C.A.C.W. Levels II-IV /  Summer Work / 2019-2020

 

Readings: 

Inferno: A New Translation, Mary Jo Bang

1 novel of choice

1 poetry collection of choice

1 essay of choice

1 play of choice

1 graphic narrative/long-form comic book of choice

 

Experiences:

1 Reading / Book Talk (either in-person or online)

1 Written & Mailed Letter to Author of Choice

1 Video Tutorial with Carol Edgarian 

 

Writings: 

15 pages of new work 

6 index card bookmarks

 

Summer Reading, Writing, Experiencing - When you return in August, please turn in the following in Google Classroom the first day of class: your summer reading list (with one line annotation); your index card bookmarks; and between 15 - 30 pages of new creative work from the summer (any combination of poems, prose poems, flash fiction, stories, creative nonfiction, comic scripts or playwriting). 

 

For all students, the minimum requirements for your reading list are: Inferno: A New Translation Mary Jo Bang; 1 novel; 1 poetry collection (or the equivalent, as specified below); 1 essay; 1 play; 1 graphic narrative. 

The minimum requirements for literary experience are: attending/viewing one reading or talk, writing one letter to a living author (and mailing it), watching at least one tutorial from Carol Edgarian.

Index card bookmarks: While you are reading whatever you are reading, use a regular-sized index card as a bookmark. As you come across a word you even slightly doubt your understanding of, write down the word. Either look up and write its definition immediately, or continue reading and look up the word when you have finished that session of reading. You should have six index cards filled with words and their definitions.

 

*See reading lists on the following pages. Make sure you choose to read a few living authors at the beginning of summer so you have time to pick one to write to.

 

 

 

**Note for students moving into Level III**

Level III Students: Your required novels for the certificate of artistry written and oral exams are: 

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison 

Bleak House, Charles Dickens 

Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor 

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (we will read this during the fall semester)

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov 

The Trial, Franz Kafka 

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf 

Reading Bleak House over the summer is highly recommended. 

 

Reading list for novels (with short, personal justification):

 

1. The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass (this is not placed arbitrarily, this is a freak'n unbelievably crafted, intelligent and hilarious book, his vocabulary - in translation - is daunting but his wit makes it worth it)

2. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (this book has everything)

3. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I'm not sure more human-like characters have ever been written, before or since)

4. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (I like to laugh) (a lot)

5. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (finally, someone tells the truth about time)

6. Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow (this guy knows how to write an American)

7. Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel (I'm a sucker for magic realism and unrequited love that finally gets requited)

8. Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence (finally someone writes about women wanting more than marriage)

9. The Awakening - Kate Chopin (finally someone writes about women wanting more than marriage)

--- I did that more for effect than actual qualitative commentary on the works

10. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maris Remarque (damn, that sucks you got tricked into that, man)

11. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (thanks for letting me know how little I know about the history and politics of India!)

12. Kindred, Octavia Butler (the best of multiple genres)

13. The Spy Wore Red - Aline Countess Romanones (this is why I don't have tattoos and possibly part of the reason I moved to Mexico)

14. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri 

15. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera (a little preachy, but I liked it)

 

 

Reading list for poetry collections (without short justification):

 

1. Be With, by Forrest Gander.

2. Stags Leap, by Sharon Olds

3. Olio, by Tyehimba Jess

4. Life on Mars, by Tracy K. Smith

5. Best of It New & Selected Poems, by Kay Ryan

6. Failure, by Philip Schultz

7. Blizzard Of One, by Mark Strand

8. Neon Vernacular New & Selected Poems, by Yusef Komunyakaa

9. World Doesn’t End, by Charles Simic

10. Thomas & Beulah, by Rita Dove

11. Dream of the Unified Field Selected Poems…,by Jorie Graham

12. Selected Poems, by Galway Kinnell

13. Collected Poems, by James Wright

14. 77 Dream Songs, by John Berryman

15. At The End Of The Open Road, by Louis Simpson

 

 

Reading list for theatrical plays (without short justification):

 

1. Angels in America by Tony Kushner

2. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

3. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

4. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

5. Machinal by Sophie Treadwell

6. Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov

7. Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein

8. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

9. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

10. Top Girls by Caryl Churchill

11. Fences by August Wilson

12. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

13. Antigone, Sophocles 

14. Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello

15. All My Sons, Arthur Miller

 

 

Reading list for essays (with links for reading online):

 

1. Zadie Smith – Fail Better

2. Philip Larkin – The Pleasure Principle

3. Kurt Vonnegut – Dispatch From A Man Without a Country

4. Mary Ruefle – On Fear

5. Carl Sagan – Does Truth Matter – Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization

6. John Jeremiah Sullivan – Mister Lytle

7. Joan Didion – On Keeping A Notebook

8. Susan Sontag – Notes on Camp

9. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance

10. Margaret Atwood – Attitude

11. The Case for Reparations - Ta-Nehisi Coates

12. “Split at the Root,” Adrienne Rich

13. “The Fourth State of Matter,” Jo Ann Beard

14. No Name Woman – by Maxine Hong Kingston

15. Book War - Wang Ping

 

 

Reading list for graphic narratives (without links for reading online):

​

1. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

2. American Born Chinese, 

3. Blankets, Craig Thompson

4. The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale, Art Spiegelman

5. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller

6. Bone: The One Volume Edition, Jeff Smith

7. A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories, Will Eisner 

8. Ghost World, Daniel Clowes

9. Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel 

10. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

11. Cancer Made me a Shallower Person, Miriam Engelberg 

12. Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures, Yvan Alagbé

13. This One Summer, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

14. The Color Of Earth (Trilogy), Kim Dong Hwa

15. Blame This on the Boogie, Rina Ayuyang