Valley Advanced English

“Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.”

Aldous Huxley

Overview

Welcome to college-level English at Valley High School. Many colleges and universities assign summer reading for incoming freshman rhetoric and literature students. This is done to introduce themes, ideas, and skills that will be built upon during the school year. Likewise, your first assignment in AP English will be a summer reading project.

For this assignment you will actively read selected texts before the first week of school. The books may be acquired through local libraries or bookstores. We have a handful of many of these texts available for check out on a first come, first served basis. Please let us know if you need help locating these books.

For each of the selections, you will respond in two different modes: personal close reading through annotation and personal interpretation through informal writing. Each mode highlights different ways of reading and making meaning of a text and teaches skills you will be using throughout the year.

The Summer Reading Project assignment is available at the Valley AP English website: http://vhsape.com. Please bookmark this site and check it semi-frequently throughout the summer for updates and support information about the assigned texts.

Contact Information

Feel free to contact us this summer if you have questions or concerns about the summer assignment or about the AP English course in general.

• AP Language—Ms. Milburn: milburnk@wdmcs.org
• AP Literature—Ms. Perry: eriuperry@gmail.com

Project Due Date: August 21

For course specific assignments, download from:

AP Lang    

• S:/Milburn 1/AP Lang. & Comp/2012 AP Lang Summer Assignment
• Or Google Docs
• Assignment- https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B81qsTHf7ZzqZjJ3MGlrbERfTlE
• Templates-   https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B81qsTHf7Zzqa01JcF90dFZRVEE

AP Lit          

• S:/Perry/AP Lit/2012 AP Lit Summer Assignment.doc
• Or Google Docs
• https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B81qsTHf7ZzqZ1FaeVRiSFgzUFU

Depending on quality of annotations and response: up to 3% to be added on to your final semester grade.

1. Read and annotate The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot.  Available on the S:/drive and in print from Perry.
2. Write a 500-word journal response to the poem exploring what meaning you made from the poem and where you see elements of the Fisher King mythology.

Due Mar. 5—Show me/turn in annotations in class and upload response to Turnitin.com.

You may enter up to 5 poems for this contest.  If you enter 1-3 poems, I will give you a single Get Out of Jail Free card.  If you enter 4-5, I will award you two.  Print or email me your formatted poems no later than Thurs, February 9.

Rules

1. Poems must be original and unpublished (including online and self-publication).  Poems detected as copying will be disqualified.
2. Any subject or form.  Vulgarity or pornography is NOT accepted.
3. 20-line limit for each poem.  This does not count title or spaces between stanzas.
4. Each poem should be on a separate letter-size sheet of paper, typed, with the following information in upper right corner:

• Your name
• Home address
• Grade in school
• Name of teacher: Erin Perry
• Name and mailing address of school:

Valley High School

3650 Woodland Ave

West Des Moines, IA 50266

Winners and honorary mentions to be published in Lyrical Iowa 2011 will be notified by mail in mid-summer, or as soon as all judging is completed.

The staff of Closed Captioned invite you to join them for an arts night.  Bring a piece to read or play, or simply enjoy the artistic works of others.

What: C4 (Closed Captioned Cultural Convention), a literary and arts evening featuring student readers, musicians, and artwork, as well as a guest poet

When: 7-9 pm on Thursday, 26 January

Where: Media Center

Cost: FREE

For the competition, you will need to memorize 2 poems to recite for the judges.  These poems MUST be chosen from the Poetry Out Loud list of poems at poetryoutloud.org.  One of the two poems must be 25 lines or fewer, and one must be published before the 20th century.  The same poem may cover both criteria, but you will still need to present a second poem chosen from the site.

Should you win Valley’s competition and go on to the state level of competition, you’ll need to memorize and recite a third poem as well.

Jan. 26th during 1st or 2nd hour, you’ll be working with a poet on recitation.

Jan. 31, starting during Resource, you’ll be performing your poems for the judges in competition.

Questions?  Talk to Ms. Downing or Mr. Gale.

Depending on quality of annotations and response: up to 3% to be added on to your final semester grade.

1. Read and annotate “Lost in the Funhouse” by John Barth.  Available on the S:/drive and in print from Perry.
2. Write a 500-word journal response to the story exploring your reader-response to the piece and where you see themes and techniques of postmodern fiction.

Due Jan. 3—Show me/turn in annotations in class and upload response to Turnitin.com.

1. encumber/encumbrance
2. feckless/fecklessly/fecklessness
3. impasse
4. indolent/indolently/indolence
5. lugubrious/lugubriously/lugubriousness
6. ribald/ribaldry
7. adulate/adulation
8. censure
9. dissemble
10. droll

Quiz on Friday!

1. querulous/querulously/querulousness
2. corroborate/corroboration
3. inexorable/inexorably
4. insipid/insipidly/insipidness
5. nefarious/nefariously/nefariousness
6. tedium/tediously/tediousness
7. affront
8. blasé
9. cajole
10. choler/choleric

Quiz on Friday, as usual.

1. avant garde
2. sophism/sophist
3. reverie
4. façade
5. languor/languorous
6. impressionist/impressionistic
7. jostle
8. wan
9. anecdote/anecdotal
10. disclose/disclosure

Prepare for the quiz on Friday.

1. avocation
2. capricious/capriciously
3. disparate/disparity
4. efficacy/efficacious
5. epistle
6. akin
7. impetus
8. moribund
9. reticence/reticent
10. vacillate/vacillation