SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
AP English Language and Composition
Mr. Brunak
(due date: August 30th/31st,, 2017)
It is my firm belief that being an effective writer is the most essential skill for college success (I would even
argue that this skill is necessary simply to progress in ANY career). I also believe that a person cannot be an
effective writer WITHOUT being an effective reader.
In order to get a head start on this course, and to develop successful habits early, there is an expectation that
students will be required to read and write during summer (this is the expectation nation-wide). There are two
components to the summer assignment:
(1) Non-fiction book selection/reading/essay
(2) Rhetorical terminology practice/familiarization
Assignment, Part #1
Summer reading provides an early opportunity to be immersed in the type of texts (mostly non-fiction) with
which we will be working throughout the school year. It also gives students a chance to become comfortable
with and exercise specific skills required in this course throughout the year.
For the reading portion of the AP Language and Composition summer assignment, students will need to choose
a nonfiction book to read and annotate. Proof of annotation must be clear. If you buy the book, you can write in
it. If not, use post-it notes or some other form of note-taking. Scanning and printing pages from it and then
annotating would be another acceptable idea.
Once reading is done, students will need to write a properly formatted (MLA: typed, double-spaced, 12 point
font, TIMES NEW ROMAN) essay (three pages in length) that addresses the author’s purpose (a central
argument/claim). What is the author trying to convince the reader of? Provide examples (quote/citation)
from the text, along with AT LEAST (3) SPECIFIC REFERENCES (INCLUDE PAGE #S) to the
beginning, middle and end of the book.
A variety of recommended titles will be provided. If you choose books that are not on this list, they must fit
the following listed requirements – and must receive prior approval from instructor!:
1.
Each book needs to be at minimum high school reading level or above and should have 150 or more pages of
text. 2.
The book must consist of mainly text. It may not be a coffee table book, DIY book, Self-Help, Cook Book, or
Encyclopedia. 3.
The book must have been published within the past 15 years. Books from the book list may be an exception to
this rule. You may purchase a book (inexpensive/used copies of MANY of these books are available at local Goodwill
and thrift stores, Multnomah County’s “Title Wave” store, and on-line), check it out from the school library or
public library, or download it on a digital reader. You will still need to have your copy of the book when school
starts. CONTACT ME ([email protected]) to receive approval for books not on this list!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST – AVOID PLAGIARISM! SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES COULD RESULT!
AP SUMMER ASSIGNMENT - Proposed Titles
SPECIAL 2017 OPPORTUNITY! LINCOLN IN THE BARDO by George Saunders
Mr. Saunders is visiting Portland, and possibly Madison, and this would be a chance to get a
jump on everyone else – the book is being made into a film, and Saunders is a literary
“superstar”…limited copies available – first come first served!
Memoirs/Biographies
Walter Issacson: Steve Jobs
John Howard Griffin: Black Like Me
Dave Pelzer: A Child Called "It"
Dave Sobel: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific
Problem of his Time
Tobias Wolff: This Boy's Life
Charles Shields: And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
Tina Fey: Bossypants
Alex Haley: The Autobiography. Of Malcolm X
Barack Obama: Dreams from My Father
Bob Dylan: Together Through Life
Robert Hardy: A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt
Mark Twain: Autobiography Mark Twain
Agnes Kamara-Manna: And Still Peace Did Not Come
Rosamond Car: Land of a Thousand Hills
Jean-Dominique Baby: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Steve Lopez: The Soloist
Greg Grandin: Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
Dave Eggers: Zeitoun
Science/Math/Economics
Viktor Mayer-Schonberg: Big Data
Oliver Sacks: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Musicophilia; Hallucinations
Charles Seife: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
Joshua Foer: Moonwalking with Einstein
Neil Degrasse Tyson: Death by Black Hole
Dave Sober: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific
Problem of his Time
Brian Greene: Fabric of the Cosmos
E.O. Wilson: The Diversity of Life
Sebastian Seung: Connectome
Mario Livio: The Golden Ratio
Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Arica Orient: In the Land 'of Invented Languages
John McWhorter: The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language
History
Howard Zinn: A People's History
S.C. Gwynne: Empire of the Summer Moon
John M. Barry: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
Mark Kolinsky: Salt: A World History
John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Dee Alexander Brown: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson: Why Nations Fail
Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel
Barbara Demick: Nothing to Envy; Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Daniel Walker Howe: What Hath God Wrought
Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor: The End Game
Stephen Greenblatt: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
Joby Warrick: The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda. Male who Infiltrated the CIA
