Summer homework can be picked up in the counseling office. The assignment is a green packet to be completed over the summer. Also, there is a letter with information regarding the calculator required for AP Calculus.

 

There is no summer homework for AP Stats. The subject is very interesting and unlike any the students have taken before at PVHS. We will jump right in on Day 1, but there is no summer homework.

I do have summer homework for Honors Geometry that I mail to the students at the end of June. This encompasses the algebra skills the students need to have mastered to be successful in geometry. I mail it at the end of June to remind them of their Honors course and also I want the students reviewing their algebra topics at the end of the summer rather than right at the beginning of June.

 

This course has a dual focus: preparing for the AP English Language and Composition exam and exploring a wide range of American Literature from the 17^th century until the present. The readings will include essays, novels, speeches, poems, and personal narratives by a diverse group of American authors who were writing for varied purposes and audiences. These unique genres will afford each student the opportunity to perfect his/her analytical skills. In reading and analyzing these non-fiction, fiction, and poetry texts, our focus will be on identifying both the “what” and the “how”. Students will be asked to dissect what arguments the authors are making in the texts, and how they use rhetorical strategies effectively to construct these arguments for their intended purposes and audiences. In examining these texts, students will be investigating several central questions regarding American cultural identity, as well as learning how to analyze and craft well-developed, well-supported, and consistent arguments in their own writing. Writing assignments and projects will be varied and will enable students to develop proficiency in the narrative, analytical, expository, and argumentative modes.

Students in this class will be held to high performance expectations, as this is a college-level course, and the workload will be appropriately challenging. The coursework will often consist of long-term reading and writing assignments, therefore effective time-management and self-motivation skills are important.

All students are required to purchase the first edition of The Language of Composition. This text will be crucial in our progress throughout the school year and we will delve deeply into its short stories and rhetorical analysis strategies. A copy of a webpage with the books information on it is attached, to simplify the process of finding the book.

Students will be required to read one book for their summer reading homework. They will read one of the suggested texts, included on the list toward the end of this article. Students are merely asked to annotate the book as they read it, to help increase awareness of themes, conflicts, and overall plot structure. Upon returning to school, students will complete a timed essay. Students will evaluate their own writing based on the AP Scoring Guidelines 9 point scale and conference with the AP teacher about their writing. Students will also be required to thoughtfully discuss their chosen novel with the other members of a small group, during the first week of classes.

All students will be asked to complete a timed essay on the first day of the 2011-2012 school year. All four books will have one common essay question, which will specifically reference the book’s relationship to the American landscape it was written out of and what aspects of the book make it distinctly American. The “true” essay question will not be given until the first day of school, but students are encouraged to annotate the text while reading, in an effort to properly prepare for such a task.

 

 

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 1926.

 

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper, 1937.

 

Kerouac, Jack. On The Road. New York: Penguin, 1957.

 

McCullers, Carson. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. New York: Houghton Miffin, 1940.

 

 

Jason D. Oulman

E-mail: jouman@sd27j.org

School phone: 303-655-8956