

know who I am grading when you turn in books. Also make your commentary clear and obvious. You will

turn in the annotated book for Heart of Darkness on the same day as the novel test— Thursday, 8/7/14.

II. Read and annotate Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Like the first novel, this annotated novel will

be a daily grade. You are to turn in the annotated book of Pride and Prejudice on the same day as the novel

test— Monday, 8/11/14.

III. College Application Essay

Since many of you will be completing the college application process in the first few months of senior year,

we will talk about the college application process in the first few weeks of school. You will then complete a

college essay for class.

So, in preparation for senior year, you should procure a copy of an application for at least one of the colleges

in which you are interested. Then find the essay topics that are a part of the application. You do NOT have to

complete any essays this summer; just have them on hand for when I assign it.

If you have questions or concerns about the summer assignments, please do not hesitate to contact me. My Collins Hill

High School email address is: heather_held@gwinnett.k12.ga.us. I will be out of town some during the summer, but I

will make it a point to check my email a few times a week. Do not wait until the last minute to ask questions as it might

take me a day or two to respond. Also, do not wait until the very end of summer to complete all three assignments!

See you in August!

Dr. Heather Held

From the article “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler

There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it,

just as you pay for clothes and furniture. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the

best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak

and transfer it from the butcher’s ice-box to your own. But you do not own the steak in the most important sense until you

consume it and get it into your bloodstream to do you any good.

. . . The soul of a book CAN be separated from its body. A body is more like the score of a piece of music than it

is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. However, the reason why a

great conductor makes notations on his musical scores—marks them up again and again each time he returns to study

them—is the reason why you should mark up your books. If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in

the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.

Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake. (And I don’t mean merely

conscious; I mean wide awake.) In the second place, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express

itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually the THOUGHT-THROUGH BOOK. Finally, writing

helps you to remember the thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author expressed.

If reading is to accomplish anything more than passing time, it must be active. You can’t let your eyes glide

across the lines of a book and come up with an understanding of what you have read. The physical act of writing, with

your own hand, brings words and sentences more sharply before your mind and preserves them better in your memory.

To set down your reaction to important words and sentences you have read, and the questions they have raised in your

mind, is to preserve those reactions and sharpen those questions.

. . . Best of all, your marks and notes become an integral part of the book and stay there forever. You can pick up

the book the following week or year, and there are all your points of agreement, disagreement, doubt, and inquiry. It’s

like resuming an interrupted conversation with the advantage of being able to pick up where you left off.

That is exactly what reading a book should be: a conversation between you and the author. Proper

annotation should be throughout each book.

Here are some devices for notating:

1) underlining- of major points, of important statements;

2) stars or asterisks- for important sentences;

3) question marks- if you get confused about something

3) circling- key words or phrases;

4) writing in the margins-:

Identifying literary elements (symbols, foreshadowing, irony, setting, theme, tone, etc.),

recording questions (and answers) which are raised in your mind,

summarizing a complicated discussion / situation to a single statement,

keeping a record of major points through the book,

summarizing each chapter; or

5) highlighting- significant lines or passages.