Reading for all rising 11th graders taking
AP United States History
Maflower by Nathaniel Philbrick,
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage; March 1964
ISBN: 978-0143111979
Cost: $10.11 at amazon.com or used much cheaper at most used bookstores. You may also
purchase it used for as little as $0.01 at amazon.com.
Barron’s AP United States History Flash Cards
Paperback: 500 notecards
Publisher: Barron’s Educational Series
ISBN: 978-0764162640
Cost: $12.91 new at amazon.com.
John Adams HBO DVD rent it, watch it, take notes on it while keeping track of the major
characters throughout, and be ready for a quiz on it. ◙ Parents, this is a terrific movie that
is also exceptionally accurate historically. Please watch it with your kids. It is a movie and
there are accurate depictions of life in the late colonial and early republic. Some parents
may find some of the content objectionable (i.e., tarring and feathering and mastectomy
scenes). If you would prefer that your kids not watch the movie, have them turn in the
book version marked according to the Mortimer Adler’s method below.
Read all of Mayflower, marking those selections as directed by Mortimer J. Adler. You
will find his directions, “How to Mark a Book,” below. How well you follow those
directions will count as a quiz grade (quality over quantity). Think quality over quantity.
It will be obvious if you have put serious thought into the reading and the marking. It will
also be obvious if you are simply marking your book for appearances. Follow the
instructions and respond to the questions on Mayflower at the end of this sheet.
You will find the information found on the flash cards extremely helpful throughout the
course of the year and eminently useful for synthesizing historical data for writing essays
and responding to daily oral response questions.
What to expect in class concerning the summer reading:
1. Get a parent’s signature indicating they have read and understood your summer
assignment before you begin: ________________________________________ Date:
_________
2. Quiz on how well you followed Adler’s directions.
3. You will bring Philbrick’s book the first day of class.
4. Test on material read over the summer in Mayflower.
5. Quiz on first 50 flash cards. Know them well! Know them by term, by definition, and
be comfortable with chronology.
6. Turn in Mayflower responses.
7. To clarify your summer assignment, you will get your parent’s signature before
beginning, you will read Mayflower and follow Adler’s directions, you will study the first
50 flash cards, you will bring both required books, and you will turn in responses for
Mayflower.
Start this college-level class off on the right foot and give me your best effort on this
summer reading. Start earlier rather than later and know that I am expecting your best
effort.
Have a terrific summer!
“How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.
There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully.
Here's the way I do it:
• Underlining (or highlighting): of major points, of important or forceful
statements.
• Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.
• Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to
emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book. (You
may want to fold the bottom comer of each page on which you use such
marks. It won't hurt the sturdy paper on which most modern books are
printed, and you will be able take the book off the shelf at any time and, by
opening it at the folded-corner page, refresh your recollection of the book.)
• Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author
makes in developing a single argument. !!!!
• Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book
the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a
book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong
together.
• Circling or highlighting of key words or phrases.
• Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake
of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in
your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement;
recording the sequence of major points right through the books. I use the
end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's
points in the order of their appearance. [THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
THIS IS A KEY PLACE WHERE I FIND OUT HOW WELL YOU
UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU READ AND WHAT KIND OF GRADE YOU
DESERVE]
The front end-papers are to me the most important. Some people reserve them for
a fancy bookplate. I reserve them for fancy thinking. After I have finished reading
the book and making my personal index on the back end-papers, I turn to the front
and try to outline the book, not page by page or point by point (I've already done
that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity and an order of
parts. This outline is, to me, the measure of my understanding of the work.
Mayflower Discussion Questions
Times New Roman, 12pt, 1” margins, name in right-hand header only
1.
2.
3.
4.
In a well-written paragraph of exactly 100 words, summarize the
argument/purpose of Mayflower.
Site the five most striking examples of God’s Providence in the Pilgrim story.
Do you think Dorothy May Bradford died by accident or suicide?
Describe the differences between the original Pilgrims and the next generation.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Compare/contrast the differences in the “social construction of reality” (i.e.
perceptions) of the original Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower and Indians on
first contact. Do the same for the next generation of New Englanders.
Site several acts of friendship between the Pilgrims and Indians.
How successful were the English at adapting their militia to the strategies used
by the Indians in war? Site examples.
Read the Mayflower Compact (41). How was the spirit of it violated by the trial
of three Indians? Consider the last days of King Philip’s War, when the English
were close to victory. If you were in command, what would you have done
differently?
Rank the five most impressive people described in Mayflower and summarize
their importance in exactly 100 words each.