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AP English Literature and Composition Summer Reading

SUMMER READING AND WRITING 2026

Welcome to AP English Literature and Composition. The information below describes your summer reading and essay assignments. Summer reading is an important part of the Advanced Placement course and serves multiple purposes. This is a literature course, so, of course, reading literature and then writing about it is the main focus. Summer reading and the essay assignment will work to prepare you for next year and practice these skills. 

Everyone must read three books: two are listed below, and the other is selected from the list of titles. 

Required

  • Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, and Poetry Unbound, 50 Poems to Open Your World, by Padraig O’Tuama
  • Choose one from this list of suggested titles from the AP English Literature and Composition Exam:

An American Marriage        The Sun Also Rises
Great Expectations                One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Brave New World                   The Awakening
All the Pretty Horses            East of Eden
Jane Eyre                                     Sula
Little Fires Everywhere      The Color Purple
The Kite Runner                      Catch-22
Slaughterhouse-Five            The Invisible Man
The Handmaid’s Tale            There There            

The Assignments

For Frankenstein, you will write an essay in the first week of school. It will be a response to an AP Literature and Composition Free Response Prompt and will help me understand what you can do as writers and what we should work on in preparation for the AP test. 

For the second fiction book, choose 3 prompts from the list below and write a literary argument that responds to the prompt. In addition to the thesis statements, include specific scenes and/or details from the text that would support the argument. You are not writing an essay: just an argument and evidence. Include the prompt number and submit it to Google Classroom on the first day of school.

Finally, complete the poetry portfolio at the end of the packet.

The AP Prompts

  1. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or parental figure) and a son or daughter.  Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
  2. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two counties, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and sea) to represent opposing forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work.  Choose a novel or a play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.
  3. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed.  Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a significant role and how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values.  
  4. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings: “The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development.  By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events* a marriage or a last-minute rescue from death* but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death.”  Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes.  In a well-written essay, identify the “spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation” evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole. 
  5. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions.  Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live.  Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. 
  6. In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life “is a search for justice.” Choose a character from a novel or play who responds in some way to justice or injustice. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze that character’s understanding of justice, the degree to which the character’s search for justice is successful, and the significance to the work as a whole.

Summer Poetry Portfolio (5 Poems)

Choose five poems from the collection that you find meaningful, challenging, beautiful, confusing, or thought-provoking. For each poem, you should complete:

1. Basic Understanding

  • Title of poem
  • One sentence summarizing the poem
  • One favorite line or passage

2. Close Reading
Identify and discuss:

  • One literary device (imagery, metaphor, symbolism, diction, syntax, repetition, etc.)
  • How does that device contribute to the poem's meaning or effect

3. Personal Reflection
Write 1-2 paragraphs:

  • Why did you choose this poem?
  • What questions does it raise?
  • What connections can you make to your own life, current events, another text, or a broader human experience?