| Dear Junior Advanced Placement Students:
Welcome to an exciting and challenging year in Advanced Placement English Language and Composition. We accept the challenge of teaching advanced placement classes because they are intellectually rewarding for us, even though they require greater time and energy. We hope that you signed up for this class for the same reasons that we teach it. Our journey begins this summer with your summer reading. We use the summer reading for laying the foundation of the class. Although we have the books to check out (except your Peninsula Reads! choice book), buying your own books allows you to annotate them, and interact with them as you read --- something you will be asked to do in college. Annotating is a fine habit to acquire --- it helps you comprehend what you read better.
AP Language and Composition focuses on the rhetorical analysis of writing and on effective persuasion. We’ll think about and discuss the writing of others, and you’ll have ample opportunity to apply what you’ve learned to your own writing. Since you take this course in lieu of SpringBoard 11, which focuses on the American Dream, we’ll also focus on fiction and non-fiction of American writers.
Supplemental books that you might find helpful this summer and fall might include:
• Research based manuals e.g. A Guide to MLA Documentation by Joseph F. Trimmer
• Books on style: Elements of Style by Strunk & White;
Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
• AP Language review manuals: Princeton Review; Barron’s; Cliff’s, etc.
On the back you will find written assignments for the summer work.
Failure to complete the summer reading will result in a huge grade deficit -- not a propitious way to begin a challenging course. It will establish your intellectual place in the class. If you view summer reading as an imposition and a chore, we kindly suggest that you probably aren’t ready for this class and should reconsider whether or not you really want to take it. Make that decision now –
once you are enrolled, switching to a SpringBoard 11 section will require meeting with parents and writing a rationale for withdrawal.
We look forward to meeting you and embarking on this journey of inquiry together. If you have any questions, feel free to contact either one of us via the school website:
http://www.phs.psd401.net: look for
AP Language and Composition Summer Reading. We have included other helpful information on the website to assist you in completing your summer assignment successfully.
Enjoy your summer!
COLUMNIST ASSIGNMENT (150 – 300 points)
This assignment is designed to lead you into the kind of language analysis that will serve you well in this class.
- Select one syndicated columnist (look it up if you don’t know exactly what that is), either on-line or in print publications.
- Your columnist could be any kind (political, humor, sports, etc.) except an advice columnist whose columns are put together in letter and response form.
- Read many, many (at least ten) of your person’s columns so you know his or her beat (again, look it up if you don’t understand), opinions, and style deeply. Create an MLA format (look up “MLA Citations”) bibliography of all the columns you read.
- Make hard copies of two columns and annotate them heavily - - -including questions, comments, definitions,
rhetorical devices, connections, or other.
- Write a one-page analysis (not summary), of the columnist’s beat, point of view, and style. Be very, very specific about style – organization, favorite rhetorical devices, subject matter, tone or other (Use SOAPSTone).
- Write a column (observe column word limit) on a
local, or personal issue in the style of your columnist. Make it look like the column looks.
- Put all of these documents in order in a portfolio called Advanced Placement Language Summer Columnist Project, but don’t entomb the pages in plastic. This portfolio will be due on the first day of AP Language in the fall of 2008.
Peninsula Reads! (100/300 points)
We expect you to participate in
Peninsula Reads! either by participating in an existing book
club or starting your own book club, either through
www.goodreads.com or face-to-face. If you choose to start a book club you must make it official by June 9, 2008. (Tell either Ms. Richards or Ms. Duffey your plan).
We also expect you to write a narrative of your club experience. This will be due on your first class day in the fall. It should be about 500 words and typed in
MLA format. Since this paper introduces your writing to us, give it your best effort.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (50/300 points)
Read this book over the summer. Pay attention to how Hemingway writes. We will use this book as the basis of our discussion about
style in writing. You will have an objective test on the book within the first few days of class. Take notes that you can review since it might be some time between reading and the test.
Please keep in mind that ALL assignments are due the first day of class, no exceptions. This will be your introduction to us of yourself as a student. Show us your best work. If you have any difficulty, please contact us (we absolutely don’t mind!): Ms. Duffey at
duffeyf@comcast.net, or Ms. Richards at
ron2lynda@aol.com. Looking forward to a fun and challenging year!
|
|
