Advanced Placement Literature and

Composition Summer Assignment

2016-2017

Part I: Two Personal Statements

1,000 words total. (The combined word count for both essays

may not exceed 1,000 words).

o Provide a word count for each essay. (No less than

300 words; no more than 700 words).

Provide information that is personal, meaningful, and

aesthetically (artistically) rich

Employ vivid imagery, diction, detail, and description

Employ literary devices such as analogy, simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole,

understatement, etc.

Employ sentence variety

o See Literary Terms Reference

Avoid clichés and trite language such as “my path,” “my journey,” or “my world”

Avoid generalities and common descriptors such as “always,” “great,” and “dramatic”

Submit Prompt 1 on or before Friday, June 24 via GOOGLE CLASSROOM

Submit Prompt 2 on or before Friday, July 22 via GOOGLE CLASSROOM

Part II: The House on Mango Street

Check-out the novella, The House on Mango Street from the school or La Habra City Library.

Annotate your copy; use sticky notes if the book is on loan to you.

o Read and annotate the essay, “How to Mark a Book” for instructions. Annotating allows for

better organization, processing, and retention.

o Consider the deeper meaning. This exercise is not about plot.

Read closely and carefully paying attention to imagery, detail, symbolism, and characters.

The House on Mango Street Assignment is located in this document.

Complete the Reading Assignment

Evaluation:

Expect a detailed test on The House on Mango Street and applicable literary terms. The better you

understand the information, the better you will do on the exams and on the in-class writing assignments.

Google Classroom Code:

3cnap0

***Please Note: You must use your

SCHOOL ISSUED EMAIL to enroll in

the class***

2nd

Prompt

Due:

Friday,

July 22

1st Prompt

Due:

Friday,

June 24

Part I: Two Personal Statements

Provide information that is personal, meaningful, and aesthetically (artistically) rich

Employ vivid imagery, diction, detail, and description

Employ literary devices such as analogy, simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, understatement

Employ your personal style and voice

Employ sentence variety

Type each essay

Submit to the designated assignment on GOOGLE CLASSROOM

o If this is a problem for you, you must contact me ASAP at aneavez@fjuhsd.org

Include the word count!

UC Prompts

An opportunity for applicants to provide information that adds clarity, richness, and meaning to the

application

Enables candidate to make the best possible case for admission

Do not discuss information that is already given in your application (i.e. grades/courses).

Provide a word count for each essay.

Personal Statement Prompts18

Applicants are asked to respond to two prompts:

Describe the world you come from—for example, your family, community or school—and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

Word Count: 1,000 words total

Part II: The House on Mango Street

Assignment

First, read and annotate the essay, “How to Mark a Book,” (Found in this packet)

Carefully and critically read the novella, House on Mango Street annotating as you read.

o See the example provided in this packet as a guide if you are still unsure what I am looking

for in regards to annotating.

o You must either check-out the book from the library or purchase (optional) your own copy.

The school library has plenty of copies of the book for your convenience.

o Pay close attention to imagery, detail, symbolism, and characters

Some key items to consider a close read are: specific locations (houses, school, etc.),

colors, and windows.

o Along with the main character Esperanza, know who the following characters are, along with

their significance:

3 Sisters; Alicia; Angel; Carlos; Cathy; Darius; Earl; Edna; Efre; Geraldo; Gil; Juan;

Kiki; Lois; Louie; Lucy; Lupe; Magdalena; Mama; Mamacita; Marin; Minerva;

Rachel; Rafaela; Refugia; Rosa; Ruthie; Sally; Sire; Tito

Dialectical Journals

o I DO NOT believe in the use of question and answer “study guides” because 1) the answers

are all online and 2) you are a human being, not a robot, so I expect a human response from

you.

o Follow the instructions on the following page in order to complete the dialectical journal

aspect of the assignment.

o The House on Mango Street is split up into a series of “mini-chapters” called “vignettes.

YOU MUST HAVE AT LEAST 1 ENTRY PER VIGNETTE!

Author’s Background

Cisneros grew up in the 1960s.

She graduated from college in 1976.

Her writing coach told her to lose the gringo style and find her own voice.

The House on Mango Street was published in 1983 and won several awards.

