Russell 17-18
AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
2017-2018SUMMERREADINGPROJECT
NOTE: Your assignments will be due the second week of school. Extra credit will be awarded to students who have their projects completed the first day of school. All projects must be typed and submitted to turnitin.com. We will set up accounts on the first day of school.
Assignment: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Read the autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass while keeping a response log.
A typical response log is an effective way to keep a record of your reading responses—positive or negative, sure or unsure. It allows you to respond personally, to ask questions, to wonder, predict, or reflect as you consider the characters, ideas, events, literary elements, writing techniques, and language of a text. While this is an effective tool for both fiction and non-fiction, the APLAC course focuses primarily on nonfiction and how the authors of thesetexts use language to achieve an intended purpose.
With this in mind, your textual observations should focus on Douglass’s rhetoric, a term that describes the stylistic choices authors make in order to achieve the aforementioned purpose. Some of the more common elements of rhetoric are diction, syntax, tone, selection of details, imagery, use of figurative language, et al (elements that we will study extensively this year).
Your assignment, then, may be quite different from what you have been asked to do in the past. In other words, rather than respond to the actual content of the story of Douglass’s life, we ask you to focus on the language choices he makes in order to convey the story of his life.
Directions/requirements/format
- Your paper must include a total of 12 entries, one for the preface by William Lloyd Garrison and one for each chapter.
- For each entry, you should type the specific quotation from the text and list the page number. If your reference covers several sentences or even an entire paragraph, type only the first few words of the first line, followed by an ellipsis, followed by the last few words of the last line. As an example, an entry for the first paragraph of this page would look
like this: “A typical response log […] story of his life.”
- Each response to a quotation should be 4-6 sentences and should include your analysis of the rhetorical techniques present in the selection.
- Standard MLA (12 pt Times New Roman, one inch margins, etc.) with one exception: all quotations and responsesshould be single spaced, with one double space between entries.
- See attachment #2 for a sample entry for a passage from Bob Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles Volume One. Though I have provided the entire quote (see #2 above), use it as a guide. For formatting purposes, it may even be beneficial to copy/paste the entry (including the header) into your document and type over the information with your first entry.
- A note of caution: these logs are NOT meant to be personal diaries. They are meant to be read by others and should be composed as scholarly responses related only to the assigned material.
- A second note of caution: note that this is NOT a collaborative assignment; all work should be wholly original.
- Caution #3: Failure to follow these specific instructions will negatively impact your final grade (see attachment #3 for the standard College Board rubric).
- Caution #4: You will have other assignments from day one; procrastinating until will double your workload.
- Sample response stems:
The imagery reveals...This metaphor or simile suggests...
Douglass’s (adjective) diction reveals...The detail seems effective /important because...
The author seems to feel...An interesting word/phrase/sentence/thought is...
Douglass’s (adjective) tone in this passageI find this passage moving because...
conveys/implies/...Something I notice/appreciate/don't appreciate/ is...
This is ironic because...Douglass emphasizes ______in order to...
Surname 1
First Name Surname
Teacher Name
AP Language and Composition
22 August 2012
Bob Dylan – Chronicles Volume One: Response Log
Chapter 4, page 147
“I was lingering out on the pavement. There was a m issing person inside of myself and I needed to find him. Now and again, I did try a few times, tried hard to force it. In nature there’s a remedy for everything and that’s where I’d usually go hunting for it. I’d find myself on a houseboat, a floating mobile home, hoping to hear a voice—crawling at slow speed—nosed up
on a protective beach at night in the wilderness—mo ose, bear, deer around—the elusive timber wolf not so far off, calm summer evenings listening to the loon. Think things out. But it was no use. I felt done for, an empty burned-out wreck. Too much static in my head and I couldn’t dump the stuff. Wherever I am, I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows."
