MPH AP Lang 2010-2011 Summer Reading Assignment

AP Lang Summer Reading Assignment

Welcome to AP Lang! I am very excited to have you again as students and guide you on this journey of studying the arts of persuasion. If you have any questions about the course, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. The blog for the course is http://mphaplang.blogspot.com, and you’ll find helpful information and external links related to this course.

Your summer reading assignment consists of two parts.

Part 1: Read and annotate Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story. You might not find this to be the most exciting book in the world, but Gornick offers many insights on the writing process and the qualities of great writing. I hope that we will refer to this book throughout the year. For the Gornick book, complete one of the following writing assignments.

Creative: Write a three-to-four page personal narrative that follows Gornick’s main advice concerning an essay’s situation and its story.

Analytical: Consider some of your favorite personal essays and memoirs. What made them stand out to you? Are those qualities the same or similar to those that Gornick identifies in The Situation and the Story? Write a three-to-four page essay that compares your expectations and preferences in personal writing to those described by Gornick.

Part 2: Read and annotate two of the books from the list below. Your books must come from different categories. As you read your books, pay attention to the strategies the authors use to get you, the reader, on their side: how do the authors make you see what they want you to see, feel what they want you to feel, think what they want you to think? For example, do they use humor, understatement, contemporary examples, or relevant anecdotes? Bring your annotated books to the first day of class. In both the first and second classes, you will write an essay about each of these books. Be prepared to discuss the audience, purpose, and writing situation of your book, as well as the authors’ appeal to the reader’s ethos, logos, and pathos. Click on the links to find summaries of these books on Barnes and Noble.com. On the Barnes and Noble site, you can also see if the books are available at your local Barnes and Noble. (If you don’t get enough information at Barnes and Noble, you may find more information, and lower prices, at Amazon.com.)

Arts and Entertainment

Adam Bradley, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop (2009), 272 pp.

Barbara Fisher, In Balanchine’s Company: A Dancer’s Memoir (2006), 236 pp.

Peter Hanson and Paul Robert Herman, Tales from the Script: 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories (2010), 368 pp.

College

Daniel Golden, The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—And Who Gets Left Out (2006), 352 pp.

Nicholas Lemann, The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy (1999), 406 pp.

Richard E. Nisbett, Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (2009), 304 pp.

Memoir and Biography

Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying (2007), 288 pp.

Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (2009), 368 pp.

Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes (1996), 368 pp.