The book is not autobiographical. Cisneros is not Esperanza. The characters are, however, a

compilation of people and stories she has known. Like Esperanza, Cisneros confronts poverty,

cultural oppression, and the suppression of women.

Literary Background

Diction

o word choice with a specific emphasis on connotation, or associations of the word

happy vs. content vs. ecstatic

Details

o Specifics; minutia (time, place, names, dates, etc.)

dog vs. French poodle

DIALECTICAL JOURNALS

The term “Dialectic” means “the art or practice of arriving at the truth by using conversation involving question

and answer.” Think of your dialectical journal as a series of conversations with the texts we read during this

course. The process is meant to help you develop a better understanding of the texts we read. Use your journal to

incorporate your personal responses to the texts, your ideas about the themes we cover and our class discussions.

You will find that it is a useful way to process what you’re reading, prepare yourself for group discussion, and

gather textual evidence for your Literary Analysis assignments.

PROCEDURE:

o As you read, choose passages that stand out to you and record them in the left-hand column the chart

(ALWAYS include page numbers). o In the right column, write your response to the text (ideas/insights, questions, reflections,

and comments on each passage)

o You must label your responses using the following codes:

o (Q) Question – ask about something in the passage that is unclear o (C) Connect – make a connection to your life, the world, or another text o (P) Predict – anticipate what will occur based on what’s in the passage o (CL) Clarify – answer earlier questions or confirm/disaffirm a prediction o (R) Reflect – think deeply about what the passage means in a broad sense – not just to the

characters in the story/author of the article. What conclusions can you draw about the world, about human nature, or just the way things work?

o (E) Evaluate - make a judgment about what the author is trying to say

Sample Dialectical Journal entry: Beyond the Yellow Highlighter

Passages from the text-- Must

quote at least 10 per reading

assigned. Make sure to number

them.

Pg#/¶ EACH Passage you Quote must relate to one of the following codes

above. Make sure to use a variety. Using the same codes for most

or all of your entries will result in a lower score.

1. "The yellow marks in my

college textbooks...did not help

me very much.”

2. "Annotations do make me read

a lot slower and I wish I didn't

have to do them. It is so much

harder to fake read if you have to

annotate like we have to do now.

So now I actually read, because

it's too hard to fake annotate"

82/1

87/2

(C) I can relate since I often used to highlight what I thought was

important and then end up with most of the page highlighted.

(C) It is harder to fake annotate--it almost takes more time. (R)

People are prone to find the easy way to do something. Since

there's really no easy way to annotate--fake or real--it makes

sense to really read and think about the texts. (Q) Is it really

harder to fake read if you have to annotate? Or does it just take

longer?

CHOOSING PASSAGES FROM THE TEXT:

Look for quotes that seem significant, powerful, thought provoking or puzzling. For example, you might

record:

o Effective &/or creative use of stylistic or literary devices

o Passages that remind you of your own life or something you’ve seen before

o Structural shifts or turns in the plot

o A passage that makes you realize something you hadn’t seen before

o Examples of patterns: recurring images, ideas, colors, symbols or motifs.

o Passages with confusing language or unfamiliar vocabulary

o Events you find surprising or confusing

o Passages that illustrate a particular character or setting

RESPONDING TO THE TEXT: You can respond to the text in a variety of ways. The most important thing to remember is that your

observations should be specific and detailed. You can write as much as you want for each entry. You can

choose to type and save your journals as PDFs or you can write by hand and then scan and save as PDF.

Basic Responses

o Raise questions about the beliefs and values implied in the text

o Give your personal reactions to the passage

o Discuss the words, ideas, or actions of the author or character(s)

o Tell what it reminds you of from your own experiences

o Write about what it makes you think or feel

o Agree or disagree with a character or the author

Higher Level Responses

o Analyze the text for use of literary devices (tone, structure, style, imagery)

o Make connections between different characters or events in the text

o Make connections to a different text (or film, song, etc…)

o Discuss the words, ideas, or actions of the author or character(s)

o Consider an event or description from the perspective of a different character

o Analyze a passage and its relationship to the story as a whole

Sample Sentence Starters:

I really don’t understand this because…

I really dislike/like this idea because…

I think the author is trying to say that…

This passage reminds me of a time in my life when…

If I were (name of character) at this point I would…

This part doesn’t make sense because… This character reminds me of (name of person) because…

Literary Terms Reference – know these terms! They will

most likely appear on the test.

