research time!

You're all in the midst of the research stage!

During the research stage, try to keep your mind open to different perspectives. You might learn something about the topic that changes your own opinion. That's great. That's why we research in the first place: not to confirm our opinions, but to help us build a knowledge base from which we can formulate a true and insightful perspective about something.

Anyhow, enough philosophizing! Here's the deal. You need a minimum of FOUR credible sources to support your opinion. Once your sources are approved by me and your secondary advisor, you'll need to read/annotate them email me and your secondary advisor research notes by midnight on Wednesday 29 April.

Use this template to complete your research notes. One side is for your source or any direct quotes, and the other side allows you to summarize, comment, question, etc. Make sure to save all citation information. If you need a bit more guidance, check out this sample of another student's research notes.

Note: Your minimum number of sources is four, but you are always encouraged to use more! If you do add sources to your paper along the way, please always run them by your advisors so we can check for credibility. 

winter break essay assignment

This is your Q3 writing project -- we'll keep strengthening our argumentation skills and move toward synthesizing others' ideas.

In case you lost the hard copy, here's the electronic version...

Happy writing!!!

winter break HW

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

group identity mashup

Due Monday 10 November

Make a list of all the groups with which you affiliate. Using this list, of groups with which you identify, create a manipulatable that shows how these groups relate to your individual identity. By maniplulatable, I mean that you cannot give me an electronic document – it must be something you create that I can touch and manipulate with my hands. This might be a 3-D thing, like some sort of paper folding, or a collage, a puzzle, a ven diagram, a simple geometric design, a drawing, a flexagon, etc. I’m purposefully being vague in my directions so that you can be as creative as you want. But the manipulatable must:

show in some visual way your affiliations with different groups

The second part of the assignment is a 300-500 word written reflection that describes, explains, debates, expands, etc. your visual. They should go together.

Grading out of 30 points is a simply A (exceptional), B (above average), C (average), D (below average), based on the level of your thought and effort more than on specific outcomes. 

Assignment goals

--To stretch you to think visually rather than merely in words, but also to push your own writing to act as a complement to a visual.

--To spark your thinking about your personal identity as it relates to identities you assume in different groups.  

Paper #1: Analyzing an Editorial

Hey everyone,

In case you lose the hard copy of your assignment sheet, find it in our class folder on google drive - see the "Homework" tab!

Also, here are more details on how I will grade the paper:

1. Woodstock Writing Rubric - This is the holistic rubric that I'll use in determining whether your work is A-level, B-level, C-level, D-level, or failing.
2. P1 Response Questions - These are questions I'll ask when reading and evaluating your paper. You're welcome to use these questions as a "checklist" of sorts to see whether you're meeting the paper's requirements.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you need any additional information, or want to meet with me for one-on-one assistance. Good luck writing....... :)

TWO MORE RESOURCES:
1. Powerpoint on analysis v. summary...
2. Sample paper from a past student. This one was in the A-level. This doesn't mean it was perfect, but it's pretty well done.

Who are you in relation to AP L&C?

(http://www.abimboladare.com/2011/11/21/who-are-you/)

Your first assignment this quarter is to tell me a bit about yourself. In this case, I don't mean your favorite bands or video games -- this "getting to know you" stuff will come out during class, I hope. But I want to know how you feel about this course, and who you are as a reader/writer/thinker.

So, In about 500-700 words, reflect on the following things:

• How would you describe yourself as a reader?
• How would you describe yourself as a writer?
• What do you hope to get out of this class? What do you need help on the most as it relates to reading/writing for college-level classes?
• What helps you learn? (In other words, do you prefer visuals, or lecture/discussion, or interactive?)
• Do you have any questions/concerns about this course?

This writing diagnostic will help me to understand you as a writer, both as you see yourself and how I see you through the written word. I will take your questions, concerns and requests seriously as we continue through the semester. Thanks for your honesty!

Please email me your reflection by Sunday 3 August at 11pm.