Literature & Composition

About the Authors

Letter to Our Colleagues

Guided Tour of Literature & Composition, Fourth Edition

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Analyzing Short Fiction

Key Concepts

Introduction to Short Fiction

Section 1

Analyzing Literary Element

Edward P. Jones, The First Day

Character

Key Questions: Analyzing Character

Activity: Analyzing Character

Setting

Key Questions: Analyzing Setting

Activity: Analyzing Setting

Plot

Key Questions: Analyzing Plot

Activity: Analyzing Plot

Point of View

First-Person Point of View

Second-Person Point of View

Tommy Orange, from Wandering Stars

Third-Person Point of View

Key Questions: Analyzing Point of View

Perspective

Key Questions: Analyzing Perspective

Activity: Analyzing Literary Elements

Analyzing Literary Techniques

Diction

Key Questions: Analyzing Diction

Syntax

Key Questions: Analyzing Syntax

Imagery 

Key Questions: Analyzing Imagery

Figurative Language

Comparisons: Similes and Metaphors

Personification

Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God

Key Questions: Analyzing Figurative Language

Tone and Mood

Key Questions: Analyzing Tone and Mood

Activity: Analyzing Literary Techniques

Putting It All Together: Making a Defensible Claim about a Passage of Fiction

Breaking Down the Prompt

Developing a Claim

Gathering Evidence

Drafting a Paragraph

Culminating Activity: Interpreting Short Fiction: Defending a Claim with Evidence

Section 2

From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

Preparing to Write about Short Fiction

Breaking Down the Prompt

Guiding Your First Reading

Key Questions: Guiding Your First Reading

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl

Annotating Short Fiction for Close Analysis

Activity: Annotating Short Fiction for Close Analysis

Moving from Annotation to Analysis

Activity: Moving from Annotation to Analysis

Developing a Thesis Statement

Activity: Developing a Thesis Statement

Supporting Your Thesis

Writing Topic Sentences 

Activity: Writing Topic Sentences

Gathering Evidence

Activity: Gathering Evidence

Developing a Line of Reasoning through Commentary

Activity: Developing a Line of Reasoning Through Commentary

Documenting Sources

Introducing Your Essay

Activity: Introducing Your Essay

Concluding Your Essay

Activity: Concluding Your Essay

Revising Your Essay

Activity: Revising Your Essay

Analyzing a Sample AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision

Culminating Activity: Crafting an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

Section 3

Adding Depth to an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

Considering Alternative Interpretations

Exploring Multiple Perspectives

Challenging Your Initial Position

Revising Your Thesis to Add Alternative Interpretations

Refining Analysis of Style

Reviewing Literary Elements and Techniques

Revising Your Thesis to Add Literary Elements and Techniques

Incorporating Broader Context

Cultural Setting

Writer’s Environment

Humanity

Revising Your Thesis to Add Broader Context

Putting It All Together: Deepening Your AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

Culminating Activity: Deepening an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

Chapter 2 Analyzing Poetry

Key Concepts

Introduction to Poetry

Section 1

Step 1: Get Oriented

Seamus Heaney, Digging

Subject

Examine the Title

Read Aloud

Find the Sentences

Paraphrase

Speaker

Emotional Impact

Activity: Getting Oriented

Step 2: Explore Foundational Elements

Diction

Key Questions: Analyzing Diction

Structure

Poetic Syntax

Shifts

Key Questions: Analyzing Structure

Figurative Language

Simile and Metaphor

Personification

Allusion

Symbol

Key Questions: Analyzing Figurative Language

Imagery

Key Questions: Analyzing Imagery

Tone and Mood

Key Questions: Analyzing Tone and Mood

Activity: Exploring Foundational Elements

Step 3: Refine Your Interpretation

William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

Form

Meter

Key Questions: Analyzing Form

Sound

Rhyme

Key Questions: Analyzing Sound

Contrasts

Juxtapositions, Antithesis, and Paradox

Irony

Key Questions: Analyzing Contrasts

Activity: Refining Your Interpretation

Putting It All Together: Making a Defensible Claim about Poetry

Breaking Down the Prompt

Developing a Claim

Gathering Evidence

Drafting a Paragraph

Culminating Activity: Interpreting Poetry: Defending a Claim with Evidence

Section 2

From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay

Preparing to Write about Poetry

Breaking Down the Prompt

Guiding Your First Reading

Key Questions: Guiding Your First Reading

Maxine Kumin, Woodchucks

Annotating Poetry for Close Analysis

Activity: Annotating Poetry for Close Analysis

Moving from Annotation to Analysis

Activity: Moving from Annotation to Analysis

Developing a Thesis Statement

Activity: Developing a Thesis Statement

Supporting Your Thesis

Writing Topic Sentences 

Activity: Writing Topic Sentences

Gathering Evidence

Activity: Gathering Evidence

Developing a Line of Reasoning through Commentary

Activity: Developing a Line of Reasoning through Commentary

Documenting Sources

Introducing Your Essay

Activity: Introducing Your Essay

Concluding Your Essay

Activity: Concluding Your Essay

Revising Your Essay

Activity: Revising Your Essay

Analyzing a Sample AP® Poetry Analysis Essay

Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision

Culminating Activity: Crafting an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay

