Sharyland High School
English III Pre-AP
Summer Reading Assignments
Introduction
Hello!
Thank you for enrolling in English III Pre-Advanced Placement. You are to be commended for your choice to enroll in a rigorous, challenging—but also thought-provoking and intellectually fulfilling—course. To ensure that we have enough time to get to everything we need to get to throughout the semester, I’ve come up with a few assignments that will ensure that we hit the ground running.
During the semester, we will be studying American literature by using a chronological approach. This means that we will be studying the various literary movements that have come to characterize American literature, starting from the political inception of our country and then move toward the present. The first choice is a play that students have truly enjoyed reading for not only the drama, the scandal, the hysteria, and the injustice of it all, but for the mere fact that it is based on true events in our early American history that we know as the Salem Witch Trials- “The Crucible”, by Henry Miller. Since we are starting with a piece depicting America during a darkest and most early part of our nation, the second literary choice is one depicting a more modern approach from the perspective of a teenager. This infamous novel has a history in and of itself in that it has been debated as inappropriate for high school readers and made “banned”. Is it worthy of such a reputation? The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is your second literary piece.
I’ve come up with three different projects for you to work on during the summer to make sure that your analytical eye is still sharp when you get to class for the 2015-2016 school year.
Assignments
Information about the texts which you need to read, along with examples and grading rubrics of the required assignments, can be found in the next several pages. However, I wanted to provide you with one page that has the list of the assignments that are due on September 2nd (for students taking English III Pre-AP in the fall) or January 15th (for students taking English III Pre-AP in the spring).
Here’s what’s due:
The Crucible
· Script Adaptation (submitted online after first day of school by due date)
The Catcher in the Rye
· Dialectical Journal (submitted online after first day of school by due date)
· Psychological Assessment & Recommendation (printed and turned in on due date)
Please read the assignment sheets carefully, but if you need help in completing these assignments, you are welcome to email Mrs. Sanchez, at or Mr. Martinez, at .
A Note on Procrastination
This assignment is not intended to be tedious, nor is it supposed to be a time-sink. It’s intended to expedite the pace through which the class moves through the various literary periods we need to cover. It’s also intended to provide us with the content that we will be covering the first few weeks of school, so that as you get settled into your new classes, you are not saddled with a large amount of reading homework. Leaving this project until the first week after coming back from the summer break is a terrible idea.
Advanced Placement classes involve heavy amounts of work, but with proper time management, they are very manageable. Leaving this assignment until the week before it is due is the opposite of that. This assignment is the first test of your ability to manage your time.
English III Pre-AP
Summer Project #1
Introduction
Although written in the 1950s, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible does a wonderful job of depicting a historically dark time during our early American settlement- a dark time that Miller used to portray the scandal of his own modern day.
For this project, you will be reading the play, The Crucible, and adapting it to a modern setting through the use of scriptwriting software and your own ingenuity.
Materials
You will need the following things:
· The Crucible
o This play, unfortunately, will not be available for check out at our school. You will need to secure a copy of the play through a local bookstore or by going online. I would suggest using the website half.com, as you can get the play for as little as $4 (this includes shipping). I would also recommend using an audio book that can be accessed for free through youtube.
· A computer with internet access
· A free scriptbuddy account
o This website will allow you to easily format the script that you will be writing
o While it is not necessary to use this website, it will make the process of writing your script much easier and allow you to focus on the content of your script instead of the format
o You can create this at http://www.scriptbuddy.com/
Instructions
1. Before reading the play, visit the following links. They will take you to some articles and YouTube videos that will introduce the play and its themes.
Introduction to The Crucible
Video: https://goo.gl/O86j2K
· This is an introduction to the play, as well as its themes
The Crucible and McCarthyism
Video: https://goo.gl/2XnC5B
· This is an introduction to McCarthyism and The Red Scare, both of which were inspirations of Arthur Miller for writing the play. This video will allow you to appreciate some of the allegorical qualities of the play.
How to Write a Script
Links: http://goo.gl/CYlFb, http://goo.gl/2eABC
· The links included above, taken together, will provide with you the information necessary for writing your own screenplay. Remember, however, that Script Buddy will format your play. These links are intended to be supplementary information that will allow you to understand some of the elements that you can add with Script Buddy. They provide very technical information about measurements of indentions and other nit-picky things. Don’t worry about that—Script Buddy does that for you!
2. Once you’ve read up on the background of the play, you’re ready to read it. When you finish the play, you’ll be tasked with the activity in the following page.
Sharyland High School
a. Task #1: Script Adaptation
i. The Crucible is a play that is decades old, but remains extremely relevant even today. Think about it… everyday there are millions of people being ostracized for being perceived as different. In the play, people are persecuted for the belief that they might be a witch. Arthur Miller was persecuted because someone people believed that he might be a communist. Today, people are persecuted for a variety of reasons: sexual orientation, religious beliefs, social class, etc. For this project, you’re going to rewrite the first act of the play.
