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Home , David McCullough, Edmund Morris (writer), Historical figure, Jon Meacham, Kai Bird

AP US Summer Assignment (Busbin, 2018) Reminder: Schedule change requests for the 2018-2019 school year will end June 16* Therefore, any student registered for AP US History 11 after June 16th is responsible for completing the summer reading assignment. Purpose of Summer Reading: • Challenge students to consider a key figue within American history and grapple with his or her place in historical memory • Encourage students to practice and apply college-level reading and analysis of texts • Prepare students for close reading/analysis as well as historical thinking as required by AP College Board

The Assignment: 1. Select a biography of an American historical figure: A list of recommended books can be found on the back. Some of these can be borrowed from Dr. Busbin and others can be found at the Auburn Public Library. One can purchase a copy of their chosen book as well. Before you commence with reading a book not on the list, please have this approved by Dr. Busbin ([email protected]). Any book chosen must be longer than 250 pages (not including index, appendix, etc.) and should NOT be a memoir (first-hand account) or written in historical fiction style.

2. Complete the Major Works Data Sheet (80-point homework grade): • The Major Works Data Sheet, which is an 80-POINT homework grade, is DUE the first day of class. Late assignments will be penalized 8 points PER DAY for each day it is late. [must contact in advance if there is a problem with this deadline] • Please correctly complete all of the boxes on the Major Works Data Sheet regarding your reading of your selected biography. Note: You may type the responses if your handwriting is either too large or ilegible and submit responses on a separate sheet(s) of paper. • Before you begin reading, preview the Major Works Data Sheet to see what type of information you need to note as you read. • As you are reading, identify and record the information required. • After you have finished reading, be sure that you have completed each part of the assignment. • Make certain that wherever you are asked to include text quotations and page numbers, you do so. No half-efforts or excuses. Don’t throw this together at the last minute. Don’t copy information from others—from either online (That’s plagiarism and will result in a zero on the assignment) or from other students in the class (That’s cheating and will also result in a zero). Remember: This is my first impression of you. Make it a good one!

3. Compose a précis analysis paragraph based on your reading of your selected biography (25-point test grade): Prior to the first day of class, you will use your completed Major Works Data Sheet and your knowledge of the book to complete a précis (See following pages for prompt, précis template, and example). Bring the précis and Major Works Data Sheet with you on the first day of school, regardless of if you have your AP US History class on your schedule for that day or not. Sometimes students’ schedules change over the summer. Please be prepared.

A word of caution: American history is not always clean, pretty, or happy. Many of its figures, when moving beyond the Magic Treehouse series, often lived complex lives with elements that might distort how we see them as well as ourselves. Some of the texts we read in class explore adult themes and issues while, in some cases, utilizing adult language and scenarios. Reading works that investigate difficult aspects of American history does not ever mean that we condone or celebrate the material covered. Instead, AP classes are designed to allow students to understand American history and the related human experiences in both their celebratory and disheartening moments. I expect my students to be mature readers (or at least on their way to being so). Keep this in mind as you read and write this summer.

---Please feel free to contact Dr. Busbin with any questions at [email protected]

*Students requesting a schedule change after the first day of school and only during the first ten days of each semester must receive approval from the principal or designated administrator and will pay a schedule change fee per course they request to be changed. Be aware that we may not be able to honor the requests due to classes that are at capacity or if a conflict exists between current and required courses and desired courses.

