HOLIDAY HOMEWORK 2014-2015
AP English Language &
Composition
I want you to have a great break
this winter, but I also want you to keep reading! You’re away from the
classroom for quite a while, and it’s difficult to focus… But reading
independently will allow you to maintain your reading skills over the break.
Here’s what you need to do:
PART 1
Reading
First off, read text of your choice
over winter holidays. This should be something fun and enjoyable, but it needs
to be a full work of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. (Feel free to read graphic
novels, but not merely comics.) If you need help choosing a text, please let me
know and I’m happy to offer suggestions.
Writing
By the first day of class, please
post a blog that introduces your text and then responds to one scene, chapter,
or piece. This response can be in whatever form you want. It can be a critique
of an idea or representation, an emotional and personal reflection on an idea,
an analytical reaction, etc. The options are very open!
PART 2
Reading
Our focus in AP Lang is on
nonfiction, so you will also read one text of your choice from a list of acclaimed nonfiction writing (see
below).
Writing
By the first day of class, please
post a blog with a short (3-5 sentence) summary of your book’s subject and a
longer response that says something about the text’s form. What you say about
it is your choice, but you might answer one or some of these questions:
·
What
structure does the text take, and what is the effect of this structure?
·
Is the
author involved in the story s/he tells, and what is the effect of this choice?
·
What
argument is the text making, and how does the author convince you of this
argument?
When you return from break, you
will work with this book for a paper assignment, so please come prepared! I
highly suggest you bring the physical book to campus…
Grading
These blogs will both be scored
out of 20 points, for a total assignment value of 40 points.
Note: DO. NOT. PLAGIARIZE. Doing
so will push you right over to Honor Council for an unpleasant meeting, and you
will receive a 0 on this assignment.
Nonfiction List (for part 2)
Imran Ahmad, The Perfect Gentlemen
Karen Armstrong, A History of God
Wendy Beckett, The Story of Painting
HG Bissinger, Friday Night Lights
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death,
and Hope in a Mumbai Slum
Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat
Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows
Ted Chapin, Everything Was Possible
Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography
Donald Clarke, Wishing on the Moon
Leah Hager Cohen, Glass, Paper, Beans
Edward Conlon, Blue Blood
Dennis Covington, Salvation on Sand Mountain
Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Andrew Delbanco, The Death of Satan
Joan Didion, The White Album OR Slouching
Towards Bethlehem
David Ewing Duncan, Calendar
David Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
OR Zeitoun
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed
Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx
Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang
Tina Fey, Bossypants
Michael Finkel, True Story
Barbara Freese, Coal
Thatcher Freund, Objects of Desire
Thomas Friedman, Beirut to Jerusalem
Atul Gawande, Complications OR Better OR The Checklist
Manifesto
Brendan Gill, Many Masks
Mikal Gilmore, Shot in the Heart
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point OR Blink OR Outliers
Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You
Yossi Klein Halevi, Like Dreamers: The Story of Israeli
Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation
Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action
Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
Peter Irons, A People’s History of the Supreme Court
Steven Johnson, Emergence
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Doris Kearnes Goodwin, No Ordinary Time OR Team of Rivals
Tracey Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
Gina Kolata, Clone OR Flue
Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities
Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild OR Under the Banner of Heaven
Mark Kurlansky, Cod OR Birdseye
William Langewiesche, American Ground
Eric Larson, The Devil in the White City OR Garden
in the Beast
Nicholas Lemann, The Big Test
Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker
Amanda Lindhout (and Sara
Corbett), A House in the Sky
Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire
Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes OR ‘Tis
John McPhee, Coming Into the Country
Donald Miller, City of the Century
Adam Minter, Junkyard Planet
Susan Orlean, White Oleander
Nathaniel Philbrook, In the Heart of the Sea
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food OR Ominivore’s Dilemma
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death OR Building… OR Technopoly
Matt Ridley, Genome
Mary Roach, Stiff
Karl Sabbagh, Skyscraper
Julie Salamon, The Devil’s Candy
Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation
Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Dava Sobel, Galileo’s Daughter
Susan Sontag, On Photography
Barbra Tuchman, The Guns of August
John Walton, Mississippi
Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch
Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman
Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