Section 3

Adding Depth to an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay

Considering Alternative Interpretations

Reconsidering the Speaker’s Perspective

Challenging Your Initial Position

Revising Your Thesis to Add Alternative Interpretations

Refining Analysis of Style

Reviewing Literary Elements and Techniques

Revising Your Thesis to Add Literary Elements and Techniques

Incorporating Broader Context

Writer’s Environment

Humanity

Revising Your Thesis to Add Broader Context

Putting It All Together: Deepening Your AP® Poetry Analysis Essay

Culminating Activity: Deepening an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay

Chapter 3 Analyzing Longer Fiction and Drama

Key Concepts

Introduction to Longer Fiction and Drama

Section 1

Susan Glaspell, Trifles

Plot in Longer Fiction and Drama

Significant Events

Conflict

Resolution

Key Questions: Analyzing Plot in Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Analyzing Plot in Longer Fiction and Drama

Character in Longer Fiction and Drama

Character Types

Contrasting Characters

Complexities of Character

Character Arcs

Key Questions: Analyzing Character in Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Analyzing Character in Longer Fiction and Drama

Narration in Longer Fiction and Drama

Point of View and Perspective

Tone and Mood

Complexities of Narration

Unreliable Narrators

Stream of Consciousness

Key Questions: Analyzing Narration in Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Analyzing Narration in Longer Fiction and Drama

Setting in Longer Fiction and Drama

Key Questions: Analyzing Setting in Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Analyzing Setting in Longer Fiction and Drama

Symbol in Longer Fiction and Drama

Allegory and Archetype

Key Questions: Analyzing Symbol in Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Analyzing Symbol in Longer Fiction and Drama

Theme in Longer Fiction and Drama

Key Questions: Analyzing Theme in Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Analyzing Theme in Longer Fiction and Drama

Collecting Interpretations about Longer Fiction and Drama

Activity: Collecting Interpretations about Longer Fiction and Drama

Putting It All Together: Making a Defensible Claim about Longer Fiction or Drama

Breaking Down the Prompt

Developing a Claim

Gathering Evidence

Drafting a Paragraph

Culminating Activity: Interpreting Longer Fiction and Drama: Defending a Claim with Evidence

Section 2

From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Literary Argument Essay

Preparing to Write a Literary Argument

Breaking Down the Prompt

Reviewing for Literary Argument

Developing a Thesis Statement

Activity: Developing a Thesis Statement

Supporting Your Thesis

Writing Topic Sentences 

Activity: Writing Topic Sentences

Gathering Evidence

Activity: Gathering Evidence

Developing a Line of Reasoning through Commentary

Activity: Developing a Line of Reasoning through Commentary

Introducing Your Essay

Activity: Introducing Your Essay

Concluding Your Essay

Activity: Concluding Your Essay

Revising Your Essay

Activity: Revising Your Essay

Analyzing a Sample AP® Literary Argument Essay

Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision

Culminating Activity: Crafting an AP® Literary Argument Essay

Section 3

Adding Depth to an AP® Literary Argument Essay

Considering Alternative Interpretations

Exploring Inconvenient Evidence

Challenging Your Initial Position

Revising Your Thesis to Add Alternative Interpretations

Incorporating Broader Context

Cultural Setting

Writer’s Environment

Humanity

Revising Your Thesis to Add Broader Context

Putting It All Together: Deepening Your Literary Argument Essay

Culminating Activity: Deepening an AP® Literary Argument Essay

Chapter 4 Departures and Arrivals

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day (short fiction)

Classic Text: Eudora Welty, A Worn Path (short fiction)

A Broader Context: “A Worn Path” and the Power of the Literary Journey

1. Joseph Campbell, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces (nonfiction)

2. Original Super Mario Bros. game cartridge (photograph)

3. Carrie Law Morgan Figgs, We are Marching (poetry)

4. Eudora Welty, Is Phoenix Jackson’s Grandson Really Dead? (nonfiction)

Short Fiction

Ralph Ellison, Boy on a Train

Helena María Viramontes, The Moths

Miranda July, Roy Spivey

Emma Binder, Roy

Poetry

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

TALKBACK: Amorak Huey, We Were All Odysseus in Those Days

Edgar Lee Masters, George Gray

Linda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving Home

Rita Dove, Exit

Ellen Bass, Gate C22000

John Lee Clark, On My Return from a Business Trip

Jason Koo, I’ll Follow You

Jericho Brown, Crossing

Elizabeth Acevedo, My mother is the first one in her family to leave the Dominican Republic for the United States

