AP English Language and Composition
Summer Reading Assignment
Welcome to AP English Language!
In preparation for AP English Language and Composition, you will read Harper Lee’s To Kill a
Mockingbird and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. We will work with both books throughout the course.
Please consider purchasing your own copy of each. You will want to mark the text, and you will need
the books for the entire school year. The information for the readings is below to ensure you have the
same edition, page numbers, discussion questions, and prefatory material.
Harper Lee
Malcolm Gladwell
To Kill a Mockingbird
Outliers
ISBN: 978-0446310789
ISBN: 978-0316017930
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Assignment
As you read the texts, you will keep a dialectical journal. A full description, instructions, and examples
are included on the following pages. Please bring your completed journal with you to class the first day.
You should work on this assignment steadily over the summer. If you wait until the weekend before
school starts, you will be overwhelmed!
Please complete the reading of and dialectical journal for one reading, skip 10 pages, and then
complete the reading of and dialectical journal for the second reading. It does not matter which book
you read first.
You will record at least ten journal entries for To Kill a Mockingbird, and complete at least one
journal per chapter (nine chapters) for Outliers. Your journal must include at least 19 journal
entries, but may include additional entries if you choose!
Questions
Please email me with any questions. It may take several days to get a response, so plan ahead!
[email protected]
Assignment Sheet
This assignment sheet is available on my AP English Language and Composition Google Site. Click on
my name on the high school website.
DIALECTICAL JOURNAL
A dialectical journal provides a venue for you to hold a conversation with the text. In this journal, we
record passages, selections, and thoughts about the reading. The process is designed to help us
develop a better understanding of the texts we read. Throughout the course, we will use the journal to
process what we read, prepare ourselves for discussions, and gather textual evidence for writing
assignments.
Format
You will need a new, 8 ½ x 11, spiral bound notebook with at least 200 pages to use as your journal.
This notebook may not include any additional notes, assignments, marks, or doodles. On the front
cover use a permanent marker to write the following in large, neat writing.
Your Name
AP English Language and Composition
Dialectical Journal
Neatness is essential on the cover and in the journal. (AP exam readers must be able to read your
answers without difficulty!)
The inside of your journal should include pages folded vertically, creating two columns on each page.
The first column should be titled Text and Main Ideas. In this column, you will quote or paraphrase the
section from the text with page number(s). You should quote shorter sections, but may paraphrase
longer sections. (A smart use of the ellipse (. . .) may help you here, but make sure to get the main
details.)
The second column should be titled Reactions and Details. This column will include your responses
to the text (reactions, analysis, evaluation, etc.) Please see the response description below.
Process
Text and Main Ideas (Passage Selection)
As you read, choose passages that seem significant to you. These selections should be thoughtprovoking in that they:
● Demonstrate effective and/or creative use of stylistic or literary devices.
● Represent a structural shift or turn in the plot (fiction).
● Provide examples of patterns (recurring images, ideas, colors, symbols, or motifs.)
● Use confusing language or unfamiliar vocabulary.
● Include events or descriptions you find surprising or confusing.
● Make you realize something you hadn’t seen before.
● Remind you of something you have seen before.
● Illustrate a particular character or setting.
Reactions and Details (Response)
Your responses in your journal are the most important piece of the process. This is where the
conversation occurs. Your responses should be specific, providing details and thorough explanations.
While basic responses are a valuable part of your journal, most (75%) of your responses should be
high-level responses.
Basic Responses
Provide a starting point for understanding the text
● Pose questions about events in the plot.
● Raise questions about the beliefs and values implied in the text.
● Discuss the language, ideas, or actions of the author or character.
●
●
Provide a personal reaction. How does the text make you think or feel?
State whether you agree or disagree with a character or the author. (Provide
explanation.)
High-level Responses
Demonstrate a higher level of thought and lead to a deeper understanding of text
● Analyze text for use of literary devices. (What is used and how does it affect text?)
● Make connections between different characters or events in the text.
● Make connections to a different text, song, film, etc.
● Discuss the language, ideas, or actions of the author or character. (Provide analysis and
discussion of how it affects other characters, plot, audience, text, etc.)
● Analyze a passage and its relationship to the story as a whole.
● Discuss author purpose, strategies used, effectiveness, and/or impact on audience.
● Evaluate evidence in text.
● Make inferences about characters, symbols, etc.
