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Welcome to AP English Literature! I am excited about our upcoming year!
Because of the necessary and rewarding rigor of the AP class, we will begin our work during the
summer to ensure you remain actively engaged in critical thinking, continue to improve your
reading and comprehension skills, and arrive fully prepared for this college level class. Please
note that this is a college level class-NOT a college prep class, and consequently the work, texts,
ideas, and writing level are those of college level classes.
Due the first day of school:
1. Formal essay-Invisible Man
2. Two informal essays
3. Annotated copy of Invisible Man
4.
11th edition of Perrine’s Sound and Sense An Introduction to Poetry (This is an older edition,
so online is the best source for finding these!)
5. Figurative language handout-completed
6. 30 + page Spiral bound notebook (8*11, college ruled)
REQUIRED SUMMER READING: The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
Choose any edition, but you must read the entire novel at least once to effectively complete the
assignments and prepare for the test on the first day of school. This novel appears on the AP lit.
test more often than any other text and is taught in many AP lit classes across the country, but
this is a very challenging, albeit amazing, novel. I urge you to start early to ensure you have
ample time to complete the reading and the attached writing assignments.
WHILE YOU READ: Please annotate the entire text. Identify figurative language, important
passages or quotes, personal connections, thematic elements, ask questions, make comments, and
summarize chunks. You will need to have your annotated text with you the first day of class. I
will check your texts! Also, please use the website (easthighaplit.com) for historical context,
biographies, music, and art; an understanding of the setting, Harlem Renaissance, and race
relations; doing so will only enhance your enjoyment and understanding of the narrator’s
conflicts and motivations. The website will also have rubrics and writing guidelines, so please
use this tool!
Figurative language handout: identify examples of figurative language on the
handout during your reading. This is due the first day of class also.
Im blog: http://easthighaplit.blogspot.com/ During the summer, I will pose questions and
provide quotes for students to comment on which directly link to themes, ideas, and events in
Invisible Man. You are expected to contribute your own reflections, opinions, and theories on the
blog. While it may seem like extra work, this blog may be a lifesaver! You will have the
opportunity to share and discuss views, ask questions, and gain insight into the text prior to
writing your essays.
WRITING ASSIGNMENTS: You will choose ONE of these prompts and write one formal
essay on Invisible Man as well as TWO informal journal prompts.
FORMAL ESSAY: I expect MLA format and your essay should comprise about 3-5
pages with the emphasis on analysis. If you turn in a summary, you will fail. Check the
website for guides and the rubric to ensure your work focuses on critical thinking and
analysis versus a retelling of the plot.
PROMPTS:
1. IM insists that juxtaposing himself against the light proves and illuminates his
existence. He alleges, “Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form […].
Without light I am not only invisible but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s
form is to live a death” (Ellison 6). How does light, dark/ness, blindness, and
invisibility shape and inform Invisible Man’s identity and attitudes?
2. One of the concepts in the novel is how an individual discovers his or her identity.
Invisible Man claims that his “problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s
way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one
really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the
opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man” (Ellison 6). By choosing
to become “invisible,” does he fulfill his agenda of determining his own identity or is
his invisibility yet another form and identity thrust upon him by others/society? Does
IM base his identify and reality on self- reflection or is his self-perception constructed
by how others see or do not see him?
3. How does IM respond in some significant way to justice or injustice? Analyze IM’s
understanding of justice, the degree to which his search for justice is successful, and
the significance of this search for the novel as a whole.
4. One definition of madness is mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it.
Yet, Emily Dickinson wrote, “Much Madness is divinest Sense--/To a discerning Eye--.”
Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a “discerning Eye.” How does
IM’s apparent madness or irrational behavior play an important role in the novel? Is his
behavior the result of insanity or fury? What does this delusional or eccentric behavior
consists of and how might it be judged as actually reasonable and sane? Explain the
significance of the madness to the work as a whole.
INFORMAL: These responses are informal, which means that you may use personal
pronouns and more casual language. These assignments should help you make personal
connections with IM. I do still expect them to be typed, using MLA format.
1. In what ways does Invisible Man mirror your own experience? (1-2 pages)
2. In Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax,” the Lorax “speaks for the trees” because they cannot voice
their own fear and rage. Similarly, the narrator in Invisible Man purports “Who knows
but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?” (Ellison 581). Considering your own
experience, who best “speaks” for you? (1-2 pages)
QUESTIONS??? Email: [email protected]
Website: easthighaplit.com
Blog: http://easthighaplit.blogspot.com/
RECOMMENDED TITLES FOR EAST HIGH FREE CHOICE READING: You are still
expected to complete the East High Summer Reading assignment. Please choose a title from this
list to better prepare you for AP lit-and life.  This list encompasses the quintessence of
literature, (which is a wholly verbose way of saying, “Seriously! These texts are freakin’
awesome!) and I unreservedly contend that you are morally, spiritually, and intellectually
obliged to read and love these few selections. I’ve included the number of times each title has
appeared on the AP test in the last 44 years, also.
20 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
18 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
16 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevski
12 The Awakening by Kate Chopin
12 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
11 Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
11 Light in August by William Faulkner
10 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
10 Beloved by Toni Morrison
10 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
10 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
10 Native Son by Richard Wright
10 Othello by William Shakespeare
10 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
9 A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
8 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
8 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
8 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
8 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
8 Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
7 All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
7 Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
7 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
7 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
6 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
6 A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
6 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
6 Obasan by Joy Kogawa
6 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
5 The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chkhov
5 Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
5 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
5 Hamlet by William Shakespeare
5 Macbeth by William Shakespeare
5 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
5 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
1 Pere Goriot-Balzac