AP English Literature

Summer Assignment 2018

Ms. McNeil cmcneil@muhsd.org

Welcome to AP English Literature!

The purpose of this course is to prepare you for the AP Exam in May. However, it is also meant
to extend your appreciation for literature, expand your writing skills, and prepare you for
university. This assignment is not meant to overwhelm you or to obliterate the freedom of
summer. The purpose of this summer assignment is to gauge your analytical and writing abilities
in order to teach you more effectively. Work hard, but play hard, too!

Ground rules:
 Expectations for the class:
o Students will be prepared to read. We will be reading 6-7 books this year.
o Students will be prepared to write. We will be writing essays, a research paper,
and a full explication paper with scholarly critiques included.
o Students will be taking the AP Exam. We are going to extensive preparation for
the exam and taking the AP exam is worth points for the class.
 Preparation for the exam will include essays and multiple choice practice.
 Academic Honesty:
o Read all instructions and follow them.
o Email your teacher if you need help.
o Do not use CliffNotes, SparkNotes, wikis, or other sites.
o Do not plagiarize:
 Plagiarism is copying another’s work and taking credit for it. It is also not
citing information obtained from other sources.
 Do not allow others to plagiarize you.
 The consequences of plagiarism: a score of zero, with the ability to rewrite
the assignment for half credit, due by the end of the first week of school.
 Procedure:
o MLA Format is required: typed, Times New Roman, 12 pt font, double-space, 1”
margins, heading, and header.
o Works Cited and in-text citations for the required text is mandated.
o Spell-check, proofread and revise your paper to eliminate any possible spelling,
grammatical, structural, and format errors.
 With the first obvious error I see that could have been corrected with
merely reviewing or spell-checking your essay, I will stop grading and you
will receive a ZERO. Should this happen, you will have the opportunity to
rewrite your paper for HALF CREDIT.
o Print your paper prior to the due date: I will not print your paper, I will not give
passes to print your paper, and I will not accept tardies for printing your paper.
o Turn in your assignment the first day of school. Due to the assignment being an
extended one, NO LATE WORK will be accepted.
o Use an MLA Format and Style Guide to address questions you may have on
formatting. (The Purdue OWL website is a wonderful resource.)

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Assignment:
This summer assignment has two parts to it. I expect each part (meaning, each essay) to have its
own document that is printed for the first day of school.

Check out How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster ASAP.

Each essay must have a Work Cited page with an entry for Foster's book. Use EasyBib to help.
When referencing Foster's book in your essays, you must have in-text citations. See Purdue
OWL for help with these.

Part I

Read the book How to Read Literature like a Professor. As you read the book, explain one thing
from each chapter (prelude, interlude, etc. as well) that you have learned or have not thought of
before reading this book. Once, you have finished this part, write a conclusion that explains how
this book has affected your view of literature.

Do not summarize the chapters.

Part II

At one point in the book, Foster provides a short story by Katherine Mansfield titled “The
Garden Party.” He (and I) expects the reader to stop after reading the short story to write out an
explication of the short story, then compare it to the examples he provides. This is the second
part of the assignment. I want you to write an explication of the short story, based on Foster's
explanation of what an explication is, and using the information from the rest of the book to help
you.

Then, in your essay, compare your explication to the sample explications provided in the text.
How does your explication compare to those and the comments Foster provides on them? How
can you perform better on other explications through the advice offered in this text?

You will use sub-headings to designate the different parts of your essay. See the example essay
for what that should look like.

Warning:
Be prepared for class discussions regarding this text when the school year begins. We will also
refer to this text throughout the year when studying specific concepts that are presented within
this text.

If you have any problems with or questions about the assignment, or you have any questions
about the class, please email me at cmcneil@muhsd.org.

This assignment will also be posted on Ms. McNeil’s website: http://mscmcneil.weebly.com.

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Example with subheadings. The subheadings are required; however, the text used in the example
is not. You can choose the text for your subheadings.

Sawyer 1

Bessie Sawyer

Ms. McNeil

AP English Literature

15 August 2018

Explication of Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party”

EXPLICATION

In Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party,” …

REACTION

In comparing my explication with those provided in Foster’s book…

Sawyer 2

Work Cited