AP Literature and Composition

1. AP Literature and Composition December 9, 2008 Ms. Cares

2. Agenda: • Bellringer opening – Hamlet’s mindset upon learning of the murder. • Winter Reading Assignment Novel Choices. • Hamlet Questions – On what do you need clarification? • Small group interpretations.

3. “Bellringer” At the end of Act I, Hamlet suggests that he might have to alter his personality. Examine the bottom of page 1611 and identify what he plans to do. How does this affect our understanding of his mindset?

4. Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood Respected Canadian poet and novelist Atwood presents here a fable of the near future. In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right Schlafly/Falwell-type ideals have been carried to extremes in the monotheocratic government. The resulting society is a feminist's nightmare: women are strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the "morally fit" Wives. The tale is told by Offred (read: "of Fred"), a Handmaid who recalls the past and tells how the chilling society came to be.

5. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule.

6. A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.

7. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

8. The Things They Carried, Tom O’Brien The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves.

9. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

10. Questions that we must address: • At the end of Act I, Hamlet suggests that he might have to alter his personality. Examine the bottom of page 1611 and identify what he plans to do. How does this affect our understanding of his mindset? • How is Polonius characterized? (1603, 1613) • Describe Ophelia’s interaction with Hamlet as recounted to Polonius (1614-1615) • Who are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Describe them. • Why is the Queen worried about Hamlet?

11. Questions that we must address: • How is Polonius characterized? He is controlling, long winded, and devious. Being a spy seems to come easily to him. He is also unaware of how he sounds to others. • Describe Ophelia’s interaction with Hamlet. She is concerned because Hamlet seems disheveled and unlike himself. 5. Why is the Queen worried about Hamlet? Because he is much changed from what he used to be.