Senior Summer Homework 2015 for 7’s Section I: Reading and Writing 1. Your most important job is simply to spend time reading over the summer. Feed yourself with good books. At least ​two​ of those books should be chosen from the Senior Summer 2015 Reading List on the Arbor Community website. ​Whatever books you read, keep a neat list of the titles and authors. 2. Please spend at least an hour reading poetry by Rabindranath Tagore (see the Arbor Library or your public library for titles;; his poetry is also available online). Select three of your favorite Tagore poems and write each one out neatly by hand so that we can make a collection in the first week of school. 3. Read at least one book from the following list. Read actively, marking passages that interest you with sticky notes or the like. You will need to use page numbers when you do the writing assignment below. Tusk and Stone​ by Malcolm Boss The Conch Bearer ​by Chitra Divakaruni Siddhartha ​by Hermann Hesse Shabanu​ by Suzanne Fisher Staples Shiva's Fire​ by Suzanne Fisher Staples The Broken Tusk​ by Uma Krishnaswami Boys Without Names​ by Kashmira Seth 4. After reading one of these titles, spend a total of approximately two hours writing a response to ​one​ of the prompts below. Make sure to spend some of that time pre-­writing, some drafting, some revising and editing, and some making a clean second draft. ​Turn in all drafts! ● Prompt #1: After reading, think about how one of the main characters faces situations involving cultural tradition. Referring to specific page numbers, find examples of your character having either to maintain tradition or change it and explain these examples. What is your opinion of the character's choices and why? ● Prompt #2: From your book, choose one character and explain how he or she faced conflict in the story. What was the cause of the conflict or conflicts? What were the consequences? Do you agree with the character's decisions? Why or why not? Find and 4201 SW Borland Road Tualatin, Oregon 97062 503.638.6399 www.arborschool.org describe, referring to specific page numbers, at least two examples from the book that support your points. Section II: Mapping and Writing Create a map of Africa -­-­ that is, a map of the area that extends from about 20 degrees W longitude to 55 degrees E longitude and from about 40 degrees S latitude to about 40 degrees N latitude. Your map should be on a piece of paper that is about 17” by 20” or larger, and the map should take up most of the page. You should label the lines of latitude and longitude on your map with degrees and compass points (for example, “30 degrees N”). Your map should include a scale indicating approximate distances. (This can actually be pretty tricky! If you are using one of our pre-­made grids or outlines, we’ve put the approximate scale on them.) Your map should include the major physical features of the area. In this case, that includes (but need not be limited to) the Congo, Nile, Niger, Zambezi, and Limpopo rivers, the Atlas, Ahmar, and Drakensberg Mountains, and the Sahara and Kalahari Deserts. (Please note that these names are transliterations from other languages, so the spellings may vary a bit in different atlases.) These physical features must be visible from a decent distance (in other words, use, for example, a thin sharpie or bold colors to draw and label them). Your map should have your name clearly displayed on it. You have three options for making the outline of your map: 1. You can use one of the pre-­made grid and continent outlines that are available in the Arbor Office. If you do this, please trace that grid and outline onto a separate sheet of paper rather than using the two sheets of paper that the pre-­made ones are on (this is the only way that we can make them in the photocopier!). 2. You can use one of the pre-­made grids that are available in the Arbor Office and put the outline of the land on yourself. Again, if you choose to do this, please trace the grid first onto a single piece of paper. 3. You can create your own map from scratch by first drawing the latitude and longitude lines as you practiced in the Intermediates. Your map should be beautiful -­-­ that is, a product of careful, conscientious work -­-­ and it should be something that you are proud to see displayed. These maps will hang on the school walls throughout the year, partly in order to be a reference, but also to beautify the campus and to 4201 SW Borland Road Tualatin, Oregon 97062 503.638.6399 www.arborschool.org serve as an example for guests of the sort of work that Arbor students are capable of. We would suggest that you use color, but it is certainly possible for a black-­and-­white map to be beautiful. This year, in Science, you will be studying geology, and, on your map, you should include an inset that shows the tectonic plate boundaries for the area that you're studying. Actually, to get some good tectonic plate information, it should include a larger area, from about 50 degrees West to 60 degrees East, and from about 60 degrees South to 45 degrees North. If you are tracing one of Arbor's pre-­made maps, the inset is included on them. If you are making your map from scratch, you can choose where to put your inset. (You might want to have a look at Arbor's maps to get the idea.) In order to find the tectonic plate boundaries, google the phrase "tectonic plate boundaries with longitude" and you will get plenty of images. Your map should include either historical information or another layer of current information of some kind. For example, you might choose a moment in African history (using an historical atlas) or include some aspect of modern Africa (for example, climate, population data, economic data, major cities, religious distribution, language distribution, and so on). You can put this information directly onto your map or make an overlay. Please remember to include a key as well as a date or dates of the information being depicted. Once you've finished your map, it's time to pause and consider what that map tells you. Your job is to make a list of inferences about the way that you think people live or lived in Africa. Your inferences should be in full sentences. For example, you might write, "I think that ______ and ______ might have been two places that cities would have existed early on in the history of Africa because ..." or "I think that some of best places for farming in Africa might be ______ and ________ because ...." Challenge yourself to make as many inferences as you can. Think about the ways that physical environments (including latitude -­-­ as in, how far North or South an area is) might affect people. Might the environment affect things like trade or the spread of ideas? Might the environment affect how many and what kinds of natural resources people have access to? Might it affect military matters like the conquest of one group by another? Might it affect how many languages are spoken and where the speakers of those languages live? Some of your inferences should definitely be about the additional layer of historical or modern information that you put into your map (for instance, if you've mapped Gross National Product, how does that appear to be related to African geography?). Be sure to pay attention to the scale of the map while you do this work, and compare it in your mind to distances that you're familiar with (for example, it's about 200 miles from Portland to Seattle). Gdoc/7s summer homework, 2015-­16 6.16.15 4201 SW Borland Road Tualatin, Oregon 97062 503.638.6399 www.arborschool.org