AP Composition
Summer Reading
2017/18
All work is due on the first full day of school in September. Students are to complete
their assignments independently and without using study guides. Students can expect
tests on their summer reading when they return to school in September.
Everything’s an Argument (6th Edition – Red or 7th Edition Green )
Students will read the Chapter one packet and annotate the important ideas. All notes should be
written or highlighted in the packet Do not share work. . Notes will be checked.
Be prepared for testing on the material in this book at the start of school. Expect a quiz on the
chapter when you return to school in September.
In Cold Blood
Students will read and annotate In Cold Blood. Note specific examples of journalistic and
fictional techniques. Since this is a writing course, focus on identifying the techniques used by the
author to persuade the audience to consider his claim. Authors sometimes digress to control the
pace of the piece; find a couple examples of this technique.
As you read, collect a minimum of 20 quotes from throughout the book that exemplify the
author’s use of a writing technique (from the list of devices).Devices should be located
throughout the book not condensed in the first few chapters. Do not use any device more than
twice. Do not “share” work. Label the technique and include the entire quote and the page it is
on in an MLA citation, do not use ellipsis.
*All notes should be handwritten on lined paper. Typed notes will not be accepted.*
*See attached list of literary devices. Locate most of the devices at least once in the text. Do not
identify any single device more than three times in the book. Figurative language is
particularly important.
In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood chart – Can be typed in the format shown below.
Truman Capote uses a “filmic technique when writing In Cold Blood. The narrative shifts from
the story of the Clutters to the story of Dick and Perry like a film might follow two narrative
threads.
Design and create a chart that identifies the places that the narrative shifts (include page numbers
using MLA format). Include the device Capote uses to move from the story to the other. The
chart must include all of the shifts in the section “The Last to See Them Alive” (3-74).
Example:
Characters/ Location/pages Shifts to characters/ location
Shift device
pages
Herb Clutter at home
Perry at Little Jewel Café – has
Imagery - taste
Holcomb, Kansas (3-13)
breakfast, root beer and aspirin
Herb ate an apple, “like Mr.
Eats an apple, “unaware it
Clutter…Perry never drank
would be his last [day alive].
coffee (14)
Dick in his car, outside the
Nancy at home called to the phone
Sound imagery – car horn,
drugstore honks horn (17).
by Kenyon.
Kenyon’s voice