#aplit20choose

[chrisburke3537]

The book I chose to read is invisible man by Ralph Ellison. At first I was having a hard time finding a book that I wanted to read because I wanted something that was going to offer me something more than just plain old reading and after reading the summary of the book and realizing that this book could often resemble by future journey to college and offer some insight into how to handle different problems in the future. So that was pretty much the thought process I went through when choosing my book.

[dragondav]

All the Light We Cannot See

This is the book I choose to read, which takes place during WW2. When choosing a book, I wasn't sure which one to pick because I had a harder time getting into a book or it wasn't interesting for me. Some other books I looked at were Secret Honor and The Night Watch. Both of these revolved around the same timeframe. All the Light We Cannot See is a great book so far, and the author Anthony Doerr does a great job at immediately captivating the readers attention.

The book smoothly introduces the characters and the position of the war. Marie-Laure who is a blind girl, and Werner Pfennig who is a radio coordinator. The book has detailed aspects and I'm looking forward to reading more.

[micaiaaah]

I chose "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe because I wanted to read another book with an African as the main character. The last book I read with the main character as African was "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. That book was interesting for it's gruesome imagery. It didn't hold back on any details. I was personally mortified from the topics handled in that book and I wish to learn from another's perspective. The main character in the book I chose is Okonkwo, who is a Igbo warrior of Umuofia. Africans and African Americans have very different lifestyles and I'm more curious about what the life is like for a fighter in Africa. I believe that "Things Fall Apart" will give me some great insight on that.

[kellig22]

White is for Witching  Helen Oyeyemi

I picked white is for witching because I wanted a real page turner and something to keep me on the edge of my seat, always wondering “what’s next?!” White is for Witching dose exactly that. The main character develops a very harmful eating disorder called pica, where she CRAVES eating nonnutritional objects such as chalk or plastic. I’m excited to dive more into the book and see what will happen. 

[briacampbell3]

Picking the Work

For my final project the literary work I chose to read was Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Paino Lesson- both plays by August Wilson. My main thought process for choosing these was after reading Fences I wanted something similar that would catch my interest and that I wanted to dig deeper into. Both plays are dramas bringing in many aspects of the African American life in the early 1900’s. Another aspect in choosing these plays was being able to find criticism on the work of August Wilson, since he had done numerous plays throughout his career I figured that it would be a good pick as a way to look at these two plays also.

[clairematthews]

Research Project: Book Selection

When asked to select a book for this research project I had no idea what book I wanted to read. I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time with this book and I also understood that I was going to have to find scholarly criticism about the book. Knowing this, my first thought was that even though I am more attracted to modern writers and stories I would have to look at older books so that I could find literary criticism about them. After doing some research about various books I still didn’t find any that interested me. I looked at lists that had AP level books for high school students to read and found a few that interested me. I looked up each of the books that I was interested in, The Scarlet Letter and Oliver Twist were two of the books that I highly considered reading other than The Age of Innocence. However, when I asked Kreinbring about the first two books he advised that I may not find enough criticism on them which would make the paper harder to write. When I introduced The Age of Innocence to him he said that I would be able to find enough criticism about it but I may find it boring. After this information I furthered my research into this book to see if it was really something that would be worth spending so much time with. After some more review I came to the conclusion that this book was something I would be able to write about. The overall theme of love against the ridged society pulled me in and reading the summary about this book made me want to know what Archer(the main character) was going to do. This book seemed to contain the twists and turns, love, passion, money, romance, and suspense that I love to read about. The only reservation I had about this book was that it is set in the 1870′s which made me hesitate because I don’t feel that I am able to connect with books that are set so long ago. However, I knew that I had to push past that reservation because everything else about the book I seemed to love.

[unlikekrystal]

I. RESEARCH PROJECT—CHOOSING THE BOOK

When deciding which book to read for my final AP Lit project, Kindred by Octavia Butler wasn’t my first choice. In fact, I didn’t even know this book existed until Kreinbring recommended it to me. I was worried that scholarly fiction would be a drag to read, but this book has really piqued my interest.

I’ll admit, when I bought Kindred on Amazon, I was immensely underwhelmed by the cover. With a slight eye-roll, my exact thoughts were, “Wow..Another book about slavery..” Don’t get me wrong, I know my history and it will forever be apart of me, but the way african american slavery is portrayed in current media, I feel as though the topic is fetishized. Not too long ago I watched a show on Netflix where the black female lead witch fell in love with her slave owner despite time-traveling to modern society and experiencing first hand what life would be like without slavery. She wanted to go back to her timeline and be with the very person who considers her to be less than him and be content with her enslaved lifestyle. I was frustrated with the outcome of that show, so when I came across this book my expectations were already worn and burnt out.

HOWEVER—Kindred seems to diverge from that stockholm syndrome trope and focuses more on the ancestral aspects of slavery (hint: kindred). Similar to the netflix show, the main protagonist accidentally time travels to the early 1800s and soon finds out she’s in the same timeline as her ancestors, one of them being a white man, and has to maintain the past events so she can still exist in the future. I can’t say I’m 100% certain this book won’t fall into the same trope or somehow make it worse, but the writing style is interesting enough. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

[preeeeethi]

Final Project Post #1: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

To start my search for a book, I looked through lists of AP Literature books. However, I couldn’t really find anything that both interested me and had enough criticisms on it. Then, Mrs. Cramer recommended some books I could possibly read. One of these was the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The story takes place in Afghanistan and is about a wealthy boy and the relationship he has with the son of his father’s servant. I’ve heard that this book’s story is really touching and sticks with a person after reading it, so I’m interested to see if that is true. I also like that this book is fairly recent and based off of events that happened in the 1970s. I’m excited to read this book and find out more on what it’s about.