June 2017 Honors English 11 Summer Assignment

Dear Student,

You are scheduled for Honors English 11 for the 2016-17 school year. This choice on your part indicates a willingness to challenge yourself beyond what would normally be required of you.

In the meantime, you should be preparing yourself for our work. Read, read, read, and then read some more. Develop commitment to the continuing improvement of your writing skills, and come prepared in September to share your ideas in class.

Please read carefully through the summer assignment and rubric. Feel free to contact Mrs. Darroch ([email protected]) or Mrs. Sommerville ([email protected]) with any questions you might have over the summer.

ONE HELPFUL SUGGESTION: DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE END OF AUGUST TO START! There is quite a bit to be done, and waiting will only make the end of your summer unnecessarily stressful.

***This assignment will be collected in September during our first class meeting.***

Your essay MUST include quotes from the novel to support your claims. These quotes need to be CITED within the essay in the appropriate MLA format. Failure to cite is PLAGIARISM and will be given a score of a “0.”

Example: (Fitzgerald 34) Summer Assignment Part I – Choose a Novel

Choose a piece of 20th century American Literature (1900 – Present) Your novel MUST have a villain and must be at least 250 pages

Consider selecting a work from one of the following authors:

Jane Smiley Maya Angelou Barbara Kingsolver Ernest Hemingway James Baldwin Tim O’Brien Christopher Moore Stephen King Pearl S. Buck Anna Quindlan Terry MacMillan Ralph Ellison Sylvia Plath Thomas Pynchon Dan Brown Alice Walker John Updike Jean Toomer Zora Neale Hurston Upton Sinclair Nella Larsen Amy Tan Kurt Vonnegut, Jr Langston Hughes Edith Wharton Ray Bradbury Eudora Welty Thomas Wolfe Sue Monk Kidd Carson McCullough Robert Penn Warren Henry Roth Bernard Malamud Chaim Potok Larry McMurtry Thomas Berger John Barth Ken Kesey Katherine Dunn Don DeLillo Gish Jen Tom Perrotta

Summer Assignment Part II – Essay Response

Create an essay that effectively addresses the following Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Open Question.

THIS IS THE WRITING PROMPT:

From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then… analyze the nature of the character’s villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work

***Be sure to avoid unnecessary summarizing of the novel and FOCUS on HOW the villain and the actions of the villain contribute to the MEANING of the work.***

Your essay should be two (2) double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, typed pages or four (4) handwritten ones. Honors 11 Summer Assignment Scoring Rubric

9-8 These well-focused and persuasive essays identify a position using the background information learned in class. The essay also supports how the literary technique contributes to the vision of the work as a whole. Using apt textual support, these essays not only explore the nature of a philosophy, but they also analyze how that philosophy contributes to the work as whole. Although not without flaws, these essays exhibit the writer’s ability to analyze a literary work with insight and understanding, to control a thesis, and to write with clarity, precision, coherence, and – in the case of a nine (9) essay – with particular persuasiveness and/or stylistic flair.

7-6 These competent essays identify a philosophy in an appropriate novel or play and analyze that work in conjunction with the selected philosophy. They also attempt to articulate how that philosophy contributes to the work as a while. Although these essays have some insight, the analysis provided by the 7-6 essays is less thorough, less perceptive, and/or less specific in supporting detail than that of the 9-8 essays. References to the text may not be as apt or as persuasive. Essays scored a seven (7) will demonstrate more sophistication in both substance and style than those scored a six (6), though both 7’s and 6’s will be generally well-written and free from significant or sustained misinterpretations.

5 These essays tend to be superficial in analysis even though they may respond to the assigned task and may offer a plausible interpretation of an appropriate novel or play. They often rely upon plot summary that contains some analysis, implicit or explicit. Although they may obliquely attempt to explain the theme, the philosophy, they may demonstrate a rather simplistic understanding of it. Typically, these essays reveal unsophisticated thinking and/or immature writing.

4-3 These lower-half essays reflect an incomplete or oversimplified understanding of the work discussed, or they may fail to establish how the philosophy is tied in to the literary work. They may rely on plot summary alone. Their assertions may be unsupported or even irrelevant. Often wordy, elliptical, or repetitious, these essays lack control over the elements of advanced composition. Essays scored a three (3) exhibit more than one of the stylistic errors; they may also be marred by significant misinterpretation and/or poor development

2-1 These essays compound the weaknesses of the papers in the 4-3 range. Often, they are unacceptably brief. They may be poorly written on several counts and contain distracting errors in grammar and mechanics. The writer’s remarks are presented with little clarity, organization, or supporting evidence. Especially inept, vacuous, and/or unsound essays must be scored a one (1)

0 These essays give a response with no more than a reference to the task -- These essays are either left blank or are completely off-topic