12th
Grade Advanced Placement Literature and Composition
Brentwood High School
L. Huddleston
Dear Advanced Placement
Seniors:
I hope you have a productive, but restful summer and
that you will come back to BHS refreshed and ready for an in depth study of
literature from around the world. Also, I hope that you consider yourself
a lifelong learner and that learning becomes “the strongest force you know . .
. . ” Rick Bass Winter
Please
pick up a copy of
My Name is Asher
Lev by Chaim Potok
and a copy of All the Pretty
Horses by Cormac McCarthy
These are very different novels but each has
distinct sense of “place.” One is set in Brooklyn NY and the other in the
American southwest and Mexico.
All the Pretty Horses
All the Pretty Horses has become a
modern-day classic on both the high school and collegiate levels for its
compelling epic narrative and magnificent drama about men and the human heart
in conflict with itself. It has won both the National Book Award
and the National Book Critics Award. This past year Cormac McCarthy also
won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Road and this spring he
received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for lifetime achievement in American
fiction.
From
the novel:
They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased
where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth
which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures
and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but
among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like
thieves newly loosed in that dark electric . . . .
In this novel, one might see a paradox between
the awesome beauty of the land and the harsh reality behind it. From this harsh
reality, John Grady Cole discovers much in this world that leads him to
question his own place in it.
My Name is Asher Lev
This
contemporary novel tells the story of a young Hasidic Jewish boy from Crown
Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y. who has an extraordinary gift for drawing and
painting. To be true to his gift, he must become a risk taker and as in
most societies, risk takers suffer isolation from family, community,
religion. “
From
the novel:
“I drew and shaded and sketched and left blank patches and filled patches, and
at one point I thought I needed something more for a face at a window and I
poured some water into the cup and dipped my forefinger into the water and
rubbed the wet forefinger across the side of the face beneath the curve of the
cheekbone.”
Due to the announcement from Central Office, the
assignments are changed to require only reading, highlighting and annotating.
Assignment for All the Pretty Horses:
Read some background
information on Cormac McCarthy about some of the most interesting aspects of
his life.
1. Highlight short
passages (quotes) from the novel as you read. Select passages
for any reason—beautiful language, developing character, or just for general
questions you may have about something.
2. Annotate the novel,
paying special attention to the settings, the landscape descriptions, and the
growth of John Grady Cole as a character and human being.
Assignment for My Name is Asher Lev
Consider the author’s
treatment of these main ideas:
a)
the role of suffering in human experience;
b) alienation felt by risk-takers in the society,
c) relationships between parent and child
d) role of mentors;
e)
tension between conformity and non-conformity.
Highlight passages as
you read that fall under one or more of these ideas. Annotate the novel as it pertains to setting,
risk-takers, relationships, role of mentors, alienation, and suffering in human
experience.
We
will discuss these novels the first week back in school in August. After our discussions,
you will be expected to write an essay over each novel. If you need to contact me during the
summer email me at the following address:
leeh@wcs.edu I check this email all summer. I look
forward to meeting each of you this August.