AP English Language and Composition.

Col. Zadok Magruder High School

Dear AP English Language Students for 2008-09:

While you have been asked at the end of every year to “do summer reading,” we hope that this year you will fully enjoy it and get the most out of it. Because all three teachers teach the same curriculum, we are very fortunate to be able to ask you to read the same works, so that our classes can all begin with discussion of these texts in the fall. The first thing you will notice is that these books are very different from many of the books you have read in the past. Since our focus this year will be on non-fiction—the real stories of real people—we offer you the following selections to take to the beach or the pool:

·        The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. Is it a straightforward autobiography or a retelling of the Mulan story? How does this young girl, child of immigrant parents, make sense of her own history and address the differences in culture that threaten to separate her from her own parents?

·        Narrative of the Life of an American Slave by Frederick Douglass. You’ve studied the history of American slavery in school, but here is a true, first-person account of what it felt like to live in slavery and then to escape from it. One of the most important voices of the nineteenth century had an important purpose behind sharing his story; what do you suppose it was?

·        Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Just a reminder that writing about your childhood, your family, and even your language itself can be awfully funny. You could skim through this collection of essays and get quite a few laughs out of it, but careful reading will be rewarded with ROTF guffaws. Most of our lives aren’t as miserable as the author’s, but they’re probably not quite as funny either.

NOTE: A select number of the essays in this book contain adult language that readers may find inappropriate and offensive, and the sensitive and “mature” subject matter of the author’s personal reflections may make some students and parents uncomfortable. While we still believe the book to contain literary and academic merit—the title essay is included in our class anthology—we recognize that encountering an adult work like this outside the safe environment of the classroom may be less than ideal.

Therefore, if you wish to substitute another work for this selection as your fourth text to consider this summer, you are more than welcome to do so, and this will have no effect on our classroom assignments in the fall. Some alternate titles you may wish to consider—all addressing the same objectives of personal memoir and reflections on language—include the following, though this list is not exhaustive, and you may choose similar alternatives of your own:

·        An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim, dir., featuring Al Gore. Yes, you get to watch a movie for summer reading. If you haven’t discussed this topic with your friends and family, this Oscar-winning documentary will give you a great place to start. While the content is an important subject in itself, from our perspective it is a masterful study in rhetoric and persuasion: how do you convince billions of people to change their lifestyle?

 

As you read this summer, don’t be afraid to take notes (if you buy the books instead of getting them from the library, you can even write in the books) about not only what the author is saying, but how he/she is saying it. We’ll be talking in August about each author’s sense of voice—how each one communicates his/her story and purpose to us. Please read thoroughly and carefully, but don’t forget to enjoy. If you have questions throughout the summer, send an email to one of the teachers listed below. We are all looking forward to working with you, talking and writing about these texts as well as many more. Have a great summer.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Grant S. Goldstein

Patricia Kuecker

Erica Mines