AP Language and Composition  


Summer reading novels:

Fall Textbook: The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction by Linda Peterson and John Brereton

The textbook is not required for class; however, I strongly encourage you to purchase the book for class.  The book is available in used condition on many websites for as little as $5.00 plus shipping.

Assignments:

         1.       This summer you will be required to post a minimum of two posts on Nicenet.org. To receive credit for your post, you need to make an insightful comment about the text i.e. make comparisons between characters, discuss how the author develops the voices of the characters through the writing, elaborate on an issue presented in the novel OR you need to insightfully respond to someone else’s post. Credit will not be given for posts that repeat ideas and information previously submitted by your classmates.  Examples are provided at the end of the handout.

·    To sign on to Nicenet, go to the following website: http://www.nicenet.org

·    Click on Students: Join a Class

·    Enter the Class Key: 9237626S90 

·    Complete the required information.  For the optional information, you must write your first and last name.  This is to ensure that you receive credit for your posts. 

All posts must be submitted by 11: 59 pm on SUNDAY, AUGUST 3.  If you have difficulty posting, please email me as soon as possible.

Reading Tips:

If you own the book, read with a pen or highlighter and write important thoughts in the margins.  If you don’t own the book, use post-it notes to mark and comment upon important passages in the book as you read.

          2.       Buy a set of 3x5 note cards.  You will use these note cards to define terms that are common on the AP exam.  Attached is a list of terms that need to be defined.  Select fifteen terms.  Define the term and then write an example of the term along with the page number from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close on a note card.   The list of terminology is not complete.  Have extra note cards because you will be defining many more words once school starts.  It is important that you always have your note cards with you in class! 

          3.       Woe is I is an excellent resource to answer questions about punctuation and grammar.  For example, when does one use who or whom?  I or me?  Read through Woe is I and review any grammar or punctuation problems that you have in your writing.   There will be grammar and punctuation test at the beginning of the school year.  Be prepared!

 If you have any questions, concerns, or comments email me at

                                    teachruiz@gmail.com

AP Terminology

Alliteration

Allusion

Metaphor

Amplification

Metonymy

Rhetorical Question

Onomatopoeia

Apostrophe

Oxymoron

Analogy

Appositive

Hyperbole

Parallelism

Simile

Anaphora

Assonance 

Synecdoche

Personification

Understatement

Irony-verbal, situational, dramatic

Paradox

Tone

Understatement

Juxtaposition

Posting…The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Bad and Ugly

 


SUBJECT: The prescence of the Prices

I believe the items the Prices brought will have little to no impact on the Congo. Mr. Price had hopes of introducing new food via the seeds he brought with him. This did not work because of the lack of proper insects in the Congo to fertilize the plants. As for the other foods the Prices brought with them, the villagers dont value them as more than they do their sugar cane sticks. Also, trying to impose christianity on the villagers is not working out to well either. The village chief will not let Mr. Price baptize anyone in the river do to the incident years ago. Also, less and less villagers are attending the sermons. Most of the villagers rather follow the path of Lumamba rather than christianity.  The prescence of the Prices and their beliefs will not have an impact if any on the Congo, in my opinion at least.

SUBJECT: point of view/setting

The book has a unique point of view. Yes it is written in first person, but from five different people. Leah, Ruth May, Adah, Rachael and the mother. They each express their own feelings on the current situation. The author must have been really into the characters or have schizophrenia. As slow as I am, I realized that the person speaking was different, because of the names being mentioned.

The book takes place in the Centeral Africa, the Congo, during a fight for freedom, a revolution.

The Good

 


SUBJECT: Failure to subdue.

Whenever I first read a novel, the first aspect I notice is the author's style in writing a story, such as some of the words he or she uses to convey the character's speech and thought. While reading The Poisonwood Bible, the first thing that caught my eyes were the incorrect words used every now and then. On page 46, Rachel remarks, "...you'd think she was Cape Carniveral launching a rocket ship."; this is obviously mentioning Cape Canaveral in our very own Florida, but considering that it is a young girl who's thoughts we're reading, it makes it a lot more believable to have her say the wrong name.

Nathan Price's failure at planting the crops are a direct metaphor for his toil of bringing 'light' to the Congolese people. With the advent of farming, humans could now start to worry about other things; no longer did they need to run across the land, living a nomadic lifestyle. They could settle down and make their community bigger. Farming led to civilization, and Nathan is trying to bring civilization to the Congolese people. "The red mud dried on his khakis like the blood of a slain beast." is also talking about the earth itself, not just the Africans as the slain beast. jar brings up a good point, and I agree, but I believe that there is more to it. Nathan is fighting against nature in that very scene; he has to tame the land to his will before he can 'tame' the Africans. He fails at taming the land, however: the area where he tilled is flooded by the torrential rains, but he then raises the mounds. Okay, he fixed the problem. Now, though, we find out that there are no pollinators to pollinate the crops. No man-made solution exists for this dilemma. Nathan needs to learn to work with the land, because that is how he must work with the villagers: with, not just by telling them what to become. The way to a dog's heart is through its stomach, and the same could be said about people.

This bit of farming is also a test of faith for Nathan. The opening quote for Book One is Genesis 1:28, and it seems that Nathan will not subdue the earth, and as a result, will not be able to have dominion over "every living thing that moveth upon the earth.", with the word thing metaphorically including the Africans.

SUBJECT: RESPONSE TO JM

As I said in J.M.'s comments found here, this book isn't entirely about a family in the Congo trying to teach the word of God. It is also about how Westerners were influencing and causing the deaths of Africans. Yes S.C., Kingsolver’s line "...riding with the horsemen of the Apocalypse" is a reference to the bible, but it goes much deeper than that. In the section "Maybe I'll even... mouths to feed" Orleanna is speaking about how the Westerners conquered the Africans ("...itch for a turn with those horses, and those guns?"). On page 26, Rachel said, "I'd almost forgotten, he still carried numerous deadly weapons under the clean white shirt". As you have read, these "deadly weapons" were the household items Orleanna saw fit to bring to the Congo. But these household items were also symbols of the Westerners trying to change African ways. Later, on page 38, the symbolism of the line "The red mud dried on his khakis like the blood of a slain beast" literally screams at the reader. The light color of khakis bares a striking resemblance to the skin color of a Westerner, who is to blame for the "blood of the slain beast", the Africans. Finally, on page 49, "When he gets his mind set on something you'd just as well prepare to see it through... It was nothing, in terms of redemption." just reiterates what I've been saying. Do not be fooled into thinking this only has to do with God, because it also has to do with the Westerner’s want to modernize, "conquer", Africa.

 

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