Dear Students,

I am extremely excited that you have registered for AP Literature and Composition next year! You have chosen a challenging but rewarding path. AP Lit and Comp is a class for students with intellectual curiosity, a strong work ethic, and a desire to learn. I know all of you have been well-prepared by your past English teachers for the “Wonderful World of Literature” in which we will delve into a wide selection of poetry, drama, and fiction.

In order to prepare for Literature, you will complete a Summer Reading Assignment prior to returning to school in the fall. Your summer assignment has been designed with the following goals in mind: to help you build confidence and competence as readers of complex texts, to give you, when you enter class in the fall, an immediate basis for discussion of literature – elements like narrative viewpoint, symbolism, plot structure, point of view, etc., to set up a basis for comparison with other words we will read this year, to provide you with the beginnings of a repertoire of works you can write about on the AP Literature Exam next spring, and last but not least, to enrich your mind and stimulate your imagination.

Without further ado, your Summer Reading Assignment is to revisit assigned chapters of a non-fiction piece by Thomas C. Foster entitled How to Read Literature Like A Professor and to choose ONE of the following novels to read in its entirety: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Atticus by Ron Hansen, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Atonement by Ian McEwan, or The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski.

The choice of novel you will read and analyze over the summer is yours, to be made from the list of novels above. On the following page you will find brief summaries of each novel (minus spoilers!). The assignment for novel analysis follows. Attached to each novel summary you will find a list of assigned HTRLLP chapters which pair with each specific novel and offer a more in-depth analysis of your reading. You must read your selected novel in full before school begins! Your assignment for HTRLLP is simply to thoroughly read the assigned chapters attached to your chosen novel, also before school begins.

If you are willing and able to purchase your own copies of these books (an option I strongly encourage), you can annotate as you read and will have the books as references for later in the year. Aside from traditional bookstores, you may also want to consider cheaper options for purchases including Amazon.com (the “Buy Used” option), Half.com, ThriftBooks.com (15% off your first order), Barnes & Noble (mention LHS, or 2nd & Charles. If you are unable to purchase the novels, you may check them out from a local library, search for online options, or go to the Google Classroom link provided in the paragraph below to locate PDF versions of each of the novels. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer book checkouts over the summer from the English Department, as most books borrowed over the summer do not return to us in the fall and the logistics during the current pandemic situation make scheduling that much more difficult.

Our class will use Remind and Google Classroom to stay connected and remain informed. Please text @veslit23 to 81010 to sign up for Remind texts, or sign up at remind.com/join/veslit23 to receive Remind emails. To join the        Google Classroom, please go to http://classroom.google.com, log in using
your lubbockisd.net email address and password, click the “+” to join the class, and enter code m5vjbav.

If you have any questions about the summer reading assignment (or anything else pertaining to next year), please feel free to email me. I hope you will enjoy and learn from your summer reading. I am looking forward to seeing you in class next year! Stay safe and healthy out there, read something fun (Castle and my reading recs on Instagram @bossbabesbooks if you need a jump start on what to read, other than the summer reading novel above), relax a little, and have a lovely summer!

Ms. Vescovi
sarah.vescovi@lubbockisd.org