1. Your play must meet the following requirements:
a. Remember, you are only adapting one scene from one act of the play.
b. The general plot of the play must remain the same.
c. The characters in your play should resemble the characters in Arthur Miller’s original work.
i. Abigail and John Proctor (although with different names) must be the protagonists of the act that you write. Likewise, their personalities must be at least similar to the way they are in the play. For example, Abigail must have some elements of jealousy in the script you write and she should display some elements of affection for John Proctor; similarly, John Proctor must be hiding a secret and should act like the sensible voice in the middle of the chaos in this scene; Tituba must be someone that has a trait that makes her very different from the other people in the scene (in The Crucible, it’s her race—in your play, it could be something else.
d. You need to create adaptations (and use) every character that appeared in that scene in the play.
e. Arthur Miller provides commentary on the historical context of the events about which he writes. Your adaptation does not need to include them; however…
f. Your script does need to include stage directions and character descriptions, as appropriate.
g. Your completed script should be 5-7 pages in length. With the formatting that Script Buddy employs, it’s a little shorter than it sounds. The page requirement is with the “Show Page Breaks” option in Script Buddy turned off.
2. You’ll need to think about a longer plot, but you will only need to actually write the script for a single scene.
3. You may find an example of the first few pages of a script adaptation by going to this website: https://goo.gl/CeWaJ5
4. You may find the rubric that will be used to grade this assignment here: https://goo.gl/9QnHgj
This assignment is due on Wednesday, September 2nd (if you are enrolled in English III Pre-AP in the fall or have the year-round class) or January 15th (if you are enrolled in English III Pre-AP in the spring). Plagiarism will result in a 0 for the complete assignment. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. For more information on what plagiarism is, visit these websites: http://goo.gl/9qzHYB and http://goo.gl/jpyfGk.
This is an online submission and must be done by 11:59 pm of the day in which they are due regardless of whether you were in class that day or not.
A Note on Procrastination
This assignment is not intended to be tedious, nor is it supposed to be a time-sink. It’s intended to expedite the pace through which the class moves through the various literary periods we need to cover. It’s also intended to provide us with the content that we will be covering the first few weeks of school, so that as you get settled into your new classes, you are not saddled with a large amount of reading homework. Leaving this project until the first week after coming back from the summer break is a terrible idea.
Student Name:
Block:
The Crucible
Script Adaptation Grading Rubric
Domain / 25 / 20 / 15 / 5 / 0Length / The script’s length is 5-7 pages with “Show Page Breaks” turned off on scriptbuddy.com / The script’s length is 4-5 pages with “Show Page Breaks” turned off on scriptbuddy.com / The script’s length is 3 pages or longer than 10 pages with “Show Page Breaks” turned off on scriptbuddy.com / The script’s length is 2-3 pages with “Show Page Breaks” turned off on scriptbuddy.com / The script’s length is 1 pages or less with “Show Page Breaks” turned off on scriptbuddy.com
Completeness / The script features the following elements:
· Stage directions
· Dialogue
· Character descriptions
· Intelligent, well-written dialogue
· Scene descriptions / One element is missing / Two elements are missing / Three elements are missing / Four or more elements are missing
Accuracy / The student demonstrates that he/she truly understand the complex themes portrayed by the play and effectively adapts them to a modern setting / The student demonstrates that he/she has a good understand the complex themes portrayed by the play and adapts them to a modern setting / The student demonstrates that he/she has a working understand the themes portrayed by the play and is moderately successful in adapting them to a modern setting / The student demonstrates that he/she has a limited understand the themes portrayed by the play and attempts to adapt them to a modern setting / The student is generally unsuccessful in adapting the play’s themes to a modern setting
Writing Conventions / The submitted document is mostly free of grammar or spelling errors / The submitted document contains few grammar or spelling errors / The submitted document contains frequent grammar or spelling errors / The submitted document contains enough grammar or spelling errors that the clarity of the students work suffers / The submitted document contains many grammar or spelling errors
English III Pre-AP
Summer Project #2
Materials
You will need the following things:
o A copy of The Cather in the Rye
o Computer with Microsoft Word
The Catcher in the Rye Dialectical Journal
Assignment: As you read JD Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, it will be your responsibility to keep a dialectical (double-entry) journal. The purpose of the dialectical journal is to provide a platform for you to further develop your reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. As you complete the dialectical journal it will also become a very useful reference for completing additional assignments and participating in class discussions. It is recommended that you use paper for your journal as you read along; however, you will be required to transfer your information on a WORD document as your assignment will be turned in online. It is expected that you complete this journal AS you read the novel.
Format: The format of a dialectical journal is specific. Make sure you follow this organization so you do not lose points on this assignment:
Your DOCUMENT should be divided into two columns.
Sharyland High School
Within the left-hand column, you will record text directly as it appears in the novel along with the page number. If you need to write down more than two sentences, you may use ellipses to indicate that you are leaving out some of the passage you are quoting.