Honors/AP American Literature Summer Assignment: Introducing a Significant American Author
11th graders taking this course are expected to complete the following work over the summer and be prepared to share their work on the first day we return to school, SEPTEMBER 9th, 2020.
Overview: This assignment is the first phase of a multi-faceted, year-long author study project. For this first phase, students will preview a list of American authors, choose the author they want to focus on, conduct some preliminary research about the author and prepare an engaging way to share key info about their author with others.
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to establish a basic understanding of who their chosen author is and what they generally write about, while also priming their research skills.
Accessing & Submitting Summer Work: ● The complete instructions & resources for this assignment are provided below. ● These instructions are also posted in our Google Classroom. The code to join is: xs75ntj ● This assignment can be in a digital or non-digital format, whatever works best for you. ● You may bring your work in hand to class, or submit it to the google classroom where this assignment is posted.
Steps for Your Success: ● Preview the List of Approved American Authors provided below. Click on any of the authors’ names to take you to the wikipedia page for that author, where you can read some basic information about them. If there is another American author that you are interested in and they are not on the list, please contact me.
● Select the author you will focus on for the entirety of the year-long author study. ● Find & read 3 reputable or scholarly sources that discuss your chosen author. While you may certainly read about your author on “crowd-sourced” informational websites like Wikipedia, Fandom, etc., “crowd-sourced” websites will not count as a reputable or scholarly source.
● Assemble a creative, interesting, and informative way to introduce important aspects of your author to others. This may take the form of anything listed on the Format Options page provided below. You must weave in clear references to the 3 reputable/scholarly sources from which you got your information.
● If you have any questions or obstacles to completing this summer work, please email or call Mrs. Blount ([email protected] or 503-543-4202). ● Practice presenting so that you are comfortable when we start in the fall!
List of Approved American Authors Click on the Author’s name to be directed to their Wikipedia page for general information. This is not an exhaustive list. If there is another author you are interested in, please contact Mrs. Blount: [email protected] or 503-543-4202. Sherman Alexie Ernest J. Gaines Flannery O’Connor Isabel Allende William Gibson Eugene O’Neill Julia Alvarez Charlotte Perkins Gilman Joyce Carol Oates Maya Angelou Allen Ginsburg Chuck Palahniuk Isaac Asimov Ernest Hemingway Dorothy Parker James Baldwin Dashiell Hammett Tom Perrotta Saul Bellow Joseph Heller Katherine Anne Porter Ray Bradbury Frank Herbert Ezra Pound Pearl S. Buck Khaled Hosseini E. Annie Proulx William S. Burroughs Zora Neale Hurston Thomas Pynchon Truman Capote John Irving Edgar Allan Poe Willa Cather Washington Irving Philip Roth Raymond Carver Shirley Jackson Salman Rushdie Michael Chabon Gish Jen Robert Schenkkan Raymond Chandler Sarah Orne Jewett Sam Shepard Kate Chopin Jack Kerouac Jane Smiley Sandra Cisneros Ken Kesey Wallace Stegner James Fenimore Cooper Sue Monk Kidd John Steinbeck Stephen Crane Barbara Kingsolver Harriet Beecher Stowe Don DeLillo Maxine Hong Kingston William Styron Junot Diaz Jhumpa Larihi Amy Tan Philip K. Dick Chang-Rae Lee Hunter S. Thompson Emily Dickinson Ursula K. LeGuin John Kennedy Toole Joan Didion Elmore Leonard Anne Tyler Chitra B. Divakaruni Sinclair Lewis John Updike E.L. Doctorow Jack London Kurt Vonnegut Theodore Dreiser H.P Lovecraft Tom Waits Bob Dylan Bernard Malamud Alice Walker Jennifer Egan David Mamet David Foster Wallace T.S. Eliot Cormac McCarthy Edith Wharton Bret Easton Ellis Carson McCullers Walt Whitman Ralph Ellison Herman Melville Thornton Wilder Louise Erdrich Arthur Miller Tennessee Williams Jeffrey Eugenides Toni Morrison August Wilson William Faulkner Celeste Ng Tobias Wolff Jonathan Franzen Viet Thanh Nguyen Meg Wolitzer Robert Frost Tim O’Brien Richard Wright
FORMAT OPTIONS
Your assignment can take the form of one or more of any of the following formats. You may combine several of the following formats to create a thorough, engaging introduction of your chosen author. If you have an idea that is not on this list, please contact Mrs. Blount ([email protected] or 503-543-4202)
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