Advanced Placement English Language & Composition
SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT
COLUMBUS HIGH SCHOOL
LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE PREPARATORY MAGNET
2013-2014 SCHOOL YEAR
AP LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION SUMMER READING LIST
The purpose for summer reading in AP English Language and Composition is to prepare you for the level of
reading, writing, and thinking that is the hallmark of this course. You have 5 books to read and review for this
summer:
JUNE 2013
 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
For this novel, complete the reading and writing assignment by the end of June. Make sure that you annotate (write
notes, questions, highlight, etc.) as you read. WRITE in your book. This will assist with your overall comprehension of
the novel. You will have a 100 point reading assignment to complete over the summer and a 100 point test on this novel
within the first two weeks of school. Your writing assignment must be electronically submitted to the turnitin.com
database BEFORE 11:59 pm on Sunday, June 30, 2013. Late work (anything after 11:59 pm on Sunday, June 30, 2013)
will incur a 15% penalty for each day that it is late.
JULY 2013
 The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
For this non-fiction book, complete the reading and writing assignment for this book by the end of July.
Make sure that you annotate (write notes, questions, highlight, etc.) as you read. WRITE in your book. This
will assist with your overall comprehension of the book. You will have a 100 point reading assignment to
complete over the summer and a 100 point test on this non-fiction book within the first two weeks of
school. Your writing assignment must be electronically submitted to the turnitin.com database BEFORE
11:59 pm on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. Late work (anything after 11:59 pm on Wednesday, July 31, 2013)
will incur a 15% penalty for each day that it is late.
AUGUST 2013
 I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Edited by James M. Washington.
There will be NO questions on the summer reading test about this text. You only need to read Part One: The Dream
Bursts Forth (NOTE: The first day of school is Wednesday, August 7, 2013). You should annotate (make notes in the
book) as you read; this will assist with your comprehension of the book. You will be assessed over your reading and
understanding over Part One: The Dream Bursts Forth (only) on the FIRST CLASS DAY.
AUGUST 2013
 Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by Stunk & White
There will be NO questions on the summer reading test about this text. You only need to read Sections I & II BEFORE
school starts (NOTE: The first day of school is Wednesday, August 7, 2013). You should annotate as you read; this will
assist with your comprehension of the book. You will be assessed over your reading and understanding over Sections I &
II on the FIRST CLASS DAY.
AUGUST 2013
 5 Steps to a 5 for AP English Language and Composition 2013-2014* by Barbara Murphy and Estelle
Rankin.
*NOTE TO STUDENTS: Get the 2012-2013 version if the 2013-2014 version is not available.
There will be NO questions on the summer reading test about this text. You only need to read Chapters 1 and 2 in
August BEFORE school starts (NOTE: The first day of school is Wednesday, August 7, 2013). You should annotate
as you read; this will assist with your comprehension of the book. You will be assessed over your reading and
comprehension of Chapters 1 and 2 on the FIRST CLASS DAY.
AP LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION SUMMER WRITING ASSINGMENT INSTRUCTIONS
You will complete writing assignments for Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and
Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle. Both of your assignments (June-Huck Finn; July-Glass Castle)
must be typed in MLA style and submitted electronically to turnitin.com. Please read below to see
how to access the turnitin.com database, how to post to the database correctly, and how to
complete the writing assignments. In addition to submitting your work electronically, make sure
that you also save an electronic copy of all of your summer work (on a portable flash drive or
other portable device).
ABOUT TURNITIN.COM
This database will serve as the electronic reservoir for all of your summer reading assignments. Please keep in
mind that all of your assignments should be YOUR original work and your work ALONE. Do NOT be tempted
to share answers with another student or plagiarize from the internet, because it will be easily detected. Should
any student(s) be found guilty of plagiarizing or copying another student’s work, he or she will receive a zero
on the summer reading assignment and be removed from the class.
TURNITIN.COM LOGIN INSTRUCTIONS
As soon as you receive and read this packet, you should go the turnitin.com website and create an account.
