Toon 3
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Summer Reading Assignment 2016
The AP English Language and Composition course is designed to substitute for a college composition course; therefore, you will be required to read complex texts with understanding as well as to enrich your prose in order to communicate your ideas effectively to mature audiences. You will learn how to analyze and interpret exemplary writing by discerning and explaining the author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques, eventually applying many of these techniques to your own writing. In order to prepare for our discussions, you are required to read three (2) selections over the summer. As you read, you will be required to complete the tasks associated with each text. Be sure to consider the tasks before, during, and after reading the required texts. The work for these tasks will be due the first day of class in August.
The purpose of the summer reading and writing assignment is to prepare you for the demanding nature of the class, while also exposing you to a variety of writing styles, modes, and purposes. While the class is considered a college level course and will be challenging, you should enjoy the content. The ultimate goal of the AP English Language and Composition class is to teach you the art of reading, writing, and critical thinking; it is NOT intended to help you maintain a perfect grade point average. The AP Exam is also quite important; you will be prepared accordingly for it.
What You Need to Know about AP Language
1. The purpose of this class is to introduce students to a wide variety of college-level reading, writing, and analysis.
2. Students are to be aware of the rigorous nature of an AP English course.
3. Reading and writing assignments will be extensive and frequent (most likely every day).
4. It is common to be working on two or three different assignments at once.
5. Thoughtful analysis and effort are expected and required.
6. Regular attendance is also required for successful completion of the course.
7. Students who take this course should want to be in the class, and their classroom attitude should reflect respect for the teacher, the course, and other students.
8. Do not assume that high grades received in previous honors classes will guarantee an A in this class.
9. A strong work ethic and a commitment to growing as a learner are necessary. And growing is never easy.
10. Students who are involved in many other school-related activities should develop and rely on excellent time-management and study skills.
Summer Reading Assignments
Book 1: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (required)
Book 2: The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas (required). Here is the free online site for the novel: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm
Task Assignments per book
Book 1: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Task: Dialectical Journaling
You should complete a dialectical journal for The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. What follow are the criteria for the journal entries. As you read and choose significant passages, you should consider these questions as you complete this task:
What is it about the writing that stands out and makes the work distinctive?
What is the author’s purpose for writing?
What is the author’s attitude toward the subject matter?
What is effective or ineffective in the work?
The purpose of a dialectical journal is to identify significant pieces of text and explain their importance. The dialectical journal serves as another form of highlighting/annotating text and should be used to think about, digest, summarize, question, clarify, critique, and remember what is read. It is a way to take notes on reading so that when you are asked to write an essay—or asked to discuss a piece of writing in class—you have at your disposal quotations to use as supporting evidence for your opinions. The journal should include a minimum of 15 quotes to which you have answered the above questions. These must be typed.
The journals should be constructed with two columns in the following manner:
(Directions for dialectical journal)
Create two columns on your page. On the left-hand side of the page, type “Note Taking;” on the right, “Note Making.” See the sample included in this handout as a reference.
In the left-hand column, you will write sentences or phrases from the text (use an ellipses […] if you need to shorten a quote that exceeds one sentence) that you believe illustrate a significant idea. Cite these quotations correctly by putting quotes around them and attributing them to the author; be sure, as well, to note the page number on which the quote was found.
The right-hand column exists for your personal reflection: explain in your own words what you believe the significance of the passage to be. Do not merely summarize or paraphrase the quote; do not merely provide plot details for the quote. Use the questions above for your reflection.
Be sure that you line up entries so your organization is clear; you may want to draw across the page underneath the entries that belong together.
Journal Example
Note Taking / Note Making“Like the keeper of the lighthouse, she regarded it as a mooring: a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream…” (Morrison 11). / The watermark confirms the relationship Ruth has with her husband, Macon: one of contempt and distance, one in which she has been repeatedly denied her existence as a powerful human being, but instead is treated with scorn or as somehow only worthy to bear children, care for the house. The watermark began as an expression of how she sees beauty in the world and ends as a reminder of her vision denied. At once, it gives her strength to go on and makes her feel trapped. It is the truth of her life.
“Put the line from the text in quotes” (Toon 3). / Respond to the questions about language and purpose here. Your work should not repeat or just restate what the author said.
Book 2: The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas
Task: Identify Rhetorical Devices
In theNarrative,Douglass acts as both the narrator and the protagonist, and he appears quite different in these two roles. The wide gulf between Douglass’s two personas is, in fact, the point of theNarrative: Douglass progresses from uneducated, oppressed slave to worldly and articulate political commentator. Douglass frequently dramatizes the difference between his older, more experienced self and his younger self through references to his relative ignorance and naïveté. One instance of this dramatization occurs when Douglass mocks how impressed he was as a young man to encounter the city of Annapolis—a city that now seems small to him by the standards of Northern industrial cities.
Pay attention to the Rhetorical Devices he uses to convey his story. Provide a list of 10 different devices and an example for each. You may use your list of rhetorical devices as a guide for choosing the rhetorical devices. I have done the first two chapters for you which you may use as a pattern to do the remaining chapters 3-11.
You must type your devices and textual examples. Use the standard rules for typed work: 12 font, Times New Roman. You must also include the page number in which you found the device. Remember to use quote marks and put the page number in parentheses with a period at the end. Also, you may use an elliptical for really long quotes. I used an elliptical in chapter 1 # 4; and in chapter 2 #s 1, 2, and 7.
Chapter 1
1. Simile: “By far the larger part ofthe slaves know as little of theirages as horses know oftheirs” (1).
2. Serial Comma (Rule of 3): “Iwas not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial” (3).
3. Parallelism: “I was not allowed to be present duringher illness, at her death, or burial” (3).
4. Allusion: “God cursed Ham. . .their own masters” (4).
5. Repetition: “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (5).
6. Parallelism: “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (5).
7. Contrast: “He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to makeher hush” (5).
8. Paradox: “He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush” (5).
9. Name-Calling:“Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer and asavage monster” (4).
10. Serial Comma (Rule of 3): “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move hisiron heart from its bloody purpose” (5).
Chapter 2
1. Serial Comma (Rule of 3): “If aslave was convicted of any high misdemeanor, became unmanageable, orevinced a determination to run away. . .” (10).
2. Parallelism: “If a slave was convicted of any high misdemeanor, became unmanageable,or evinced a determination to run away. . .”(10).
3. Contrast: “He died as he lived”(12).
4. Paradox: “He died as he lived”(12).
5. Parallelism: “They find less difficulty with the want of beds, than the want of sleep” (11).
6. Irony: “They find less difficulty with thewant of beds, than the want of sleep” (11).
7. Anecdote: “I have seen him whip a woman. . . pleading for their mother’s release” (11).
8. Paradox: “Their songs revealing the highest joy and the deepest sadness” (13).
9. Contrast: “Their songs revealing the highest joy and the deepest sadness” (13).
10. Name-Calling: “Mr. Severe was a cruel man” (11).