Welcome to 208!

Throughout the year, we will be examining motivation and decision-making.

We will ask the question:

To what extent does fear motivate humanity?

As a sophomore entering an E208 class in the fall, you will be responsible for completing TWO summer reading assignments.

Please read through the information on this handout. If you have any questions over the summer, please contact Mrs. Serafini at tserafini@d211.org, Mr. Cavalieri at scavalieri@d211.org, or Mrs.

Micheletto at jmicheletto@d211.org.

There is also a schoology group where you can find additional materials and resources.

Group Code: 4T34-Q9TT-R3M6X

Assignment #1: Poetry:

1. Choose THREE of the FIVE attached poems
2. Read and analyze each of your chosen poems by completing a TPCASTT chart on each (template can be located on Schoology)

These TPCASTT charts will be collected on the first day of class and graded; please have an electronic copy available.

3. Need help with literary analysis or elements? (Use this list of terms to help you)

Assignment #2: Novel of Choice:

1. Choose a novel or book from the attached list that you want to read. They all relate to the essential question: “To what extent does fear motivate humanity?”
2. Your book must be approved by a parent or guardian
3. Read it with an analytical eye; you can annotate it, but it is not necessary.
4. Be prepared to complete an assignment that will prove you read the book during the first week of class.

A note to parents:

Fear

By Kahlil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains,

the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,

she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter

there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way. The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean

because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.

Still I Rise

BY MAYA ANGELOU

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise

I rise I rise.

September 1, 1939 By W.H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid

As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives;

The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now

That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made

A psychopathic god:

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. 

Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book,

The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air

Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man,

Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse:

But who can live for long In an euphoric dream;

Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face

And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home;

Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout

Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev

Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone

Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love

But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark Into the ethical life

The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; "I will be true to the wife,

I'll concentrate more on my work," And helpless governors wake

To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now,

Who can reach the deaf,

Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die. 

Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

The Second Coming

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Choose ONE of the following titles to read

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime 

Fiction: A modern classic—both poignant and funny—about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world.

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

Nonfiction: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. 

Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.

Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

Ghosts of War

Nonfiction: In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, follow one GI’s tour of duty as Ryan Smithson brings readers inside a world that few understand.

This is no ordinary teenager’s story. Instead of opting for college life, Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was seventeen. Two years later, he was deployed to Iraq as an Army engineer.

His story—and the stories of thousands of other soldiers—is nothing like what you see on CNN or read about in the New York Times. This unforgettable story about combat, friendship, fear, and a soldier’s commitment to his country peels back the curtain on the realities of war in a story all Americans should read.

Fiction: How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents

Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. 

The García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between

the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home—and not at home—in America.

Just Mercy - Young Adult Edition

Nonfiction: Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinkmanship - and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice. (bookbrowse.com)

Warriors Don’t Cry

Nonfiction: In this essential autobiographical account by one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most powerful figures, Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine explores not only the oppressive force of racism, but the ability of young people to change ideas of race and identity.

In 1957, well before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other teenagers became iconic symbols for the Civil Rights Movement and the dismantling of Jim Crow in the American South as they integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education.

Throughout her harrowing ordeal, Melba was taunted by her schoolmates and their parents, threatened by a lynch mob’s rope, attacked with lighted sticks of dynamite, and injured by acid sprayed in her eyes. But through it all, she acted with dignity and courage, and refused to back down.

