English IV Advanced Placement – Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment
Rationale
The reading and writing assignment that follows will assist incoming students by:
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Offering a bridge between the Advanced Placement courses of English III and English IV.
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Creating an opportunity for students to re-acquaint themselves with the demands of the writing
process, which will be an integral part of their classroom experience.
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Providing subject matter for classroom discussion from the onset of the semester, thus increasing the
degree of potential learning.
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Contributing yet another unique literary work of merit that students may choose to analyze for the
Advanced Placement English Literature Examination.
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Increasing the potential literary connections students are able to discover when dealing with
complex works of literature.
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Beginning the class’s preparation for a successful college experience.
Required Literary Works
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan (ISBN #978 – 0345457370)
Faced with the oncoming dementia of her mother LuLing, Ruth struggles to understand her mother’s
past through the stories written for her in Chinese. With the persistence of a daughter and the translation of
a journey to America, the truth of LuLing is finally revealed.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Revised Edition: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to
Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster (ISBN #978-0062301673)
This text shares essential knowledge about the act of reading. It is designed to help students reach a
deeper understanding of how to approach a complex piece of literature and to develop more sophisticated
reading skills.
The Summer Assignment
Over the course of the summer and while reading The Bonesetter’s Daughter and How to Read Literature Like
a Professor, you will complete a Dialectical Journal. The term “dialectic” means “the art or practice of arriving
at the truth by using conversation involving question and answer.” Consider the Dialectical Journal as a
series of conversations with these texts through which you will develop a better understanding of them. Use
your journal to explore your personal responses to the texts, to develop your ideas about thematic concepts,
and to expand your understanding of what it means to be human. You will find this to be a useful way to
process your reading, prepare yourself properly for group discussion, and gather textual evidence for further
literary analysis.
Assessment
The writing assignment is due on the first day of the 2014 – 2015 academic year, and will account for the first
twenty-five (25) points of the semester. The response will be assessed on its ability to respond in an
originally thoughtful manner in a Dialectical Journal (see assignment and scoring rubric sections). Any
student who submits an unacceptable assignment will be required to rewrite the journal.
Additionally, the summer assignment will be the subject of the first in-class writing assignment of the school
year. Approximately two (2) weeks into the first semester, students will be required to write an in-class essay
responding to an Advanced Placement style question.
The Process
Observe the following guidelines to create a Dialectical Journal:
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Using The Bonesetter’s Daughter as your primary focus, choose passages that stand out and record
them in a typed Word document (always be sure to the MLA citation).
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Below the selected passage, write your response to the text, including ideas, insights, questions,
reflections, and comments concerning each passage.
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For each entry select from the following list of possible beginning points and label your response
accordingly:
o
(Q) Question – ask about something in the passage that is unclear
o
(C) Connect – make a connection to your life, the world, or another text
o
(CF) Connect to Foster – make a connection to the ideas of Thomas C. Foster
o
(P) Predict – anticipate what will occur based on what is in the passage
o
(CL) Clarify – answer earlier questions or confirm / disaffirm a prediction
o
(R) Reflect – think deeply about what the passage means in a broad sense, not just to the
characters in the story, but to your society, the world, or the human condition
o
(E) Evaluate – make a judgment about the characters, their actions, or what the author’s
intent is.
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The successful Dialectical Journal will be composed of eight (8) typed entries and represent a variety
of the aforementioned options. Always be sure that your observations are very specific and detailed,
keeping in mind the high standards of Advanced Placement. Selected passages should be chosen
from the entire text, not merely from the beginning or middle sections. Each dialectical journal
should be approximately 200 words, or the size shown in the example.
Selecting a Passage
Identify quotations that are significant, powerful, thought provoking, or puzzling. For example, you might
record:
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Effective and / or creative use of stylistic or literary devices
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Passages that remind you of your own life experiences
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Structural shifts or turns to the plot
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A passage that provokes new insights
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Examples of patterns such as recurring images, ideas, colors, symbols or motifs
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Passages with confusing language or unfamiliar vocabulary
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Events your find surprising or confusing
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Passages that illustrate a particular character or setting
Rubric
Acceptable Dialectical Journals…
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adhere to the format, process, and content outlined in the assignment
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rely on specific passages from the texts or (sparingly) summarize longer, significant passages
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are characterized by detailed , significant ideas, insights, questions, comments and reflections
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meaningfully explore the novel’s content, the thematic intent of the author, or the extent of its
personal or universal relevance
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demonstrate control over stylistic elements such as diction, organization, syntax, and grammar
Unacceptable Dialectical Journals…
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fail in some way to adhere to the format, process, and content outlined in the assignment
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fail to provide adequate textual basis (i.e. little-to-no evidence of reading is provided)
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fail to provide adequate detail or development
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employ weak control over stylistic elements such as diction, organization, syntax, and grammar
Sample Dialectical Journal Entry
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Passage:
“they carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders – and for all the ambiguities of
Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would
never be at a loss for things to carry” (O’Brien 2).
Journal Entry:
(R) O’Brien chooses to end the first section of the novel with this sentence. He provides excellent visual
details of what each soldier in Vietnam would carry for day-to-day fighting. He evokes the feeling of the
physical weight of what soldiers have to carry for simple survival. Combining the emotional weight of loved
ones at home, the fear of death, and the responsibility for the men with whom they fight, it can be
moderately glimpsed what soldiers dealt with every single day of their military lives. This quotation sums up
the confusion that the men felt about the reasons they were fighting the war, and how they clung to the only
certainty – things they had to carry – in a confusing world where normal rules were suspended. Back in their
hometowns of rural America, these men were able to sit down to a home-cooked meal, they tended their
yards or farms, and they sat and talked with their neighbors about their small piece of the world. All of this
normalcy ceased when they entered the war-torn landscape of Vietnam, where all that was familiar had gone
the way of the dinosaur, into the ether. To the average individual, whether in high school or working as a
professional throughout the work force, this is a foreign situation that we hope to never experience.
However, it is only through experiencing that which is foreign to us that we eventually begin to gain
insightful knowledge beyond our own limited vision. While only a brief passage selection, Tim O’ Brien
conveys the complexity of a wartime experience.
Academic Honesty
As a journal is, by definition, a reflection of one’s own personal thoughts and interpretations of a literary
work, ABSOLUTELY NO OUTSIDE SOURCES ARE TO BE USED IN EITHER (1) SELECTING PASSAGES
OR (2) ANALYZING SAID PASSAGES! For further information regarding the Academic Honesty policy of
Neuqua Valley High School, consult the Student Handbook.