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Naguib Mahfouz, from Half a Day

Eudora Welty, from A Worn Path

Suggestions for Writing: Departures and Arrivals

Chapter 5 Home and Family

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Richard Blanco, Mother Country (poetry)

Classic Text: Langston Hughes, Mother to Son (poetry)

A Broader Context: “Mother to Son” and the Harlem Renaissance

1. Alain Locke, from The New Negro (nonfiction)

2. Countee Cullen, Heritage (poetry)

3. Zora Neale Hurston, Spunk (short fiction)

4. Jacob Lawrence, From every southern town migrants left by the hundreds to travel north(Migration Series #3) (painting)

Short Fiction

Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing

Susan Choi, Flashlight

Poetry

Ben Jonson, On My First Son

Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz

TALKBACK: Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays

Mary Oliver, The Black Walnut Tree

Sharon Olds, High School Senior

Li-Young Lee, The Hammock

Victoria Redel, Bedecked

Mohja Kahf, My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears

Adrienne Su, Peaches

Monica de la Torre, Equivalents

Maggie Smith, Good Bones

Ada Limón, The Raincoat

Louise Glück, Second Wind

CooXooEii Black, On Mindfulness

Clint Smith, In the Grocery Store You Are Wrapped Tightly onto My Chest

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Richard Blanco, Mother Country

Langston Hughes, Mother to Son

Suggestions for Writing: Home and Family

Chapter 6 Tradition and Progress

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: August Wilson, Fences (drama)

Classic Text: Kate Chopin, The Awakening (novel)

A Broader Context: The Awakening and Nineteenth-Century Marriage

1. Elizabeth Gilmer, from Dorothy Dix Talks (nonfiction)

2. Kate Chopin, Madame Célestin’s Divorce (short fiction)

3. George Meredith, Modern Love: I (poetry)

4. Knut Ekwall, The Proposal (painting)

Short Fiction

Edith Wharton, Roman Fever

Alice Walker, Everyday Use

Poetry

William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us

TALKBACK: Denise Lajimodiere, Tawkwaymenahnah

Christina Rossetti, No, Thank You, John

William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

Yehuda Amichai, The Eve of Rosh Hashanah

Franny Choi, Gentrifier

Angela C. Trudell Vasquez, In the Discount Lot

Jared Harél, Numbers

Frank X Walker, Canning Memories

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

August Wilson, from Fences

Kate Chopin, from The Awakening

Suggestions for Writing: Tradition and Progress

Chapter 7 Self and Society

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (short fiction)

Classic Text: James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues (short fiction)

A Broader Context: “Sonny’s Blues” and the Influence of Jazz

1. Gerald Early, from Jazz and the African American Literary Tradition (nonfiction)

2. Robert O’Meally, from Seeing Jazz (nonfiction)

3. Stuart Davis, Swing Landscape (painting)

4. Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool (poetry)

Short Fiction

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums

Doris Lessing, Through the Tunnel

Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Apollo

Poetry

John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent

TALKBACK: Emma Lazarus, City Visions I

Mahmoud Darwish, Identity Card

Ai, The Man with the Saxophone

Natalie Diaz, The Facts of Art

Aracelis Girmay, You Are Who I Love

José Olivarez, (citizen) (illegal)

Dorothy Chan, So Chinese Girl

Tommye Blount, The Pedestrian

José Angel Araguz, Every S in This Poem Is Telling on Me

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Jhumpa Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies

James Baldwin, from Sonny’s Blues

Suggestions for Writing: Self and Society

Chapter 8 Love and Relationships

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box (poetry)

Classic Text: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Love is not all (poetry)

A Broader Context: “Love is not all” and How the Sonnet Still Sings

1. Edward Hirsch, My Own Acquaintance (nonfiction)

2. William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room (poetry)

3. Marilyn Nelson, How I Discovered Poetry (poetry)

4. Oliver de la Paz, Diaspora Sonnet 40 (poetry)

Short Fiction

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily

Lauren Groff, Mother of Men

Poetry

Sappho, The Anactoria Poem

John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

TALKBACK: Adrienne Rich, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty

John Keats, Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art

Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights — Wild Nights!

Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa

Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Jimmy Santiago Baca, I love the wind . . .

