AP English Language and Composition 2016-2017

AP English Language and Composition 2016-2017 Instructor: Emily Connor [email protected] 843-902-5537 (call or text) Summer Reading Assignment Dear future-students, You have been recommended by one of your teachers to be enrolled in this course. This makes you part of my third class of AP English Language and Composition at North Charleston High School. Congratulations and welcome. You have a three-part summer reading assignment to complete prior to the first day of school, and you should note well that these three assignments are your first three major grades for the course. And grades in this course are hard to come by; I do not grade every ho hum1 scribble or word that I have you jot down on paper.2 This is all to say, it ill behooves3 you (as AP students) to ignore these assignments, and it (ignoring these assignments) will decimate4 your grade, to boot. Also, it (you ignoring these assignments) will make me sad.

I. A Pair of Meditative Exercises on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ open letter to his son entitled Between the World and Me (200 points) You will read Between the World and Me and complete two written tasks for the open letter. See below for instructions.

1) Double-Journal Entries (100 points) Complete at least ten double-journal entries. Your entries should span the entire novel. If you only have entries for the first section of the essay and none from the end, for example, you will not receive full credit. What is a double-journal entry? You can make a double-journal entry to help you connect with text in many ways: understand difficult ideas, learn new vocabulary, express your opinions about characters, etc. It is a two-column journal. In the left column, you write a quotation that you want to expand upon, understand better, or question. In the right hand column, you reflect on or analyze the quotation that you wrote in the left column. Below is an example of a double-entry journal for Walden by Henry David Thoreau. This example is taken from www.teachervision.com. Quotation and Page Number Reflection/Analysis "To be awake is to be alive." (from the I think that you can go though your whole life asleep if you chapter "Where I Lived and What I Lived don't stop and think about what you're doing. It's important For") to make conscious choices, especially when you're my age. "I should not talk so much about myself if I disagree with what Thoreau says here. I think that you can there were anybody else whom I knew as know another person as well as you know yourself. I know well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this by my best friend as well as I know myself. Sometimes, I don't the narrowness of my experience." (from the think I know myself well at all. chapter "Economy") Sometimes it is difficult to tell the truth because you don't "Say what you have to say, not what you want to hurt a person's feelings or because it's hard for you ought. Any truth is better than make- to admit something. It was hard for me to tell my dad that I believe." (from the Conclusion) didn't want to go to the same college he did, but I was glad that I told him afterwards.

2) Discussion Questions (100 points)

1 Ho hum (adj.): Boring or dull 2 And for the love of God: you must bring your own paper. 3 Behoove (v.): to be suitable; to befit 4 Decimate (v.): to kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of Answer each of the discussion questions (Attachment 1) for Between the World and Me with a minimum of one paragraph each. In each paragraph, you must make at least one reference to the text.

*If you do not make a text reference, you will not receive credit for your answer.

You will need to use a separate sheet of paper. If you have access to a computer, please type and print your answers.

______1. Did you like the essay? If yes, what was one of your favorite passages and why? If not, what was one of your least favorite passages and why?

2. On page 7, Coates writes: “But race is the child of racism, not the father.” He seems to be suggesting here that racism precedes (comes before) race and that, without racism, there is no category of race. Do you agree?

3. In the same paragraph, Coates puts genealogy and physiognomy in opposition to hierarchy. He writes: “that the preeminence of hue and hair…can correctly organize a society…that they signify deeper attributes…is the new idea…” (7). What Coates appears to be saying here is that in a different social system, genealogy (parents, grandparents, etc.) and physiognomy (physical features of the face) would be just that, but in America (and elsewhere to be sure) they determine hierarchy. Is this way of looking at race and racism new to you? Does Coates put words to what is otherwise taken for granted or is he dispelling a myth about American social equality?

4. On page eleven, Coates introduces “the Dream.” What is “the Dream” according to Coates? Who gets to access “the Dream” and who does not? Does the idea of “the Dream” seem familiar to you? How so?

5. Coates writes: “The Dream is the enemy of all art, courageous thinking, and honest writing.” (page 50) What does he mean by this? Is there a relationship between the creative arts (art, writing, music etc.) and being an outsider?

6. On page 60, Coates states “Hate gives identity.” What does he mean? How can we make sense of this bold statement in the context of our identities as Americans?

7. Coates says on page 69 that “…the struggle, in and of itself, has meaning.” What is he talking about here? What is the meaning in struggle?

