SUMMER READINGS & ACTIVITIES

I selected the readings and activities that we will dig into together this summer so that we can:
  1. establish a shared approach to the work we will do together in the coming the year, one that is dedicated to curiosity, growth, and openness;
  2. forge habits of interaction with a text, including reading carefully and deeply, asking questions (and asking more questions, and more questions, and...), taking time to reflect on what we are reading and to connect it to what we already know through annotating and keeping a commonplace book;
  3. build a shared theoretical framework surrounding the central ideas of AP Lit this upcoming year, adaptation, appropriation, and intertextuality; and
  4. practice digital communication and publication so that we are all comfortable with this component of the course before the year begins.
We all need and want the summer to be restorative, energizing, so I hope that you all will come to our summer work with enthusiasm, taking advantage of the fact that we have the luxury of time and space to interact with and reflect on the ideas in our summer work differently than we are able to during the rush of the school year.  

While I am not assigning summer due dates, I am including a suggested calendar so that you can be sure you're on task.  I cannot stress how counterproductive it would be to postpone summer work until right before the new school year.  Putting off this summer work will rob you of the time to grapple with, reflect on, and question the difficult concepts around which our course is structured.  So instead of trying to play catch-up in August, I strongly encourage you to banish apathy, jump in with both feet, and dig into the summer work with patience, enthusiasm, and, above all, curiosity.  

READING:
Words Like Loaded Pistols

In brief:
• pick it up from my room by Friday 27 May by 1:00 pm
• read, annotate, question, reflect, and commonplace about pages 1-190
• explore the glossary + figures by theme sections as the terms arise in the text, making note especially of terms that you imagine might occur in literary texts and any literary examples you are already familiar with
• keep a running list (in your commonplace book? on your portfolio website? both?) of all the ways that you may use this information both within AP Lit and in your other classes 
​

You: "But Dr. Holt!  This isn't AP Lang!  Why are WE reading Words Like Loaded Pistols????"

Me: "Good question!  Why do YOU think you're reading Words Like Loaded Pistols?**"

**I promise you that - this one time - I will answer.  But only after you do.

READING:
our printed
​summer reading packet

In brief:
• pick it up from my room by Friday 27 May by 1:00 pm
• read, annotate, question, reflect, and commonplace about each of the selections
• for each selection, ask yourself "why are we reading this?"
• for each selection, make connections! to the other readings, to things you already know, to pieces of literature you've read, to things outside of AP Lit or literature generally! think expansively!

WRITING:
​your commonplace book

In brief:
• pick it up from my room by Friday 27 May by 1:00 pm
• use it, as you read everything for this course, to copy down quotes from your readings, to write down your thoughts, to note connections you make, to ask questions, to doodle and draw and muse: so use it to make your thinking visible! 
• how you organize it and what your commonplace book looks like is entirely up to you: if you are an observant reader, a poem will tell you how to read it; if you are an observant and reflective commonplace-r, your commonplace book will tell you how to use it

Specific Assignment:
• you will turn in your commonplace books at the beginning of your first day of class
• in your commonplace book, I want to see your in-process thinking from throughout the summer as you read and question and reflect and connect!

WRITING:
your portfolio website

In brief: 
• if you already have a website you have used for internship or as your portfolio for another class, take time this summer to reorganize it so that it serves as a professional/academic website for you as a whole rather than for one course​
• if you do not yet have a website, go ahead and make one, using tutorials and instructions online and organizing based on your own understanding of best practices of web design
• within the AP Lit page, create a SUMMER WORK page
where you will include your specific assignment, explained below
• within the AP Lit page, create a BLOG page

Specific Assignments:

Three Reflective Blog Posts (end of May, beginning of July, and mid-August), which each incorporate at least one image from your commonplace book and communicate your thinking on the selection from your commonplace book as well as on class and what you imagine we'll accomplish together based on the work you've done for the class (i.e. beginning of summer, middle of summer, end of summer)

One BrainPickings.org-style piece centered around a key concept from our summer reading selections and weaving in the connected (though perhaps not obviously connected) ideas from other readings, like Maria Popova does in the BrainPickings.org pieces
• you should begin by establishing a clear understanding of the moves that Popova makes in this kind of piece (including the digital and visual rhetorical moves as well as the moves she makes as a writer) as well as the kinds of claims she makes and how she communicates and supports them;
• in addition to the piece itself, write a reflective cover letter that explains the rhetorical moves you hoped to make, how you incorporated strategies from Words Like Loaded Pistols and from Popova's own pieces on BrainPickings.org; this piece of process writing can go on the same page as your BrainPickings piece or on a sub-page that you link to from your BrainPickings piece
• here are some examples:
Photos used under Creative Commons from FeatheredTar, Pain Chaud, markus spiske