A Message from your Comp Lit Teacher

Hello Comp Lit Students,

During these uncertain times, I know that many of you are feeling anxious over the remainder of your senior year. While I too am in the dark over what may transpire in the coming months, I hope to add clarity as much as I can in regards to the AP Comp Lit course.

First, understand that I do not expect you to work on any class work or assignments for AP Comp Lit during our time away from school. Our school administrators informed the staff that we are actually not allowed to assign work or to require you to complete unfinished assignments.

Thus, I am not expecting you to work on the research papers during this hiatus. IF we do in fact come back on April 13^th, I will greatly modify the assignment (make it 5 pages instead of 10 and eliminate the passage analysis sections) and the due date will be pushed back to May. For this reason, I will not be providing feedback on essays sent to me via email during this time. If you choose to continue to work on your shortened research paper during this time, that is absolutely up to you – but there are no expectations on my part that you need to do so.

If we do come back on April 13^th, we will pick up where we left off with poetry and complete that unit and I will eliminate one of our final two units of the year. As of this morning, College Board (the people in charge of the AP exams) has not stated if they will cancel or push back the dates of the exam. Once College Board does decide, I will be able to better plan the final weeks of the year for the course.

All of this is contingent on the fact that we will indeed return to school before June – and that is certainly not a guarantee. Obviously, if this hiatus is extended, more information will come from the district (or state) and we can cross that bridge if it gets here.

If some of you are saddened by the lack of English literature in your lives, fear not! I have put together a list of fantastic works that you can use as entertainment and intellectual stimulation if you need to spice up your lives during your time at home. Again, reading from the list is neither expected nor required of you, but remember that reading good literature certainly beats any forehead snapchats or lame iPhone games you might be getting bored with.

The Classics:

Dante’s Inferno: It may seem like a rather dire choice, but if you want to read a classic that is often alluded to in books, films, and music, look no further than this medieval Italian epic poem that takes you through the nine circles of hell. Unfortunately, as genius of a poet that Dante was, he was unable to foresee the tenth circle of hell reserved for those who take their phones out in class.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: I have a soft spot for medieval literature, and if we had an extra few weeks added to a normal school year, I’d probably want to teach this classic Arthurian tale. Most of the romantic Arthurian tales were actually written in French, but this one was written in Middle English making it one of the few pieces of English literature we have from that era. It’s funky, fun, and short, plus, they’re turning it into a movie later this year (the trailer makes it look a bit more gothic than I remember it).

Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Somewhat relevant to your current situation in a way. The young prince Hamlet wants to go back to school in Germany, but due to a family tragedy, he is stuck back in his home castle in Denmark. Ghosts, murder, conspiracy, betrayal all come out of the darkest corners of both the castle and of Hamlet’s mind as he suffers through existential angst long before he would have Sartre and Kierkegaard to comfort him.

Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Hell, I haven’t read it, but maybe we all need to give that third Bronte sister a chance. If you did Jane Eyre as your winter-break read, then you have the opportunity to do the Bronte sister gauntlet in one year!

Camus’s The Plague: Most read Camus’s The Stranger, which I personally think is overrated. Instead, read the Plague… unless you want to lower your anxiety about the worst-case scenario of a health pandemic. Actually, on second thought, maybe don’t read The Plague after all – my bad.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: If you want to read one of the classic dystopian novels, choose this one over 1984; it’s far superior in my opinion. Somewhat of a dark comedy of what the world would look like if the human race simply wasn’t interested in all that much anymore. Parallels abound with our current society as Huxley puts a warped mirror up to our faces, warning us of what we certainly want to resist becoming. Also, when I have taught it in past years, students often tell me it’s their favorite book they read in high school.

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: Due to our break from school, this novel sadly may not be possible to fit in to the curriculum when we return. I always love doing this unit right before the AP exam since it works well for just about any open-ended prompt. But I also think it’s one of the best novels ever written. It’s hard to state just how much of a talented writer Ellison is – but this novel has it all. What makes this novel so profound is that it’s still highly relevant in terms of its portrayal of the black experience in America. It’s a hard novel to simply read on its own since Ellison is incorporating a lot of allusions and historical references (hence why my PowerPoint slides on the novel are so coveted by competing districts), but John Green’s CrashCourse does have a pretty good video analyzing the work.

Lighter Page Turners:

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: I heard the movie version was pretty bad, but the book definitely sucked me in and I couldn’t put it down. A murder mystery/thriller, but the protagonist is a young alcoholic woman who does some fascinating people watching on a train – it makes for a great beach read (or just a read in the living room with Netflix set to the beach channel).

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: A more sophisticated (and better-written) page-turner that again works well for our current times. A virus has spread over the world wiping out most of civilization leaving people living in groups attempting to survive and keep humanity’s spark going. What’s the best way to do that? Start a traveling Shakespeare troupe in post-apocalyptic Canada of course!

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: A devastating novel that offers small glimmers of hope about the turmoil of 1980s and 90s Afghanistan. Told from the perspective of two Afghan women living through war, regime change, and constant fear, it’s one of the best page-turner books I have ever read, and given our country’s history with Afghanistan over the last 40 years, I think it should be required reading for all American citizens.

Moonraker by Ian Fleming: As a James Bond fan, I feel as though I need to put at least one Bond book on this list. Yet, as an English teacher, I do have to inform you that none of the 007 novels are actually good, per se, but if you want to read the best of them, choose this one (don’t worry, it’s nothing like the movie).

I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez: This popular novel came out in 2017 and Sanchez’s willingness to tackle some rather mature subject matters in the young-adult genre really impressed me. The novel sort of alludes to the plot of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (the protagonist even reads the novel at one point), but instead of following a rich white, isolated boy mope around NYC while dealing with teenage angst, it follows a lower-class, Mexican-American girl dealing with teenage angst and depression in Chicago. Oh, and her favorite class in high school is English so the book is perfect in my opinion.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: Not a novel, and not a book for those under 18, but one of my favorite books. I’m a big Anthony Bourdain fan and was devastated after he died in 2018. This book put him on the map as he shares his stories behind the scenes as a chef in New York City’s restaurant culture. Just remember that if you read it, don’t do drugs…or say the F word this much.

Some of my Favorites:

A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov: One of the rare examples of shorter Russian fiction, this collection of stories all revolve around the adventures of the anti-hero Pechorin who is certainly not admirable, but somehow remains endearing for the reader. If you like Wolverine, Harley Quinn, or Deadpool, but feel the itch for some sophisticated 19^th century Russian literature, this one is for you.

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky: Yes, I’ve already spoken at length about why I love this novel. If you enjoyed Crime and Punishment, but wished it was longer and more epic, then read this beast of a book. Even if you dislike it, you can live the rest of your life telling people that you finished it – which is a great way to make friends in your adulthood.

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder: a strange novel that is partly a story about a curious Norwegian teenager named Sophie but also partly Gaarder’s attempt to teach his readers about the history of philosophy. If you didn’t get enough philosophy during our Existentialism unit, give this one a try.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: A WWII novel that bounces back and forth between a blind girl living in France and an orphan German boy who is forced to join the Nazis. Sure enough, their paths collide as they try to survive the trials of war. Oh, and there is a mythical diamond added to the mix to get the plot rolling. Doerr write with lyrical prose that I find beautiful, and you never stop rooting for his protagonists which makes the novel that much more of an emotional read. Although I never cry, I thought about it at the end of the novel.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon by Anthony Marra: Do yourself a favor and read this novel at some point in your life – trust me. You can thank me later.