Response
In this passage, Dylan wants the reader to understand what it felt like for him to have a sort of “creative” writer’s block in the 80s, a time when t he albums he released were neither critical nor commercial successes. He effectively conveys a sense of desperation through the metaphor of searching for a missing person. The reader knows the urgency that would be felt in trying to find a missing person, especially if that person were a family member, but Dylan makes it more poignant by having that missing person be himself. His first instinct to find himself is to turn to nature, and here the imagery alludes to the Transcendentalists—especially Emerson and Thoreau—who claim that in order to find oneself, on e must turn to nature. The fact that this did not work for him shows just how deeply his sense of frustration became. The syntax also conveys a sense of confusion. The passage begins with several short, choppy phrases that accurately portray the frantic nature of a futile search. He follows this with a long, winding sentence that illustrates what was ultimately a long, but largely unsuccessful quest for this “natural remedy.” As the passage ends, the syntax changes abruptly. Short, fatalistic phrases presage the final declaration where Dylan seems resigned to the fact that he may never again regain his songwriting muse.
Chapter 5, page 159
“The moon was rising behind… strumming songs off the guitar.”
Response
[Here you would write response #2]
In 1989 Bob Dylan broke through his writer’s block with the critically acclaimed album Oh Mercy. After a similar dry spell in the 90s, Dylan has released four straight albums that have made the top ten on Billboard’s album charts—two of them at number one—and for which he has received six Grammy Awards. Bob Dylan celebrated his 71st birthday on May 24, 2012.
The following rubric will be used to score your response log on the Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass. It is modeled after the College Board scoring guidelines for the AP exam. Similarly wordedrubrics will be used to score most other assignments throughout the year. Please note that a plus sign (+) after one of the scores below would indicate an additional 2 points added (e.g., 8+ = 97; 7+ = 94; 4+ = 72).
Rubric
9(100) Essays earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for a score of 8 and, in addition, are especiallysophisticated in their analysis, thorough in their development or impressive in their control of language.
8(95) Essays earning a score of 8effectivelyanalyze* how Douglass uses rhetorical strategies to achieve aparticular effect or purpose. They develop their analysis with evidence and explanations that are appropriate and convincing, referring to the passage explicitly or implicitly. The prose demonstrates a consistent ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing but is not necessarily flawless.
7(92) Essays earning a score of 7 meet the criteria for a score of 6 but provide more complete explanation,more thorough development or a more mature prose style.
6(85) Essays earning a score of 6adequatelyanalyze how Douglass uses rhetorical strategies to achieve aparticular effect or purpose. They develop their analysis with evidence and explanations that are appropriate and sufficient, referring to the passage explicitly or implicitly. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but generally the prose is clear
5(77) Essays earning a score of 5 analyze how Douglass uses rhetorical strategies, the evidence orexplanations used may be uneven, inconsistent, or limited. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but it usually conveys the student’s ideas
4(70) Essays earning a score of 4inadequatelyanalyze how Douglass uses rhetorical strategies to achieve aparticular effect or purpose. These essays may misunderstand the passage, misrepresent the strategies Douglass uses or analyze these strategies inaccurately. The evidence or explanations used may be inappropriate, insufficient or less convincing. The prose generally conveys the student’s ideas but may be less consistent in controlling the elements of effective writing
3(65) Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria for a score of 4 but demonstrate less success in analyzingDouglass’s use of rhetorical strategies. They are less perceptive in their understanding of the passage or Douglass’s strategies, or the explanation or examples may be particularly limited or simplistic. The essays may show less maturity in control of writing
2(62) Essays earning a score of 2 demonstratelittle successin analyzing how Douglass uses rhetoricalstrategies. These essays may misunderstand the passage, fail to analyze the strategies Douglass uses, or merely summarize the passage. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing, such as grammatical problems, a lack of development or organization, or a lack of control.
1(55) Essays earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for a score of 2 but are undeveloped, especially simplisticin their explanation or weak in their control of language
* For the purposes of scoring, analysis refers to identifying features of a text and explaining how the author uses these to achieve a particular effect or purpose.