Summer Assignment: AP Language

AP students know that summer memories are made of sun, fun… and summer assignments! This summer you will complete several activities to prepare you for AP English—learning a new word each day, practicing for the SAT, reading, annotating, and completing journal entries.

Here is your summer “to do” list.Begin assignments no later than the first day of the summer (6/21). Bring all completed assignments in a two-pocket folder and in a marble-bound composition book on the first day of class. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED. These assignments are the foundation of our first quarter work; summer assignment grades will determine your first quarter grade.

1. Learn a new word each day. Send a blank message to
to subscribe. Keep a list of the words and definitions on loose-leaf paper. Label each word by the date and keep this list in a two-pocket folder. Words and definitions must be handwritten. Bring this folder to the first day of class. As you complete the journal assignments, use the words (highlight them) in your entries. Expect a vocabulary quiz during the first weeks of school.

2. Each day complete the College Board SAT Question of the Day. You can have it emailed by creating an account with College Board ( Keep handwritten notes about these questions (English questions only) on loose-leaf paper. Write your reasons for choosing your answers and notes about the correct answers. Label each question by the date and keep your notes in your two-pocket folder. The questions may appear on quizzes during the first quarter.

3. Join our Yahoo group--expect an invitation soon! Check your Yahoo e-mail through the summer to share ideas and concerns about your assignments.

4. Search online and print “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler. Read this essay carefully. Then follow Adler’s advice about marking up a book and mark up this essay. On the bottom margin of the last page, bullet two or three specific ways you will apply the process of marking up (annotating) to your future reading. Put the annotated essay in your folder.

Complete the assignments below in your marbled, bound composition book. Begin each assignment on a new page and use the bold phrases as your titles. If your penmanship is illegible, type and glue the assignment to journal pages. Remember to use your new vocabulary words and highlight them.

5. Read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As you read, stick a post-it note to each page that introduces a new setting (time and place). Briefly explain if this is a place of peace or conflict for Huck. These post-its will be checked in class.

  • A quick review of internet sites will tell you of Twain’s social commentary in the novel, BUT rather than reading what someone else thinks, find two incidents in the book and explain Twain’s commentary on society. Create a two-column chart. In the left column, summarize the incident (include chapter and page numbers). In the right column explain Twain’s views on people, religion, and society and HOW they are revealed in the incident.
  • Now, go to the internet and find some info about the controversy in assigning AHF in schools.Should the book be banned? Write me a letter (300 words max) and convince me to include or exclude discussions of the novel in AP Lang. Use specific references to the text (with page numbers) to buttress your argument. You must have at least three references to the text. Again, this is your work. Any unacknowledged similarities to another work in thought or language are considered plagiarism and result in a grade of 0.

6. Read The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time by Mark Haddon. If you are reading your book, mark it up as you read.Pay particular attention to his literal view of his world. If you are reading a borrowed book, write your annotations on post-it notes and cite the pages. You will bring the book to class (or the post-it notes transferred to paper) during the first week of class.

  • Christopher’s inability to lie and his logical, literal mind result in moments when the reader laughs aloud. Find one of these scenes in the novel and copy it (two or three paragraphs) in your journal (include the page number). Mark up these paragraphs. Then, in a few sentences explain why these paragraphs are funny.
  • Was Christopher’s father right in shielding him from the truth? Take a stand and support it with details from the novel and from your experience. Your position will be your topic sentence; the body of the paragraph should be 8-10 sentences. The conclusion should summarize or add a general comment to the paragraph.
  • Find and print (or copy) an article about autism or Asperger’s syndrome. Mark it up. At the bottom of the page, write several sentences explaining how this article gave you insight to Christopher. Put this annotated article in your two-pocket folder.

7. Read one of the following:

Hope in the Unseen, Ron Suskind

The GlassCastle, Jeannette Walls

A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah

If you are reading a book that you bought, mark it up as you read. If you are reading a borrowed book, write your annotations on post-it notes and cite the pages. You will bring the book to class (or the post-it notes transferred to paper) during the first week of class.

  • Beah, Jennings, or Walls have survived and excelled in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and tragedies. Bullet three characteristics that led to his/her success and buttress your choice of these characteristics with specific references to the book. Of course, direction quotations (six are required) must have parenthetical citations.
  • Go online to one of the many sites of quotations. Find five that relate to your book. Copy and cite the authors/sources. Select the one that best summarizes Beah’s, Jennings’s, or Walls’s life/struggles and defend your selection. Your support must include at least three specific details (with page numbers) from the book.

Rubric

Complete,
insightful,
extraordinary
effort / Complete, at times insightful,
some effort / Incomplete, little insight,
little effort
Word of the Day (30 pts)
Question of the Day (25)
Marking up of Adler essay (15)
HF— post-its (20)
HF—social commentary (30)
HF—banned (25)
Curious—post-its (20)
Curious—laughs aloud (15)
Curious—truth (25)
Curious—article (m/u) (15)
your choice—marking up (20)
your choice—obstacles(30)
yourchoice—quotations (30)

Journal grades count as test grades.Return this handout with your journal.