Tim Weiner; Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Travel
Jeanette Walls: Glass Castle
Robert Parsing: Zen and the Art 'a Motorcycle Maintenance
David Grann: The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
Essays
Susan Sontag: Against Interpretation; As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh
Joan Didion: The Year a Magical Thinking
John Updike: Higher Gossip
Gore Vidal: United States: Essays 1952-1992
Milan Kinder: The Curtain
Culture
Andrew Sullivan: Virtually Normal
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow
Susan Cain: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Nicholas D. Kristofer, Sheryl Widen: Half the Sky
Elaine Pagels: Revelations
Adeline Yen Mash’s: Chinese Cinderella-The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter
Thomas Friedman: The World is Flat
Carl Sagan: The Demon Haunted World
His Holiness The Dalai Lama: Beyond Religion
Irina Ratushinskaya: Grey is the Color of Hope
Daniel H. Pink: Drive
Mark Pendergrass: Uncommon Grounds: How Coffee Changed the World
Diane Ravitch: The Language Police
Marc Reiner: Cadillac Desert
Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma
Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran
Chip and Dan Heath: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Erik Larson: The Devil in the White City
Mary Roach: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
R. Jay Magill Jr.: Sincerity
Benjamin Barber: Jihad v. McWorld
Stephen King: On Writing
Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test
Raja Esme Cavell: Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year
Jonathan Mooney: The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal
Eric Schlosser: Fast Food Nation
Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success; David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and
the Art of Battling Giants
Jonathan Kool: Savage Inequalities
PORTLAND LITERARY ARTS VISITING WRITERS 2017-2018
232.9 Aslan, Reza -- Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. 2013. 296p
A biography of Jesus that draws on biblical and historical sources to place his achievements
and influence against the turbulent backdrop of his time.
297 Aslan, Reza -- No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. 2011. 338p
Offers a detailed overview of Islam, discussing the religion's origins, beliefs, place in Western
culture, and traditions.
320.5 Aslan, Reza -- Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of
Globalization. 2010. 225p
Examines the ideology of al-Qaida and the Taliban, discusses religious violence around the
world, and suggests ways in which the United States should fight terrorism.
808.8 -- Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East: A Words Without
Borders Anthology 2011. 657p
A collection of nearly two hundred short stories, novels, memoirs, essays, and poems from the
Middle East, translated into English from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Turkish arranged
chronologically throughout the twentieth century.
810.9 Nguyen, Viet Thanh -- Race & Resistance: Literature & Politics in Asian America. 2002.
228p
Argues that Asian American intellectuals have idealized Asian America and ignored the
capitalist practices, such as the selling of racial identity, that have defined the culture in recent
years.
811 Rankine, Claudia -- Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. 2004. 155p
A collection of essays and prose by Claudia Rankine that reflect on American culture, society,
government, and advancement in the twenty-first century.
814 Rankine, Claudia -- Citizen: An American Lyric. 2014. 169p
Recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life
and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some
are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, during sports, online,
on TV, etc.
959.704 Nguyen, Viet Thanh -- Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. 2016. 374p
The author visits a variety of sites to present a comprehensive view of the Vietnam War.
B Ward, Jesmyn -- Men We Reaped: A Memoir. 2013. 256p
An autobiography of Jesmyn Ward, an African American author, in which she describes how she
grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi, revisiting the losses of young African American men in
her life, and describing her community with its history of racism and economic struggle that
fosters drug addiction and the dissolution of family.
FIC Nguyen, Viet Thanh -- The Refugees. 2017. 209p
A collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants to the United States.
FIC Nguyen, Viet Thanh -- The Sympathizer. 2015. 371p
Follows a Viet Cong agent as he spies on a South Vietnamese army general and his compatriots
as they start a new life in 1975 Los Angeles.
FIC Saunders, George -- Tenth of December: Stories. 2013. 251p
A collection of ten short stories in which American author George Saunders explores morality,
class, sex, love, and other themes.
FIC Ward, Jesmyn -- Salvage the Bones. 2011. 261p
Pregnant fifteen-year-old Esch and her family live in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, which puts them
in the path of Hurricane Katrina, and as they try to stock the small amount of food they have in
preparation for the disaster, the family's love for each other will be their only hope for survival.
FIC Ward, Jesmyn -- Where the Line Bleeds. 2008. 241p
Twin brothers, Joshua and Christophe DeLisle, struggle with poverty, the lack of jobs, and the
responsibilities of adulthood as they fight for survival in the post-Katrina Mississippi Gulf
Coast region.