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Summer Reading 2023: AP English IV Literature

Overview

 

How to Change Everything: The Young Human’s Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other by Naomi Klein, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff.

Senior AP English Literature will read two other books (choose your class on linked senior page)

  • How to Read Literature Like a Professor
  • Frankenstein (Penguin Classics or MIT
    Press editions only) 

Book Covers

Other titles

Other selected titles by Mary Shelley:

  • The Last Man
  • The Mortal Immortal
  • Classics of Horror: Dracula & Frankenstein
  • Valperga
  • The Invisible Girl

Other selected titles by Thomas C. Foster:

  • How to Read Literature Like a Professor – For Kids 
  • Twenty-five Books that Shaped America 
  • How to Read Novels Like a Professor
  • Reading the Silver Screen
  • How to Read Poetry Like a Professor
  • How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor

Video frankenstein

Goodreads

Goodreads summary:

Mary Shelley's seminal novel of the scientist whose creation becomes a monster

This edition is the original 1818 text, which preserves the hard-hitting and politically charged aspects of Shelley's original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice. This edition also includes a new introduction and suggestions for further reading by author and Shelley expert Charlotte Gordon, literary excerpts and reviews selected by Gordon and a chronology and essay by preeminent Shelley scholar Charles E. Robinson. 

Author Bio

Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the works of her husband, Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and the writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Mary Shelley was taken seriously as a writer in her own lifetime, though reviewers often missed the political edge to her novels. After her death, however, she was chiefly remembered only as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author of Frankenstein.

Video

Book Summary

Goodreads Summary: 

What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface -- a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character -- and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you.

In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.

Author Bio

 

Thomas C. Foster is Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Flint, where he teaches classes in contemporary fiction, drama, and poetry as well as creative writing and composition. Foster has been teaching literature and writing since 1975, the last twenty-one years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan.

Since retiring, I spend my time piddling around with my English setters, whom I take hunting in season and snowshoeing in the winter, fly-fishing for smallmouth bass and kayaking in warmer times, and looking for new writers in all seasons.

 

 

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