SOME BIOGRAPHY RECOMMENDATIONS [Note that this is not comprehensive, but just some ones I like]

PRESIDENTS: Washington: A Life ()*; The Ascent of (John Ferling); : A Life (David McCullough)*; Adams v. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (John Ferling)*; Friends Divided: John Adams and (Gordon Wood); Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (John Meacham)*; American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (Joseph Ellis); James Madison (Richard Brookhiser)*; The Last Founding Father: James Monroe (Harlow Unger)*; Mr. Adams’ Last Crusade: ’ Extraordinary Post- Presidential Life in Congress (Joseph Wheelan); : in the ()*; Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison ( Owens); A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk (Robert Merry)*; Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)*; A. Lincoln: A Biography (Ronald C. White); Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (James McPherson)*; The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (Eric Foner)*; Impeached: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy (David Stewart); Grant (Jean Edward Smith)*; The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses S. Grant in (H.W. Brands); Destiny of the : A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President (Candice Millard)*; Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character (Alyn Brodsky); President McKinley: Architect of the American Century (Robert Merry); The Bully Pulpit: , , and the Golden Age of Journalism (Doris Kearns Goodwin)*#; Theodore Rex (); Colonel Roosevelt (Edmund Morris); Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (Douglas Brinkley)*; (A. Scott Berg)*; The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made (Patricia O’Toole); Coolidge (Amity Shales); Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (Kenneth Whyte); FDR (Jean Edward Smith)*; Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of FDR (H.W. Brands); No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (Doris Kearns Goodwin)*#; (David McCullough)*; Eisenhower in War and Peace (Jean Edward Smith)*; An Unfinished Life: JFK 1917-1963 (Robert Dallek)*; Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times (Robert Dallek); Richard Nixon: The Life (John Farrell); The Unfinished Presidency: ’s Journey Beyond the White House (Douglas Brinkley); Reagan: The Life (H.W. Brands); : The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (Jon Meacham); The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (John Harris)*; Bush (Jean Edward Smith)

OTHER POLITICAL FIGURES: A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (Michael Kazin)*; George Kennan: An American Life ( Gaddis); Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (Jim Newton); Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon (Larry Tye); Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow); Without Precedent: Chief Justice and His Times (Joel Richard Paul); Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (Rick Perlstein); Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations (Craig Nelson); The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (Randy Shilts)

TRAITORS, REBELS, AND CRIMINALS: Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Nancy Isenberg); The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life (Joyce Lee Malcolm); Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson (S.C. Gwynne); Robert E. Lee: A Biography (Emory Thomas); Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend (Deirdre Bair); Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (T.J. Stiles)*

AWESOME WOMEN: Eleanor Roosvelt (Blanche Wiesen Cook)*; The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins (Kristin Downey)*; : A Life (Woody Holton)*; America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Sarah Bradford)*; American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson (Eve LaPlante)*; Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (Elliott Gorn)*; Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol (Nell Irvin Painter)*

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS: Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement (Barbara Ransby)*; Up From History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (Robert Norrell); This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Kay Mills)*; The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Jeanne Theoharis); Stokely: A Life (Peniel Joseph); Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (Juan Williams); Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ()*; Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Manning Marble)*

MILITARY: The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government (David Talbot)*; Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (Lewis Sorley)*; The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (Max Boot)*; A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (Neil Sheehan)*; Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior (Arthur Herman); Stanton: Lincoln’s War Secretary (Walter Stahr); Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman (Robert O’Connell); The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the (John Oller); The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend (Bob Drury)*; The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau (Alex Kershaw)*

AMERICAN REFORMERS: The Other Half: The Life of Jaboc Riis and the World of Immigrant America (Tom Buk-Swienty); Jonathan Edwards: A Life (George Marsden); On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson, the Author of Silent Spring (William Souder)*; To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells (Mia Bay); An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century (Jack Davis); Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (John G. Turner)*; Helen Keller: A Life (Dorothy Herrman)*; Jane Addams: A Spirit in Action (Louise Knight); Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion (Jean Sanger)*; A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot (Mary Walton)*

ARTISTS AND WRITERS: Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography (David Reynolds); Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography (Susan Cheever); John James Audubon: The Making of an American (Richard Rhodes)*; Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism (Thomas Brothers)*; Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor (Brad Gooch)*; The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism ()*; Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston (Valerie Boyd)*; Ernest Hemingway (Mary Dearborn)

