Book Reviews

• Their Eyes Were Watching God (1, 2)

• 1984 (1, 2)

• The Things They Carried (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Four Great Plays by Ibsen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

• Madame Bovary (1, 2)

• The Awakening (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Ethan Frome (1, 2)

General Online Resources...in REVERSE Chronological Order

• AP Test Taking Tips and Information

  • Summary of some of the works below.

  • AP Credit Policy for US Universities - Check here to see what AP score your universities require for giving credit.

  • How to Prepare for AP English Examinations - from AP Central

  • Test Taking Tips from another AP Class

  • Another Page of Literary Terms

  • Literary Resources on the Net

  • AP Testing Reminders

  • Study Habits & Test Anxiety: University of Buffalo Counseling Center

  • This is how we ALL hope the AP test really looks like... - Check it out!!!

  • The best place for both of us to go is AP Central, the main site for the AP exams published by ETS (the Educational Testing Service).  I use it A LOT; why shouldn't you?  Here you can find resources, old tests and much more to get you started.  You will have to register to get the most out of the site, however, but there are no strings attached.

• J. Prufrock Resources and Interpretations

• Robert Frost's Poems and Here

• Ernest Hemingway

  • Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, IL

  • Timeless Hemingway

  • The Hemingway Resource Center, v2.0

  • Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center

  • Hemingway Society

  • INTERVIEW: At Lunch with Ernest Hemingway (The Atlantic)

  • Tracking Hemingway: Atlantic articles from 1939 to 1983 -- by Edmund Wilson, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, and others (The Atlantic)

  • The Sun Also Rises ~ Questions and Answers at LostGeneration.com

  • Essay Topics and Critical Commentary

  • Hemingway Lecture and Notes

• Shakespeare

  • MIT Shakespeare Homepage
    The Complete Works from the Tech. The works are laid out nicely in table format with a conveniently linked search engine.

  • Folger Shakespeare Library

  • Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre

  • The best, freely available Shakespeare criticism on the Internet may be found at the journal Early Modern Literary Studies (EMLS).

  • Life and Times of William Shakespeare

  • The Canon. A chronological listing of the poems and plays. This is an area that will be developing to include materials on dating the works

  • Introductory Lecture on Shakespeare's Hamlet
    VERY Interesting!

  • SparkNotes for Hamlet

  • Shakespeare on the Internet

• William Faulkner On The Web

• The Academy Of American Poets - Home

• Emily Dickinson Poems On-line

• Connecticut Yankee Home Page
  Some interesting information and background about the book

• ClassicNote on Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
  As much as I hate it, there's some good information here...

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: A Guide - Site may be down...
  Very good site - check criticisms and reviews...

• John Barth Information - And here

• A Review of the Anthology, Lost in the Funhouse, from where we get our story...

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• General Resources

  • Online Symbolism Dictionary

  • Literary Resources On The Net

  • A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices

  • Dictionary of Symbolism

  • Glossary Of Poetic Terms

  • Colegio Bolivar Style Book

• Biblical and Mythological Allusions

  • Crosswalk.com - Great Bible Site

  • Bullfinch Mythology

  • A History of the Trojan War

  • A General Guide to Greek Mythology

• Reading Resources

  • Outstanding Books for the College Bound Student - Annotated from American Library Association
    Links for each of the major genres are at the bottom of the page

  • The Top 100 Novels with Reviews

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Class Handouts...in REVERSE Chronological Order

For copies of last year's handouts, click here...

*Much of the following is thanks to my anonymous friends at the AP Listserv.  I should have been better in documenting my sources.

Summer Work and Reading for 2003-2004 AP Class (Word Format or HTML Format)

1. The Sun Also Rises Paideia Seminar

2. The Sun Also Rises Common Critical Commentaries
   Group Assigned Critical Commentaries (Adobe PDF Format)

   • Melancholy Modernism: Gender and the Politics of Mourning in The Sun also Rises.

   • Echoes of Closeted Desire(S): The Narrator and Character Voices of Jake Barnes

   • 'In New York it'd mean I was a... ': Masculinity anxiety and period discourses of sexuality in the sun also rises.

   • Alcoholism in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: A wine and roses perspective on the lost...

   • Sign the wire with love': The morality of surplus in The Sun Also Rises

   • Hemingway's Medievalist Impulse: Its Effect on the Presentation of Women and War in The Sun Also Rises

3. Modernists Biographies 2004

4. Cummings Background and Group Work

5. Cummings Art

6. Various Biographies Frost, Pound, cummings, Williams

7. Eliot Background and Style

8. Annotations for The Love Song of J

9. Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - Criticisms

10. Ecclesiastes

11. A Clean Well-Lighted Place - Hemingway

12. The Sun Also Rises Background

13. Summary of Some Main Points from Sartre's Existentialism and Human Emotions - The entire lecture is here.

14. The Modern Period in American Literature

15. Literary Analysis - The Novel from Balla

16. Literary Research Paper Structure

17. Literary Research Paper Schedule

18. Is Ophelia Pregnant?

19. Hamlet Film Montage

20. AP English Lists of Common Errors

21. Aristotle and the Tragic Hero

22. Aristotle on Tragedy

23. Tragedy and the Common Man - Arthur Miller

24. Annotation Handout - How to mark your book

25. Grammar and Punctuation Exercise

26. Grammar and Punctuation Exercise Answers

27. Everything You Always Wanted To Know about Grammar

28. William Shakespeare and Hamlet

29. Basic Ideas in Hamlet (PDF)

30. As I Lay Dying Paideia Seminar

31. Faulkner's Maps of Yoknapatawpha County

32. As I Lay Dying Small Group Work

33. Beloved Information and Discussion Questions

34. Introduction to Toni Morrison

35. Beloved Criticism 1

36. Beloved Criticism 2

37. Beloved Criticism 3

38. The Cat In The Hat Analysis

39. The Complete Text of The Scarlet Letter

40. Letter: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"

41. Christmas Poetry

42. Transcendentalism Handout and Background

43. As I Lay Dying Background Information and Thinking Questions

44. Scarlet Letter Paideia Seminar Handout and Criticisms

45. Peer Review Form

46. Emily Dickinson Biography

47. Emily Dickinson's Letters - Chapter One of Open Me Carefully

48. Dickinson Work

49. College Essay Topics

50. The Romantic Period Lesson Plans

51. The Romantic Period - History and Class Outline

52. Critical Approaches to Literature

53. The Scarlet Letter Essay & Background Information on Hawthorne and the Novel

54. Connecticut Yankee Paideia Seminar

55. The Age of Sensibility

56. Comments on An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

57. The Augustan Age - Lesson Plans and Background

58. Johnson, Marlowe and Raleigh Biographies

59. Shakespearean and Elizabethan Lesson Plan

60. Characteristics of Elizabethan Literature

61. Mark Twain Biography

62. Lost in the Funhouse Paideia Seminar

63. General Class Information

    • Course Syllabus

    • AP Reading List

    • Group Evaluation Information and Rubrics

    • Lesson Plans Form

    • Personal Superlatives for College Essays

    • Graduate Qualities, TLP's and CES

    • AP Generic Rubric

    • Open Response Essay Question Topics from 1970 to 2001

64. Helpful Resources for Analysis and Writing

    • Mnemonic Reminders

    • Literary Terms and Types

    • AP Essays Do's and Dont's

    • Avoiding Plot Summary in a Literature Essay

    • Tone Words

    • Literary Terms

    • Description and Example of the Cornell Method of Note-Taking

    • How to Write an Essay

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Past AP Exams

Please see Mr. Rompf OR access past AP Literature or AP Comp at www.apcentral.collegboard.com.