Follow these instructions carefully to ensure that you create an account and enroll in the correct class.
(1) Open the turnitin.com webpage
(2) Locate the hyperlink which reads Create Account. It is located in the upper right hand corner and is
written in blue font. Click on this link.
(3) Once you have clicked on Create Account, you will see a “Create a User Profile” page.
 If you have used turnitin.com before, you simply need to enter your email address and password
and scroll down and click on login.
 However, if you have never created an account (or can’t remember if you have) you should
scroll down the page to the heading “Create a New Account.” Underneath this, you should select
to sign up as a student.
(4) If you are “Creating a New Account,” then you will be prompted to enter the following information
(make sure you enter ALL information accurately, otherwise it will not work).
CLASS ID INFORMATION:
 Class ID: 6458901
 Class Enrollment Password: bluedevils16
USER INFORMATION:
 Your First Name
 Your Last Name
 Your Email Address
PASSWORD AND SECURITY:
 Enter Your Password
 Confirm Your Password
 Secret Question
 Secret Answer
If you have a pre-existing account, you will need to select the tab that reads “Enroll in a
Class” and you will complete the CLASS ID INFORMATION as mentioned above.
(5) From there, you should be able to view that you are enrolled in the class: AP Language & Composition
Summer 2013.
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TURNITIN.COM SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Follow the instructions below to successfully submit your work to the turnitin.com database. Please keep in
mind that the assignment due dates are posted on the first page of this packet as well as here and on each
summer writing assignment. Late work will incur a 15% penalty for each day that it is late.
 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (June) assignment is due BEFORE 11:59 pm on Sunday, June
30, 2013.
 The Glass Castle (July) assignment is due BEFORE 11:59 pm on Wednesday, July 31, 2013.
 Any work NOT submitted to the turnitin.com database will NOT be graded.
(1) Once you have successfully typed up your complete responses in MLA style in a Microsoft Word
document, login to the turnitin.com database.
(2) Click on our class: AP Language & Composition Summer 2013.
(3) Click on the BLUE “Submit” icon for the assignment you are submitting (June: Huck Finn; July: Glass
Castle).
(4) At this point, you will see a screen that reads “Submit Paper: By File Upload (step 1 of 3).” Follow the
instructions below carefully.
 Under the “Choose a paper item submission method,” select “single file upload.”
 Enter your first name in the box provided.
 Enter your last name in the box provided.
 Enter your submission title: Either Huck Finn OR Glass Castle
 Next, scroll down the page and under the “Browse for the File to Upload” click on the Browse
icon and select your document to submit.
 Once you are sure that you have submitted the correct document, click the “Upload” icon.
(5) Now you should be at a screen that reads “Submit Paper: Step 2 of 3.” You will be able to view the
following (check to ensure you have):
 Author (you)
 Title (Huck Finn OR Glass Castle)
 Preview Paper (your document)
 When you preview your paper, it is okay if it looks as though it did not preserve your MLA
format (when I view it, it will be in your Word document form). However, do make sure that
your file was completely submitted from your heading to your very last sentence.
 Once you have checked all of these items, click on the “Submit” icon at the bottom of the page.
(6) Next you will see a screen that should include several items:
 At the top of the page it should read “Your submission was successful. This is the digital receipt
for your paper. Only the first page of the document is included in the digital receipt.”
 Paper title: Huck Finn OR Glass Castle
 Paper ID: (it will be a series of 9-10 numbers according to when you submitted)
 Author: (you)
 “Go to Portfolio” icon (you may click on this to view your submission again, if you’d like)
 First page of your electronic submission
(7) Scroll to the top of the page and click on the “Logout” icon.
(8) Should you want to access what you submitted, you may login, click on the class, and click on the
“view” for the assignment you’d like to view. The originality reports will not be available to you; they
will only be visible for the teacher.
(9) Once your work is graded, your grade will be available for viewing under the “My Grades” tab. To
access this tab, you must login and click on our “AP Language & Composition Summer 2013” class.