LITERARY TERMS

For AP ENGLISH LITERATURE

1. Allegory-The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
2. Alliteration-The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in a line of poetry. ie. Marilyn Monroe
3. Ambiguity-When an author leaves out details/information or is unclear about an event so the reader will use his/her imagination to fill in the blanks.
4. Anaphora-Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines in a poem.
5. Anecdote-A short story or joke told at the beginning of a speech to gain the audience’s attention.
6. Antagonist-The protagonist’s adversary.
7. Anti-climatic-When the ending of the plot in poetry or prose is unfulfilling or lackluster.
8. Apostrophe- When a character speaks to a character or object that is not present or is unable to respond
9. Assonance-The repetition of the same vowel sound in a phrase or line of poetry.
10. Blank verse-Name for unrhymed iambic pentameter. An iamb is a metrical foot in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable. In iambic pentameter there are five iambs per line making ten syllables.
11. Climax-The turning point in the plot or the high point of action.
12. Colloquial language-Informal, conversational language. Colloquialisms are phrases or sayings that are indicative of a specific region.
13. Connotation-An idea or meaning suggested by or associated with a word or thing, ie. Bat=evil.
14. Convention-An understanding between a reader and a writer about certain details of a story that does not need to be explained.
15. Consonance-The repetition of consonant sounds in a phrase or line of poetry. The consonant sound may be at the beginning, middle, or end of the word.
16. Couplet-Two rhyming lines in poetry.
17. Deus ex machina-Term that refers to a character or force that appears at the end of a story or play to help resolve conflict. Word means “god from a machine.” In ancient Greek drama, gods were lowered onto the stage by a mechanism to extricate characters from a seemingly hopeless situation. The phrase has come to mean any turn of events that solve the characters’ problems through an unexpected and unlikely intervention.
18. Diction-Word choice or the use of words in speech or writing.
19. Denouement (day-new-mon)-The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot.
20. Doppelganger-The alter ego of a character-the suppressed side of one’s personality that is usually unaccepted by society. ie. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson- Mr. Edward Hyde (hide) is Dr. Jekyll’s evil side
21. Elegy-A poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person.
22. Emotive language-Deliberate use of language by a writer to instill a feeling or visual.
23. Enjambment-The continuation of reading one line of a poem to the next with no pause, a run-on line.
24. Epic-An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero.
25. Epilogue-A short poem or speech spoken directly to the audience following the conclusion of a play, or in a novel the epilogue is a short explanation at the end of the book which indicates what happens after the plot ends.
26. Epiphany-Sudden enlightenment or realization, a profound new outlook or understanding about the world usually attained while doing everyday mundane activities.
27. Epistolary-Used to describe a novel that tells its story through letters written from one character to another.
28. Euphemism-The act of substituting a harsh, blunt, or offensive comment for a more politically accepted or positive one. (short=vertically challenged)
29. Euphony-A succession of words which are pleasing to the ear. These words may be alliterative, utilize consonance, or assonance and are often used in poetry but also seen in prose.

30. Expansion-Adds an unstressed syllable and a contraction or elision removes an unstressed syllable in order to maintain the rhythmic meter of a line. This practice explains some words frequently used in poetry such as th’ in place of the, o’er in place of over, and ‘tis or ‘twas in place of it is or it was.
31. Fable-A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
32. Feminine ending-Term that refers to an unstressed extra syllable at the end of a line of iambic pentameter.
33. Figurative language-Speech or writing that departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect or meaning. Speech or writing employing figures of speech.
34. Flashback- When a character remembers a past event that is relevant to the current action of the story
35. Flat character-A literary character whose personality can be defined by one or two traits and does not change over the course of the story. Flat characters are usually minor or insignificant characters.
36. Foil-A character that by contrast underscores or enhances the distinctive characteristics of another.
37. Folklore-The traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people, transmitted orally.
38. Foot: The metrical length of a line is determined by the number of feet it contains. Monometer: One foot

Dimeter: Two feet Trimeter: Three feet Tetrameter: Four feet Pentameter: Five feet Hexameter: Six feet Heptameter: Seven feet

The most common feet have two to three syllables, with one stressed.