8. “Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be” (71). What is Coates saying? What does he mean when he writes “the god of history is an atheist?”

9. Coates writes that “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage” (103). How do you understand that sentence?

10. The title of Coates’s book comes from the following poem by Richard Wright that recounts a lynching. Read the poem carefully and think about how the title relates to Coates’ argument. Why might Coates have chosen this name for his book? What understanding can we gain by reading these texts side-by-side?

Between the World and Me by Richard Wright

And one morning while in the woods I stumbled suddenly upon the thing, Stumbled upon it in a grassy clearing guarded by scaly oaks and elms And the sooty details of the scene rose, thrusting themselves between the world and me....

There was a design of white bones slumbering forgottenly upon a cushion of ashes. There was a charred stump of a sapling pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky. There were torn tree limbs, tiny veins of burnt leaves, and a scorched coil of greasy hemp; A vacant shoe, an empty tie, a ripped shirt, a lonely hat, and a pair of trousers stiff with black blood. And upon the trampled grass were buttons, dead matches, butt-ends of cigars and cigarettes, peanut shells, a drained gin-flask, and a whore's lipstick; Scattered traces of tar, restless arrays of feathers, and the lingering smell of gasoline. And through the morning air the sun poured yellow surprise into the eye sockets of the stony skull....

And while I stood my mind was frozen within cold pity for the life that was gone. The ground gripped my feet and my heart was circled by icy walls of fear-- The sun died in the sky; a night wind muttered in the grass and fumbled the leaves in the trees; the woods poured forth the hungry yelping of hounds; the darkness screamed with thirsty voices; and the witnesses rose and lived: The dry bones stirred, rattled, lifted, melting themselves into my bones. The grey ashes formed flesh firm and black, entering into my flesh.

The gin-flask passed from mouth to mouth, cigars and cigarettes glowed, the whore smeared lipstick red upon her lips, And a thousand faces swirled around me, clamoring that my life be burned....

And then they had me, stripped me, battering my teeth into my throat till I swallowed my own blood. My voice was drowned in the roar of their voices, and my black wet body slipped and rolled in their hands as they bound me to the sapling. And my skin clung to the bubbling hot tar, falling from me in limp patches. And the down and quills of the white feathers sank into my raw flesh, and I moaned in my agony. Then my blood was cooled mercifully, cooled by a baptism of gasoline. And in a blaze of red I leaped to the sky as pain rose like water, boiling my limbs Panting, begging I clutched childlike, clutched to the hot sides of death. Now I am dry bones and my face a stony skull staring in yellow surprise at the sun....

II. A Compendious5 Study of Literary Terms (100 points)

5 Compendious (adj.): presenting the essentials facts of something in a comprehensive but concise way To be successful as an AP English Language and Composition student, there are about sixty terms that you must be familiar with before we begin the school year. These are terms that I want you to incorporate into your daily lives as you begin to see the world as a text to be read, interpreted, and then shaped into new forms. For each term below, write a clear definition and include at least two examples that demonstrate what each device or term is. Keep in mind that this compendious study of literary terms is something that you will keep and add to over the course of the entire school year. Make it durable and beautiful. Here is an extensive PDF file of A Glossary of Literary Terms by M. H. Abrams that might help you find some definitions and examples: http://mthoyibi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/a-glossary-of-literary-terms-7th-ed_m-h-abrams-1999.pdf 1. abstract 22. exposition 42. persuasion 2. allegory 43. plot 23. extended metaphor 3. allusion 44. point of view 24. falling action 4. ambiguity 45. protagonist 25. figurative language 5. analogy 46. realism 26. flashback 6. anecdote 47. repetition 27. foil 7. antagonist 48. rhetoric 28. foreshadow 8. archetype 49. satire 29. genre 9. atmosphere 50. setting 30. hyperbole 10. characterization 51. simile 31. imagery 11. climax 52. situational irony 32. irony 12. concrete 53. speaker 33. juxtaposition 13. conflict 54. style 34. metaphor 14. connotation 55. symbol 35. mood 15. denotation 56. syntax 36. motif 16. denouement 57. theme 37. narrator 17. dialect 58. tone 38. onomatopoeia 18. diction 59. understatement 39. oxymoron 19. dramatic irony 60. verbal irony 40. paradox 20. epic 41. personification 21. euphemisms