Honors English 11/12 Summer Homework

The Readings

THE TEXTS

Students must read THREE selections before class convenes in the fall and meet the turn-in deadlines below. Please read your books in the prescribed order. These readings will provide the basis for discussion, group work, and presentations during our first unit, as well as your first major essay. Read carefully, complete the annotative and written homework below mindfully, and be sure to refresh/reacquaint yourself with all three texts before we meet in September. This schedule asks you to read about one book every 4 weeks, so plan accordingly!

Required readings:

Reading #1 (Annotation and Written Reflection), due June 30th: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury; ISBN 978-1-45167-331-9

Reading #2 (Annotation and Written Reflection), due July 31st: 1919: Poems by Eve L. Ewing; ISBN 978-1-60846-598-9 (For this reading, underline and annotate each poem.  Then write a 2-3 sentence summary of the poem.  Lastly, provide observations about anything that stands out in the poem as effective and/or significant along with quotes to illustrate observations.  Each entry won't be as long as what you've written about Fahrenheit 451.)

Reading #3 (Annotation and Written Reflection), due on the first day of class: The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father by Kao Kalia Yang; ISBN 978-1-25013-188-1

The Writing (Two Parts)

Complete the following two assignments for EACH of the three works you are reading:

1. Annotation, also known as, write in your book!
1. Page synopsis: Write minimally at the top of almost every page summarizing the events therein. Write what’s happening, the characters present, and whatever will help you quickly orient yourself within the book when you flip through and reference later. This will come in handy for our discussions and the critical work you will perform on these texts.
2. Underline key quotes/lines. How will you decide what to underline? Consider passages that seem to sum up or epitomize core themes, central conflicts or tensions, or are particularly indicative of certain characters (if applicable). Put your brain in a critical mode: what might you want to quote and easily find later?
3. Write down questions in the margins, as well as any connections to other texts/current events/etc. you notice.
4. On the first day of class, the instructor will flip through each of your novels and check your annotations. Do this FIRST, before tackling the written reflection below.
5. If you have an eBook or some other form of the book that you are unable to annotate physically (library book, etc.), you will still need to complete the above work to the best of your ability; that might involve a separate and detailed notes page or digital annotations that you will show the instructor in class. 
2. Written Reflection. Email these sections to @email by the dates listed above (or earlier, as you complete them).
1. Format your documents in 12pt Times New Roman font, 1.5 spacing, 1” margins, with your name, and the assignment title at the top.
2. For each of the books you read, select FIVE passages/moments that strike you as significant. (See how your above annotations are already helping you out?) 
3. For each moment, please provide the page number and the first sentence of the passage so the instructor knows where you’re at. For the poems, include the page number and poem title before the quote. For example, "Poem Title" (p. 9) "Quote/with/line breaks" (the first three lines in the poem).
4. In two substantial paragraphs per passage, explore the following:
1. Discuss why this passage (or poem) is significant to the story as a whole. Does it play a significant role in the events of the text, representing some kind of turning point or dramatic action? Does it provide a good example of the work’s voice, structure, themes? 
2. Address how and why this passage (or poem) affects you. Does it connect to you personally in some significant way? Can you connect it to other texts (other books, movies, TV, etc.?) Did this passage broaden your horizon or make you reconsider previous assumptions? 

**To be very specific: that means you’re writing 10 paragraphs per book times three books over the summer: that’s 30 paragraphs total by summer’s end. 

**With the written reflection, make sure to vary your responses! No boilerplate, copy & paste answers here. Find and explore each text's own unique voice and architecture.

OTHER NOTES

• Parents should be aware that some of the texts contain mature content. While ATYP faculty agree that our students are ready for this content, we understand each family is different in its beliefs, and we suggest researching the titles on Goodreads or Common Sense Media. We encourage students also to discuss the content with their parents.
• This list combines a fairly canonical text (Fahrenheit 451) with newer works by voices typically excluded in the past from the canon. This is by design; one goal in English 11/12 is to see the canon through fresh eyes and to situate it alongside diverse and/or contemporary perspectives, which we will be reading plenty of during the school year.
• Speaking of diverse voices, be careful with your choice of words, especially regarding people of color. Although the poems and excerpts in Ewing’s book contain words like “Negro” and “colored”, it is not acceptable for you to use such terms (unless quoting directly). Instead, you should use “Black” or “African American” when appropriate.[1]
• ATYP English uses MLA style. Each book quote should be followed by the author’s last name and a page number in parentheses.
• Please consider purchasing your texts from a local store! We have given our titles to this is a bookstore/Bookbug and Kazoo Books so they can help you. In addition, there will be a special book purchasing day on Saturday, June 1, at this is a bookstore, 3019 Oakland Drive, Kalamazoo. The store will donate a percentage of the purchase amount for that day back to the program if you tell them that you’re purchasing for ATYP.
• Zhang Scholarship recipients can have summer reading novels purchased for them. The ATYP office will send an email regarding how to obtain them. If you are not a scholarship recipient but purchasing the texts is a hardship, please contact the ATYP office. We will help!

[1] https://www.uah.edu/diversity/news/15567-which-is-the-correct-terminology-black-african-american-or-people-of-color