AP United States History
Required purchased material for APUSH due by beginning of school:
Barron’s AP United States History Flash Cards, 2nd Edition
Paperback: 500 notecards
Publisher: Barron’s Educational Series
ISBN-13: 978-0764162640
Cost: $18.99 new at Barnes and Noble or cheaper at amazon.com
AP US History Crash Course by Larry Krieger
Paperback: 230 pages
Publisher: Research and Education Association, Inc., 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0-7386-0813-6
Cost: $12.95 Barnes and Noble or cheaper at amazon.com
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick,
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage; March 1964
ISBN: 978-0143111979
Cost: $16.00 at Barnes and Noble or used much cheaper at most used bookstores. You may also
purchase it used for as little as $0.01 at amazon.com.
Required summer reading
Read all of Mayflower, marking those selections as directed by Mortimer J. Adler’s “How to Mark a
Book” (see below). How well you follow those directions will count as a quiz grade (quality over
quantity). It will be obvious if you have put serious thought into the reading and the marking.
Follow the instructions and then respond to the questions on Mayflower at the end of this document.
You will find the information on the Barron’s 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. The more cards you can memorize in the summer, the better. The
beginning of the junior year is incredibly difficult, so try to memorize the first 50 flash cards before
school starts to help you during that transition time.
What to bring to class the first day of school concerning the summer reading:
_____1. Bring marked Mayflower book (following Mortimer J. Adler’s directions)
Quiz grade
_____2. Bring Mayflower typed paper. (Answers need to be thorough and written in paragraphs).
Test Grade
_____3. Bring AP cards and AP US History Crash Course book. Quiz grade (50 points each)
Start this college-level class off on the right foot and give 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!
Dr. Lawson lawson@nrcaknights.com
“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, I
turn to the front and try to outline the book, not page by page or point by point, 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 on next page…………………
Mayflower Discussion Questions
Write each answer in a paragraph(s).
Times New Roman, 12pt, 1” margins, name in upper right-hand corner
1. In a well-written paragraph of exactly 100 words, summarize the argument/purpose of
Mayflower.
2. Site the five most striking examples of God’s Providence in the Pilgrim story.
3. Do you think Dorothy May Bradford died by accident or suicide?
4. Describe the differences between the original Pilgrims and the next generation.
5. 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.
6. Site several acts of friendship between the Pilgrims and Indians.
7. How successful were the English at adapting their militia to the strategies used by the Indians
in war? Site examples.
8. 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?
9. Rank the five most impressive people described in Mayflower and summarize their importance
in exactly 100 words each person.
NOTE: If you email your paper to me before Aug. 1, you will get
5 points extra credit. If you make over a 100 on this assignment, I
will transfer the extra points to another test grade in Q1.
Email attached document to lawson@nrcaknights.com