● Identify and exam author organization for effectiveness (will use later in course)
Types of organization
deductive
narration
inductive
comparison/ contrast
exemplification
exposition
cause/ effect
persuasion
description
repetition
process analysis
syllogism
● Identify and analyze logical fallacies (will use later in course)
generalization
post hoc (ergo prompter hoc)
begging the question
false dilemma
either-or-reasoning
ad hominem
non-sequitur
straw man
red herring
slippery slope
●
Identify and analyze text for Aristotelian appeals (will use later in course)
ethos, pathos, logos
EXAMPLE DIALECTICAL JOURNAL ENTRIES
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
Text and Main Ideas
“Biologists often talk about the ‘ecology’ of an organism: the
tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew
from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other
trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and
rich, no rabbit chewed through its bard as a sapling, and no
lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We all know that
successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know
enough about…” (Gladwell 19).
Reactions and Details
Gladwell effectively uses metaphor here to illustrate the importance of
environment and situation when people (or trees) achieve success. His
explanation of sunlight, soil, etc. allows the reader to understand the
impact of the factors that allow someone to become successful.
Analyze text for use of literary devices. (What is used and how does it
affect text?)
Note that I included the main part of the quote, and then
used an ellipses (…) to shorten the quote for my journal
entry. This is acceptable, and encouraged, as long as you
are including the essential parts of the text in your journal
entries.
“Do you know what's interesting about that list? Of the 75
names, an astonishing 14 are Americans born within nine
years of each other in the mid-19th century. Think about that
for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the
Pharaohs and comb through every year in human history ever
since, looking in every corner of the world for evidence of
extraordinary wealth, and almost 20 percent of the names
they end up with come from a single generation in a single
country (Gladwell 32).
Gladwell develops a conversation with the reader by employing the second
person pronoun “you.” This makes it sound as though he were just passing
on information rather than an astounding fact. Additionally, Gladwell puts
the facts (logos) in an easy to read list, noting the millionaires’ birthdates,
so that his information seems airtight—absolutely true. This makes it
believable, thereby developing ethos. In any case, he convinced me that
his information is true, just by the way he set it up.
Discuss the language, ideas, or actions of the author or character.
Identify and analyze text for Aristotelian appeals.
"Those three things--autonomy, complexity, and a
connection between effort and reward--are, most people
agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be
satisfying" (Gladwell 149).
Gladwell repeats the use of “three” twice in the sentence. The repetition
underscores that he wants the reader to pay attention to those three
qualities. When reading the line, it urges us to go back and re-read the
three things listed. I agree with Gladwell—it seems like the assignments
that I have enjoyed the most in school have had all of those elements. I
have been able to work by myself and have some choice in what I was
working on, the work was challenging to me but not so challenging as to be
insanely difficult, and I felt confident that I would receive a good grade on
the assignment.
Discuss the language, ideas, or actions of the author or character.
State whether you agree or disagree with a character or the author.
(Provide explanation.)
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
“This change in Jem had come about in a matter of weeks.
Mrs. Dubose was not cold in her grave—Jem had seemed
grateful enough for my company when he went to read to her.
Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values
and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went
so far as to tell me what to do. After one altercation when Jem
hollered, “It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!” I
burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia” (Lee 153).
This passage is important to the characterization of both Jem and Scout. In
the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout are like partners in crime. They
play games together with Dill and seem to have strong brother-sister
relationship. At this point, Jem is twelve and is about to be a teenager. He
is changing and growing up. In this quote, Scout explains her frustration
and confusion that her brother is different. While Jem is suddenly
concerned about her role as a girl and wants her to “act right,” Scout is still
very much a tomboy and does not understand his new “alien” values. This
quote signifies that one sibling is growing up while the other struggles to
understand it.
Discuss the language, ideas, or actions of the author or character.
“One night, in an excessive spurt of high spirits, the boys
backed around the town square in a borrowed flivver . . .” (Lee
12).
Discuss the language, ideas, or actions of the author or character.
(Provide analysis and discussion of how it affects other characters,
plot, audience, text, etc.)
This doesn’t sound like a six year old, so it might not be realistic. However,
this is written as a flashback, so Scout must be much older now as she is
telling this. Maybe she is just smart. The author choice of language does
make us question narrator reliability.
Discuss author purpose, strategies used, effectiveness, and/or impact
on audience. (choice of narrator/language)
"…but there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that
Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led
almost exclusively with his left... and Tom Robinson now sits
before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he
possesses - his right hand" (Lee 272).
Atticus uses logos to appeal to the reader’s intellect as he explains that
Mayella was beaten by someone who had use of his left hand. He has
already presented evidence that Tom does not have use of his left hand.
Atticus disproves the possibility that Tom is guilty by providing solid
evidence that is logically sound.
Discuss author purpose, strategies used, effectiveness, and/or impact
on audience. (choice of narrator/language)
Identify and analyze text for Aristotelian appeals.