ECONOMIC MOVERS & INVENTORS: The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Invented the Modern World (Randall Stross); Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Neal Gabler); Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller (Ron Chernow)*; American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer ()*; Einstein: His Life and Universe (Walter Isaacson); Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (Walter Isaakson); Andrew Carnegie (David Nasaw)*; The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (TJ Stiles)*

*Denotes a book owned by Dr. Busbin and available to be loaned AP© US HISTORY (Dr. Busbin) NOTE: If you cannot fit the required information in the designated boxes, you may attach additional pieces of Name: ______paper to complete the assignment. Block: ______(2B; 2W; 3B; 3W; 4B; 4W) MAJOR WORKS DATA SHEET Context of the Period (describe how the author perceives the Based on your explanation to the left, describe four events period in which their historical figure of attention acted; of the time that define the period. consider attitudes, conflicts, trends, etc.): 1)

2)

3)

4)

Author’s Defining View: Select three quotes from throughout the text, not limited to just the prologue or conclusion, that reveal how the author interprets their subject. These should reveal insight into the personality or character of the individual

Page #:______Quote:

Page #:______Quote:

Page #:______Quote:

Responses should meet the TASK expectation, the basis for AP US History reading assignments: Thorough, Accurate, Specific, and include the Key Information

RELATING THE TEXT TO GREAT MAN OF HISTORY THEORY CONSIDERING CHALLENGES: Fact/Quotation and page # Select 4 facts OR quotes that demonstrate the defining challenges this figure faced in their time, whether it be external (enemies, war, politics) or internal (character flaw, physical limitation, etc.). (1) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

(2) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

(3) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

(4) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

CONSIDERING CONTRIBUTIONS: Fact/Quotation and page # Select 4 facts OR quotes that demonstrate the contribution that they made to American society as well as explain the contribution’s effect or impact (be sure to cite the page numbers in which this is addressed):

(1) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

Effect/Impact:

(2) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

Effect/Impact:

(3) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

Effect/Impact:

(4) _____#Page Quote/Fact:

Effect/Impact

Responses should meet the TASK expectation, the basis for AP US History reading assignments: Thorough, Accurate, Specific, and include the Key Information

AP US HISTORY SUMMER ASSIGNMENT PRÉCIS PROMPT

DIRECTIONS: After reading your assigned biography and completing the Major Works Data Sheet, use the template on the following page to compose a précis paragraph in response to the prompt below.

CONTEXT: According to the text Reading Rhetorically: A…précis differs from a summary in that it is a less neutral, more analytical condensation of both the content and method of the original text. If you think of a summary as primarily a brief representation of what a text says, then you might think of the rhetorical précis as a brief representation of what a text both says and does. Although less common than a summary, a rhetorical précis is a particularly useful way to sum up your understanding of how a text works rhetorically. (Bean, Chappell, and Gillam 62)

In this précis, you will analyze the degree to which history shaped your figure or how your figure shaped history as interpreted by the author of the text. As an abstract theory, the Great Man of History Theory () was established in the 19th century. It argues that history is largely the collection of biographies belonging to great men (and women). It rests on largely two major assumptions:

• Great leaders are born possessing certain traits than enable them to rise and lead • Great leaders arise when the need for them is greatest

Those who prescribe to this theory believe that these men and women have certain character traits that allow them to rise above those around him or her. In doing so, they accomplish great feats that shape history on behalf of those who rely upon them. Up through the 1950s, this concept largely remained the defining explanation for leadership. Yet, over time, others began to critique this theory, specifically the human theorist . These critics argued that great leaders and contributors to society were largely first shaped by the society around them, thus a product of their surroundings. This theory also began to reflect emerging leadership theory that leadership could be taught and molded, as opposed to being a natural trait. Thus, leaders are a product of their circumstances, rather than truly driving their time era. Both of these fields of thought are still adopted by historians today. Thus, from your own analysis and critical thinking, you will have to determine the degree to which your book’s author portrays the chosen historical figure in one way or another. Therefore, you will not only be analyzing your figure, but also the intepretation put forth in the text.