Philip Levine, What Work Is

Eavan Boland, Pomegranate

Chen Chen, I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party

Amy Alvarez, How to Date a White Boy

Julian Talamantez Brolaski, What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends

Ethelbert Miller, Crossing the Line

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Love is not all

Suggestions for Writing: Love and Relationships

Chapter 9 Conformity and Rebellion

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Nella Larsen, Passing (novel)

Classic Text: William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (drama)

A Broader Context: Hamlet and the Evolution of Character

1. Marjorie Garber, from Hamlet: The Matter of Character (nonfiction)

2. William Hazlitt, from Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (nonfiction)

3. C. S. Lewis, from Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem? (nonfiction)

4. Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy of Fortinbras (poetry)

Short Fiction

Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Lesley Nneka Arimah, Light

Poetry

Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense —

TALKBACK: W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen

Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

Carol Ann Duffy, Penelope

Diana García, On the First Day She Made Birds

Lorna Goodison, Reporting Back to Queen Isabella

Kaveh Akbar, Ultrasound

Rachel McKibbens, Remember the Boys

Ruth Awad, Reasons to Live

Kristiana Rae Colón, a remix for remembrance

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Nella Larsen, fromPassing

William Shakespeare, from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Suggestions for Writing: Conformity and Rebellion

Chapter 10 War and Remembrance

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Jamil Jan Kochai, Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (short fiction)

Classic Text: Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (short fiction)

A Broader Context: “The Things They Carried” and Voices of the Vietnam Conflict

1. Viet Thanh Nguyen, from On True War Stories (nonfiction)

2. Quan Barry, Napalm (poetry)

3. Paul Tran, East Mountain View (poetry)

4. Ann Le, Between Home and Here(Woman Soldier 1) (collage)

Short Fiction

Leo Tolstoy, After the Dance

Bharati Mukherjee, The Management of Grief

Scholastique Mukasonga, Grief

Beth Bachmann, The Boy at War and Home

Poetry

Sara Teasdale, There Will Come Soft Rains

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est

Pablo Neruda, I Explain a Few Things

Czesław Miłosz, Dedication

TALKBACK: Matthew Olzmann, Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz

Henry Reed, Naming of Parts

Claribel Alegría, Not Yet

Laura Da’, Passive Voice

Dujie Tahat, Veterans Day Assembly

Gbenga Adesina, Citizen

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Jamil Jan Kochai, fromPlaying Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Tim O’Brien, from The Things They Carried

Suggestions for Writing: War and Remembrance

Chapter 11 Art and the Artist

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Ada Limón, The End of Poetry (poetry)

Classic Text: Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack (poetry)

A Broader Context: “The Steeple-Jack” and the Modernist Vision

1. T. S. Eliot, from Tradition and the Individual Talent (nonfiction)

2. Amy Lowell, A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M. and The Emperor’s Garden (poetry)

3. Fernand Léger, La Ville (“The City”) (painting)

4. Virginia Woolf, from Mrs. Dalloway (fiction)

Short Fiction

Willa Cather, A Wagner Matinee

Weike Wang, A Children’s Story

Poetry

Alexander Pope, Sound and Sense

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Musical Instrument

TALKBACK: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hymn of Pan

Claude McKay, Poetry

Richard Wilbur, The Writer

Naomi Shihab Nye, Valentine for Ernest Mann

Billy Collins, The Blues

Ocean Vuong, Essay on Craft

Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water

Denice Frohman, Lady Jordan

Danielle DeTiberus, The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly

TALKBACK: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes and Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes

Caridad Moro-Gronlier, I Did Not Take My Camera to Paris

Amit Majmudar, Critical Theory

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Ada Limón, The End of Poetry

Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack

Suggestions for Writing: Art and the Artist

Chapter 12 Creation and Transformation

Chapter Introduction

Central Text: Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice (drama)

Classic Text: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (novel)

A Broader Context: Frankenstein and the Ethics of Creation

1. Jon Turney, from Frankenstein’s Footsteps (nonfiction)

2. Brian Aldiss, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (fiction)

3. Kelly McKinney, Thoughts on Frankenstein, AI and the Perils of Our Unfinished Creation (nonfiction)

4. David Sipress, What to Expect When You’re Expecting (cartoon)

Short Fiction

Rosario Ferré, The Youngest Doll

Rivka Galchen, Unreasonable

Poetry

William Cullen Bryant, Mutation

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall

May Swenson, The Centaur

Howard Nemerov, Figures of Thought

Jesús Papolito Meléndez, EcologicHumanitarianIsm

TALKBACK: Mary TallMountain, Poem 167: The Last Wolf

Lucille Clifton, The earth is a living thing

Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

Arthur Sze, Downwind

Camille Dungy, Sanctuary

AP® Multiple-Choice Practice

Sarah Ruhl, from Eurydice

Mary Shelley, from Frankenstein

Suggestions for Writing: Creation and Transformation

AP® English Literature Practice Exam

Glossary / Glosario

MLA Guidelines for a List of Works Cited

Text Credits

Index