English 305 - AP English Language & Composition Summer Reading Assignments

Hillbilly Elegy - J.D. Vance ​

1. Complete the memoir by the second day of the school year.

“Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white ​ working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from ’s region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s ​ ​ grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the ​ ​ story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.”

Overview from Barnes and Noble

2. You should also read the following articles about and relating to the book in preparation for an essay the first few weeks of school. It would be a good idea to take a few notes on each source.

“The Lives of Poor White People” - Joshua Rothman https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-lives-of-poor-white-people

NPR Interview with Elizabeth Catte, author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia ​ https://www.npr.org/2018/01/31/582240482/historian-makes-case-for-what-you-are-getting-wron g-about-appalachia-in-new-book

“Trump: Tribune of Poor White People” - Interview with Vance - http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-us-politics-poor-whites/

“J.D. Vance, The False Prophet of Blue America” - Sarah Jones https://newrepublic.com/article/138717/jd-vance-false-prophet-blue-america

“How the ‘Tiger Mom’ convinced the author of Hillbilly Elegy to Write His Story” - Caroline ​ ​ Kitchener https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/hillbilly-elegy-mentor/529443/ ​

“The Original Underclass” - Alec MacGillis https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/the-original-underclass/492731/

“America’s Poorest White Town: Abandoned By Coal, Swallowed By Drugs” - Chris McGreal https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-t owns

Photo Story - “America's poorest county: Proud Appalachians who live without running water or ​ power in region where 40% fall below poverty line” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134196/Pictured-The-modern-day-poverty-Kentucky-pe ople-live-running-water-electricity.html

“A Fresh Look At Appalachia - 50 Years After the War on Poverty” - Becky Harlan (Photos and Interviews) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2015/02/06/a-fresh-look-at-appalachia-5 0-years-after-the-war-on-poverty/

“Mapping Poverty in the Appalachian Region” - Interactive Maps https://www.communitycommons.org/2016/08/mapping-poverty-in-the-appalachian-region/

3. Complete a Double Entry Journal to be turned in the first day of school. Use the following example as your guide. You should have 10 entries. You can create a google doc or write on your own paper.

Nonfiction elements ● Author’s purpose ● Author’s bias ● Most compelling or memorable passage ● Author’s tone ● Author’s point of view—either objective or subjective ● Impact of text elements (facts, statistics, anecdotes) ● How the text changed your perspective/opinion

Double Entry Example: The Perfect Mile, Neal Bascomb ​ ​

Text passage Reader response Most compelling This quote is significant because this book is not just a observation: sports memoir. Bascomb reveals how we can all live “If the measure of a person is our lives with purpose. Although Santee, Bannister, how he lives his whole life and and Landy were world-class runners, it is their tenacity not simply his youth, then and ability to overcome adversity that is inspirational. these three men deserve our After breaking the barrier of the four-minute-mile, all regard for what they did after three men acknowledged their accomplishment, but their pursuit of the four-minute used the lessons they learned about training, hardship mile as well” (Bascomb 268). and frustration to live meaningful lives.

In addition, please purchase for use throughout the school year. (Email me if you need assistance acquiring the texts.)

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction - William Zinsser ​

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi (1st Semester) ​