39. Iamb-An iambic foot has two syllables. The first is unstressed and the second is stressed. The iambic foot is most common in English poetry.
40. Trochee-A trochaic foot has two syllables. The first is stressed and the second is unstressed.
41. Dactyl-A dactylic foot has three syllables beginning with a stressed syllable; the other two unstressed.
42. Anapest-An anapestic foot has three syllables. The first two are unstressed with the third stressed.
43. Foreshadowing- Clues in the text about incidents that will occur later in the plot, foreshadowing creates anticipation in the novel.
44. Free verse-Type of verse that contains a variety of line lengths, is unrhymed, and lacks traditional meter.
45. Genre-A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content.
46. Gothic novel-A genre of fiction characterized by mystery and supernatural horror, often set in a dark castle or other medieval setting.
47. Heroine-A woman noted for courage and daring action or the female protagonist.
48. Hubris- Used in Greek tragedies, refers to excessive pride that usually leads to a hero’s downfall.
49. Hyperbole-A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or comic/dramatic effect.
50. Illocution-Language that avoids meaning of the words. When we speak, sometimes we conceal intentions or side step the true subject of a conversation. Writing illocution expresses two stories, one of which is not apparent to the characters, but is apparent to the reader. For example, if two characters are discussing a storm on the surface it may seem like a simple discussion of the weather, however, the reader should interpret the underlying meaning-that the relationship is in turmoil, chaos, is unpredictable. As demonstrated the story contains an underlying meaning or parallel meanings.
51. Imagery-The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas.
52. In medias res-A story that begins in the middle of things.
53. Inversion-In poetry is an intentional digression from ordinary word order which is used to maintain regular meters. For example, rather than saying “the rain came” a poem may say “came the rain”. Meters can be formed by the insertion or absence of a pause.
54. Irony-When one thing should occur, is apparent, or in logical sequence but the opposite actually occurs. Example: A man in the ocean might say, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”

Dramatic Irony: When the audience or reader knows something characters do not know

Verbal Irony: When one thing is said, but something else, usually the opposite, is meant

Cosmic Irony: When a higher power toys with human expectations

55. Masculine ending-Stressed extra syllable at the end of a line.
56. Memoir-An account of the personal experiences of an author.
57. Meter-The measured arrangement of words in poetry, as by accentual rhythm, syllabic quantity, or the number of syllables in a line.
58. Metaphor-A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison; this comparison does not use like or as.
59. Metonymy-The use of a word or phrase to stand in for something else which it is often associated. ie. Lamb means Jesus
60. Motif-A dominant theme or central idea.
61. Narrator-Someone who tells a story.

First person: The narrator is a character in the story

Third person objective: The narrator does not tell what anyone is thinking; the “fly on a wall”

Third person limited: The narrator is able to tell the thoughts of one character

Third person omniscient: The narrator is able to tell the thoughts of any character

62. Novella-A short novel usually under 100 pages.
63. Neutral language- Language opposite from emotive language as it is literal or even objective in nature.
64. Oblique rhyme-Imperfect rhyme scheme.
65. Ode-A lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure. An ode celebrates something. John Keats is known for writing odes.
66. Onomatopoeia-The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
67. Paradox- Statement which seems to contradict itself. i.e. His old face was youthful when he heard the news.
68. Parody-A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.

i.e. SNL or Weird Al Yankovich.

69. Personification-A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form.
70. Poetic justice-The rewarding of virtue and the punishment of vice in the resolution of a plot. The character, as they say, gets what he/she deserves.
71. Prequel-A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel.
72. Prologue- An introduction or preface, especially a poem recited to introduce a play.
73. Prose-Ordinary speech or writing without metrical structure, written in paragraph form. Novels and short stories are referred to as prose.
74. Protagonist-The main character in a drama or literary work.
75. Pun-Play on words, when two words have multiple meanings and spellings and are used in a humorous manner.
76. Rhyme- the repetition of sounds in words
77. Rhyme scheme-The act of assigning letters in the alphabet to demonstrate the rhyming lines in a poem.
78. Rising action-The events of a dramatic or narrative plot preceding the climax.
79. Rites of passage-An incident which creates tremendous growth signifying a transition from adolescence to adulthood.
80. Round character-A character who is developed over the course of the book, round characters are usually major characters in a novel.
81. Resolution-Solution to the conflict in literature.
82. Satire-A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit; the goal is to change the behavior/issue. Authors known for satires are Jonathan Swift and George Orwell.
83. Simile-A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or

as.