From there you will see a series of tabs reading: “Class Portfolio,” “Peer Review,” “My Grades,”
“Discussion,” and “Calendar.” Click on the “My Grades” tab and you should be able to view your grade
for each assignment. Grades will only be available to be seen AFTER the due date.
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JUNE WRITING ASSIGNMENT
MARK TWAIN’S THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
DUE: BEFORE 11:59PM ON SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013 TO
TURNITIN.COM
Submit this to turnitin.com in ONE Microsoft Word document before the
assigned due date.
In a rationale prepared by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, it is noted that The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "is generally recognized as a comic and biting condemnation of the callousness
of a society that pretended to value virtue while condoning slavery." Your task is to read the novel and to
complete the following critical reading and writing activities:
1. Locate and highlight ten (10) examples that, in your understanding, illustrate how the author is condemning
“the callousness of a society that pretended to value virtue while condoning slavery.”
2. Prepare a set of typed notes (via a Microsoft Word document) citing the quote (with page number, paragraph,
and line numbers), (MLA style), and an explanation of each example (approximately 50-75 words, include word
count) for easy reference during discussion during the first few days of school.
3. Review the attached set of contextual notes for Twain and the Realistic Period in American Literature. Use
this information to identify the representative context for all of your examples.
4. Prepare your notes in a four-column format as the following model illustrates. You may NOT use
the
following as one of your ten required examples. The full set of notes will be due no later than 11:59pm on
Sunday, June 30th to turnitin.com.
Example #
Location
Explanation
Context
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“Oh yes, this is a
wonderful govment,
wonderful. . . . But it
warn’t good
judgment, because
that was the boot that
had a couple of his
toes leakin out of the
front end. . . .” (24-5).
Twain has chosen one of the most disreputable
characters in the novel to voice the dominant
culture's belief. This is a clear strategy to equate
those who favor slavery
with those who are the
refuse of society. The narrator's comment that
Pap did not use "good judgment in hopping
around like a crazy person” holds a possible
double meaning to Pap's words as well.
*High premium on
conduct and ethical
concerns
(62 words)
*Realistic, colloquial
speech
(MLA style)
*Satirical tone
*Belief that society
can be a corrupting
influence
GRADING FOR JUNE WRITING ASSIGNMENT (100 points)
10 points per example:
1 point for correct formatting (four-column format) for each example in ONE Word document
2 points for location with correct MLA citation
5 points for explanation with appropriate word count (50-75 words)
2 points for correctly identifying contextual details
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NOTES: THE REALISTIC PERIOD, TWAIN, & REALISTIC LITERATURE
I. Realistic Period in America (1865-1900)
 Background
o “The Guilded Age”
 Idealized progress/self-made man
 Era a millionaire manufacturer
 Industrialist-capitalist democracy created turbulence
 Severe labor disputes
 Influx of cheap immigrant labor
o “Social Darwinism
 Survival of the fittest
o Growing Disillusionment, Skepticism, and Alienation
 Promise of American Dream “betrayed”
 Scientific revolution at variance with older religious views
 Passing of the physical frontier
o Enormous Audience for Authors
o Rapid Growth of Education
o Rise of Mass-circulation Magazines
o International Copyright Act
 Realism Movement
o Believers in Pragmatism
 Pluralistic (democratic)
 Attentive to context (common, average)
 Relativistic truth and value
 Immediate consequences to specific actions
 High premium on conduct and ethical concerns
o Ultimate of Middle-class Art
 Bourgeois life and manners
o Literature Reflected/Characterized the Time and
 Ethical issues and individual experiences
 Worn-out conventions
 Corrupting social influences
 Result:
 Characterization became central
 Chief subject matter became middle-class society
 Writers became liberating voice through use of comic, often satiric tones
II. Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910)
 “Mark Twain” Pseudonym (pen name)
 Strong Literary Influence
o Grew up in Hannibal, Missouri (on Mississippi River)
 Town was a Pre-Civil War commerce hub
 River was pathway for westward travelers
o Varied Influential Life Experiences
