AP LANGAUGE SUMMER ASSIGNMENT 2015
Each student
will be required to read TWO of the
following titles:
American Childhood by Annie Dillard
American Childhood by Annie Dillard
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness
at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson
by Erik Larson
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Consider the Lobster and other essays by David Foster
Wallace
Flag of our Fathers by James Bradley
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
A long way gone : memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah.
Midnight in the garden of good and evil : a Savannah
story
by James Berendt
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
1776 by David McCullough
Nickled and Dimed in America by Barbara
Ehrenreich
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the
Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall
by Christopher McDougall
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed
America Forever
by Bill O’Reilly
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex
Haley
Outcasts United: an American town, a refugee team, and
one woman's quest to make a difference by Warren
St. John
The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
Funny in Farsi : a memoir of growing up Iranian in
America
by Firoozeh Dumas.
Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl
Basketball Junkie: A
Memoir by Chris Herren and Bill Reynolds
Fall River Dreams by Bill Reynolds
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover
The Routes of Man: Travels in the Paved World by Ted Conover
B. Double Entry Journals
In preparation
for the AP Test, we will be reading a variety of nonfiction as part of our
summer reading. Students will complete a reader's response journal of thoughts and
reactions as they read. This journal will be a double-entry journal that will contain (15) significant passages from each of the books. The passages can be of various lengths, but each
must be a minimum of three sentences and will be written on the left-hand side of your
page. The passages should be reflective of the entire text.
summer reading. Students will complete a reader's response journal of thoughts and
reactions as they read. This journal will be a double-entry journal that will contain (15) significant passages from each of the books. The passages can be of various lengths, but each
must be a minimum of three sentences and will be written on the left-hand side of your
page. The passages should be reflective of the entire text.
A significant
passage can illustrate: insight into the author or character, prominent themes,
or the use of tone, imagery, symbolism, or irony or other rhetorical devices.
*Why is it
significant?
Reading and reflection helps you become a better writer and increases your
vocabulary!! Please analyze the passages you find relevant in your reading. Also
include vocabulary words that seem unfamiliar to you by making a vocabulary list. Look
up these words.
Reading and reflection helps you become a better writer and increases your
vocabulary!! Please analyze the passages you find relevant in your reading. Also
include vocabulary words that seem unfamiliar to you by making a vocabulary list. Look
up these words.
Some questions
you may wish to consider in composing these responses are:
What is the author trying to tell you that is not written on the page?
How does the passage make you feel?
Can you predict what might happen next?
What insight have you gotten from this particular book?
What tone does the essay contain? Why?
What rhetorical devices are creating this tone?
What purpose is the purpose of the writing ... expository, persuasive, personal
narrative?
What specific devices can you pick out that this author tends to use in these to
shape the tone and style?
What is the author trying to tell you that is not written on the page?
How does the passage make you feel?
Can you predict what might happen next?
What insight have you gotten from this particular book?
What tone does the essay contain? Why?
What rhetorical devices are creating this tone?
What purpose is the purpose of the writing ... expository, persuasive, personal
narrative?
What specific devices can you pick out that this author tends to use in these to
shape the tone and style?
Students will
turn in a Double Entry Journal and Vocabulary list for each book they choose. Each
journal response should be a minimum of 50 words. THESE MUST BE TYPED!
Students will
submit the ten links to their ten responses to the Contest. **See
rules here http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/learning/pdf/2015/SummerReadingContest2015LN.pdf
The submission
below is an exemplar.
- June 28, 2012 2:54 pm Link
I, like many
of my fellow adrenaline pumped and easily excitable Americans, look forward to
the Olympic games every year. The energy of competition and revelry of global
rivalry does its job of tugging at my patriotic heartstrings. But the topic of
grass? Not so many feelings there. What interested me in “Wimbledon’s Guardians
of Grass Face a Challenging Summer” was the dramatization of the critical role
grass really does, in fact, play. Grass, in its general context, is considered
among the most mundane of subjects, a topic of some jest within the article.
However, as I continued to read, the dull stereotype of “watching the grass grow,” transformed into a story of adversity and growth (even if the adversity was a struggle between different varieties of rye grass- it’s irrelevant). This change evidences the real appeal of journalism: real life story telling in which any topic can become relevant and moving. I was also very interested to read about the environment of care and consideration going into the grass. The Trueness meter, for example, proved to me that grass enthusiasts (or greenskeepers, as they’re conventionally called), are willing to pay $18,700 in order to maintain a constant and level ground. Or on the other hand, how the construction of the retractable roof had to be altered in order to fit the grass’ needs.
In other words, the grass, in fulfilling its role as a modern botanical diva, thrives under careful care, just as any other living being must also be nurtured. And, even world-class experts on grass have trouble with that task. So, as the Olympic Games draw closer and closer, let the grass be a symbol of universal human effort. Someone will win that turf, and crowds will cheer, inevitably. But in the end, as Eddie Seaward puts it, “It’s just grass,” and we’re all just human.(309 words)
However, as I continued to read, the dull stereotype of “watching the grass grow,” transformed into a story of adversity and growth (even if the adversity was a struggle between different varieties of rye grass- it’s irrelevant). This change evidences the real appeal of journalism: real life story telling in which any topic can become relevant and moving. I was also very interested to read about the environment of care and consideration going into the grass. The Trueness meter, for example, proved to me that grass enthusiasts (or greenskeepers, as they’re conventionally called), are willing to pay $18,700 in order to maintain a constant and level ground. Or on the other hand, how the construction of the retractable roof had to be altered in order to fit the grass’ needs.
In other words, the grass, in fulfilling its role as a modern botanical diva, thrives under careful care, just as any other living being must also be nurtured. And, even world-class experts on grass have trouble with that task. So, as the Olympic Games draw closer and closer, let the grass be a symbol of universal human effort. Someone will win that turf, and crowds will cheer, inevitably. But in the end, as Eddie Seaward puts it, “It’s just grass,” and we’re all just human.(309 words)
— Lainie_GHS_2012
posted by MrGarland at 8:58 AM