PROMPT: To what extent did your book either demonstrate or disprove the Great Man Theory in respect to the historical figure it highlighted?

FORMAT: Your précis should be typed, double-spaced, and utilize a size 12 Times New Roman font and MLA format for heading/header and citations of the text. Do not copy anyone else’s work, as this is cheating and will result in a ZERO for the assignment.

MLA FORMAT HEADING

Your Name Dr. Busbin Course Title Due Date

AP US HISTORY 11 PRÉCIS TEMPLATE (25-point test grade)

The précis format is a highly structured, six-sentence paragraph that blends summary and analysis. The most important part of the paragraph is the analysis part. The summary is used to provide context for the insights revealed in the analysis statements. Below is the format you should follow to complete your précis paragraph:

THE FIRST SENTENCE (Claim/Central Argument of Paragraph): Includes the text’s title and author, uses a power verb (such as argues, suggests, or claims; not says or shows), follows the verb with the word that, and provides your main assertion for the paragraph identifying the degree to which the figure best reflects the Great Man Theory or its criticism. [Context + Title + Author’s full name] + [power verb] + [that clause] + [central claim].

EXAMPLE: In his extensive analysis of the great French leader : A Life, author Andrew argues that Napoleon Bonaparte took the reins of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century and, through his own leadership, largely defined the next ten years of European history; overall, to Roberts, Napoleon serves as an exemplar of the Great Man Theory.

THE SECOND SENTENCE (First Evidence of Claim/Argument): [Author’s last name] + [a power verb] + dimension of the figure or period [name the evidence] + [expand on provided evidence or couple with similar evidence] + [explain a specific use of evidence in the text that demonstrates the argument].

EXAMPLE: Roberts establishes Napoleon as a dynamic leader in civil and economic areas led by a deeply moral and driven persona coupled with great attention to detail in the tasks he took on.

THE THIRD SENTENCE (Commentary/Elaboration): The author’s purpose is to [insert purpose] in order to [include what larger point or understanding you think the author is demonstrating with this evidence].

EXAMPLE: Through this portrayal, Roberts seeks to establish Napoleon as the sole driver of the revolutionary ideals in Europe, which then upon introduction began the movement away from absolute monarchies during the next one hundred years.

THE FOURTH SENTENCE AND FIFTH SENTENCES: You will repeat the process from the second and third sentences by either adding new evidence that supports the overall idea or through providing countering evidence to reveal a shift or rebuttal to the original evidence.

THE SIXT SENTENCE (Closure of Argument): Revisits the central argument of the paragraph, but “wraps” the paragraph together through circling back to the primary claim. Does not seek to introduce new information.

FULL PARAGRAPH EXAMPLE: In his extensive analysis of the great French leader Napoleon: A Life, author Andrew Roberts argues that th Napoleon Bonaparte took the reins of the French Revolution at the end of the 18 century and, through his own leadership, largely defined the next ten years of European history; overall, to Roberts, Napoleon serves as an exemplar of the Great Man Theory. Roberts establishes Napoleon as a dynamic leader in civil and economic areas led by a deeply moral and driven persona coupled with great attention to detail in the tasks he took on. Through this portrayal, Roberts seeks to establish Napoleon as the sole driver of the revolutionary ideals in Europe, which then upon introduction began the movement away from absolute monarchies during the next one hundred years. Yet, Roberts counters his own Great Man Theory portrayal with a reduction in the vision of Napoleon as the great general as Roberts meticulously unpacks the central campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. To Roberts, Napoleon’s battlefield success occurred through a combination of good fortune, poor decisions by opponents, and the skill of fellow French military leaders, not the sole result of his own abilities. Thus, Robert’s vision of Napoleon upholds the Great Man Theory in one respect, his governing vision, but Napoleon’s legendary military status is discredited in some part as well.