 Riverboat pilot, miner, journalist, world traveler, prolific reader
 Chief lecturer on lyceum (adult education) circuit
o Deep Moral and Humanitarian Roots
o Vocal Opponent of Racism and Imperialism
 Use of regional dialect led to posthumous accusations of Twain as a racist/bigot
o Rejected Conventional Religion and Conventional Patriotism
o Experienced Personal/Financial Tragedies
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o Indignant towards Corruption, Sham, and Hypocrisy of American Life
 Writing Style: Realistic
o Vigorous, Realistx, Colloquial Speech (Dialect)
o Considered America’s Greatest Humorist and Satirist
o Liberal and Progressive Themes
 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
o Twain’s Greatest Achievement
o Contender for Greatest American Novel
o “All modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn… There has been nothing as
good since.” – Ernest Hemingway
o Charm and Humor + Acute Social Commentary
III. Characteristics of Realism in Literature
 Plot
o Drew on the grim realities of everyday life
 The middle class and the urban poor
o Complex ethical choices
o Events are plausible
 Avoided sensational or dramatic elements
 Setting
o Close to reality
o Comprehensive detail
 Characters
o Characters are more important than action or plot
 Have an important ethical decision to make
o Characters appear in real complexity of temperament and motive
 Relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, and to their own past
o Class is important
 Usually middle class or poor
o Characters spoke in regional dialect and/or diction
o Relations between people and society are explored
o Purpose of writing was to instruct and entertain
o Language is not heightened or poetic
o No allegory or symbolism everything was clearly communicated
o Depended on the use of images
o Tone may be comic, satiric or matter-of-fact
o Objectivity in the presentation is important
 Principles of Realism
1. Insistence upon and defense of "the experienced commonplace".
2. Character more important than plot.
3. Attack upon romanticism and romantic writers.
4. Emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism.
5. Concept of realism as a realization of democracy.
 Techniques Used by Realist Writers
1. Settings thoroughly familiar to the writer
2. Plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience
3. Ordinary characters, studied in depth
4. Complete authorial objectivity
5. Responsible morality; a world truly reported
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JULY WRITING ASSIGNMENT
JEANNETTE WALLS’S THE GLASS CASTLE
DUE: BEFORE 11:59PM ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013 TO
TURNITIN.COM
Submit this to turnitin.com in ONE Microsoft Word document before the assigned due
date.
I. Assertion Short Write Response: 100 points (50 points each)
Select TWO (2) of the prompts from below and argue whether or not you agree (defend), disagree (challenge),
or qualify (agree in some aspect but disagree in others). You cannot respond the same way twice, so make sure
that you agree, disagree, or qualify one time ONLY. Also, your answer should include examples from the
memoir’s contents, your personal experiences, and/or what you have learned previously (through reading or
historical examples). Your response should be 500-700 words per entry.
Your response should contain an inviting introduction with clear thesis, supporting body paragraphs, and a
satisfying conclusion. Keep in mind to include examples from the text, from your personal experience, and/or
examples from other books you have read or examples from history. As you compose your response, please
consider the following:
 Make sure you cite the page numbers (in parenthesis) when you cite the book.
 Provide specific evidence from personal observation, experience, and/or reading to support your
position.
 Note its complexity (nuances) and forge connections between your position and that of the writer. Resist
the immature temptation of oversimplification!
 Provide a conclusion that does not merely summarize, but rather addresses the “so what?” issue: How
should educated, informed citizens continue to think about the issue at hand? How will it continue to
influence readers’ lives?
 Submit your responses to the turnitin.com database in the requested format (one page, 12 point Times New
Roman font, single spaced Microsoft Word document). Quote and author should be typed at the top of the page.
The words in the quote do NOT comprise part of the 500+word response.
II. PROMPTS: Select only TWO quotes from the choices below; 50 points per response. You can
only defend, challenge, or qualify ONE time.
