AP English Literature Winter Break Assignments

The AP English Literature Break Assignments include a mixture of learning new material and reviewing previously learned skills to revise writing for clarity; strength of thesis; understanding of a single theme statement in the thesis; and then adding textual support and your analysis to produce an essay of 1500 words.

  1.    Complete the AP English Literature Practice Exam—all questions. Be sure to meaningfully annotate each passage or poem of the exam.

2   2. Watch the following videos on Universal Theme: 

What Makes A TED Talk Great?: What Makes A TED Talk Great? Universal Theme

Topic Versus Theme: Topic versus Theme by Dana Morgan

The Only Way You Will Ever Need To Teach Theme: The Only Way You Need to Teach Theme

Finding Theme with Practice Exercises Finding Theme (With Practice Exercises) by Joanne Katona

Please take notes on each video—they may be compiled together on one or two pages if needed.

3   3. Read the Essay: Revise for Evidence—all sections. It was distributed before the last day of the semester.

   4.   Use the information/feedback written on your essay, and through direct instruction based on Thesis Statements (and what you learned from the Videos) to revise you’re The Fall of Rome Essay. It may be typed or handwritten. It must have a new thesis that builds off of your first one. It needs to include textual support—specific quotes or passages and your analysis of them in your essay. I will not accept an essay of less than four handwritten pages (2 front/back pages) or 4 typed pages, simply because all you had so much to say!!! You just needed to slow down and logically introduce characters, and prove the claims or statements that you made and state a universal truth (theme/lesson) that you learned as it relates to power.

5 NOTE: If you did not receive your essay, I have begun scanning them and emailing them to students. You should all have your essay—with the exception of one student who accidentally? Took his home, by December 31^st.