“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their
own hands.”
Anne Frank
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
James Baldwin
“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall
overcome.”
Rosa Parks
“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world”
Helen Keller
“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Abraham Lincoln
“Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has
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the more one wants.”
Ben Franklin
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has
overcome.”
Booker T. Washington
III. GRADING: Your typed response should be at least 500 words and limited to one page typed,
single spaced. Each response will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
1. Provide a clear explanation of the issue and the writer’s assertion, contextualizing the issue at hand for
readers, explaining to them briefly why educated, informed citizens ought to read on. (15 points)
2. Support, challenge, or qualify your position on the issue implied by the assertion. (35 points)
IV. SAMPLE STUDENT RESPONSE
PLEASE NOTE: THIS EXAMPLE IS NOT RELATED TO GLASS CASTLE, HOWEVER, IT DOES CONTAIN THE
ELEMENTS OF A WELL CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE.
“Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.”
G.K. Chesterton
Premeditated, well-planned humiliation is one of the paramount things people wish to avoid in life, precisely because it is
so painful to experience. One embarrassing experience can leave scars that linger, following a person through life, while the
people responsible for the shame – the tormentors – may not even realize it. Why is it that being the target of deliberate
mortification is something that no one wants for themselves, but they will accept and even participate in the degradation of
others? This hypocrisy was noticed by Chesterton, and he asserts it to be the worst of the worst, however, this is not always
true.
Cruelty is a slippery term, an idea not easily defined that can be manipulated by people in different contexts. One person’s
cruelty can be another person’s justice. The term in and of itself is not a sin, but rather an act that is a product of sin; those who
engage in it usually believe themselves to be justified. Many of those who take revenge believe it to be karma or fate, and so
cruel actions are perfectly acceptable. And why is it that intellectual cruelty deserves to be at the top of the pyramid of evils?
Although belittlement and deliberate intellectual attacks are agonizing experiences, a strong, brave person can, with some effort,
move past these occurrences. Students bullied in high school can, hopefully, put it behind them as they join the adult world.
Up to recent times, cruelty, intellectual or otherwise, was an integral part of the law and culture of many societies,
beginning in Babylon with Hammurabi’s Code. While the eye for an eye method can be considered cruel and unjust, it
effectively controlled the people and kept them in line in ways other than resorting immediately to death as a means of
domination. Control through the death penalty for grievous offenses was much more risky and tended to alienate the people as
in the Chinese Qin dynasty, which used the death penalty as punishment for such miniscule offenses as being late. This
eventually led to a rebellion and the dynasty’s downfall. Comparatively, Hammurabi’s Code seems much less harmful and
more humane.
In regard to pure intellectual cruelty, among southeastern American Indian tribes that were constantly at war, the custom
for a captured warrior was to incessantly taunt and insult his captors the entire time he was conscious. Verbal abuse was
accepted, and to deviate from this code was disrespectful and would result in the warrior’s immediate death, as opposed to
possibly being spared and adopted into the tribe.
It would appear that arguing about cruelty’s nature as being useful and “good” or as being pointless and “evil” is a circular
argument, depending mostly on context and perspective. If a white supremacist who spent his life belittling others is punished
by those he tormented, it seems like justice. The evildoer, the “cruel villain,” receives cruel treatment in return – a form of
repayment. So was the cruelty warranted? To define cruelty relies on different viewpoints; however, this does not mean that
intellectual cruelty is justifiable; many traditions with contemptible goals originated from it. For example, slavery could not
come into existence without the presence of intellectual cruelty, which insisted that one race was flawed and thus its
enslavement was justifiable. This reasoning itself can be considered cruel.
Cruelty, in all its forms, does not disappear over time, just as the other sins of greed and murder do not disappear either. If
cruelty were to disappear, many people would have to realize that humans as a race would be left wanting. Though it is difficult
to admit, cruelty is so integral a part of society that it is casually accepted in television and movies. If intellectual cruelty is a
sin, the numbers of the guilty are too large to count.
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