Alliteration—the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or within them, especially

in accented syllables

Example: Cold are the crabs that crawl on yonder hills. (repetition of hard c sound)

Analogy—a comparison made between two objects, situations, or ideas that share something in

common but are otherwise totally different

Diction—word choice

Example: the effect of choosing (+) slender instead of (-)skinny

Example: the effect of choosing (+) voluptuous, curvy (-) fat, hefty

Denotation—dictionary meaning.

Example: Snail means mollusk in a spiral shell.

Connotation—the emotional associations that surround a word.

Example: Snail means slimy, slow, gross.

Hyperbole—A figure of speech in which exaggeration or overstatement is used for special effect.

Example: I told you a thousand times to finish your homework.

Imagery—the details in a work of literature that appeal to the senses of the reader, lend the work

vividness, and tend to arouse an emotional response in the reader

visual—sight

olfactory—smell

gustatory—taste

aural—sound

tactile—touch

kinetic—movement

Metaphor—A figure of speech that makes a direct comparison (without the use of a qualifier such as

“like” or “as”) between two things which are basically dissimilar but share something in common; can

be single image or controlling idea.

Personification—A figure of speech in which abstractions, ideas, inanimate objects, or animals are

given human qualities.

Example: Sunday Rain

The window screen is trying to do its crossword puzzle

But appears to know only vertical words.

—John Updike

Sentences: Simple sentence—contains one subject and one verb.

Example: The singer bowed to her adoring audience.

Compound sentence—contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction

(and, but, or) or by a semicolon.

Example: The singer bowed to the audience, but she sang no encores.

Complex sentence—contains one or more principal clauses and one or more subordinate

clauses.

Example: She said that she would sing today.

Compound-complex sentence—contains two or more principal clauses and one or more

subordinate clauses.

Example: The singer bowed while the audience applauded, but she sang no encores.

parallelism—structural arrangement in which several parts of a sentence or several sentences

are developed and phrased similarly to show that the ideas in the parts are equal in importance.

Simile—A figure of speech that compares two essentially unlike things to highlight something they

have in common; this comparison is indicated by a connective, such as “like,” “as,” or “than”

Example: My love is like a rose. Not an example: A dentist is like a doctor.

Style—the distinctive use of language by an author

Theme—An author’s understanding or perspective about a particular topic

Example: Love isn’t a flighty infatuation, but a commitment to caring selflessly for another

Understatement—A figure of speech in which restraint or lack of emphasis is used.

meiosis—the intentional understatement for humorous or satiric effect Example: I have a little work to do on that 20-page term paper.

litotes—a type of understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negation of its

opposite

Examples: “This is no small problem.” “not bad” “she was not unbecoming”

Details – the specifics, and minutia: a particular type, exact moment in time, or an exact date that adds

to an event’s significance.

Example: “I don’t have any friends expect Cathy who is only my friend until Tuesday”

How to Mark a Book

By Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.

From The Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1941

You know you have to read "between the lines" to get the most out of anything. I want to persuade you to

do something equally important in the course of your reading. I want to persuade you to write between the

lines. Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading.

I contend, quite bluntly, that marking up a book is not an act of mutilation but of love. You shouldn't mark

up a book which isn't yours.

Librarians (or your friends) who lend you books expect you to keep them clean, and you should. If you

decide that I am right about the usefulness of marking books, you will have to buy them. Most of the world's great books are available today, in reprint editions.

There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for

it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full

ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part

of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from

the butcher's icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you

consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood

stream to do you any good.

Confusion about what it means to "own" a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and

type -- a respect for the physical thing -- the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They

forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains,

without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn't prove that

its owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.

There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers -- unread,

untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many

books -- a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day

they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false

respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many -- every one of them dog-eared

and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This

man owns books.)

Is it false respect, you may ask, to preserve intact and unblemished a beautifully printed book, an elegantly

bound edition? Of course not. I'd no more scribble all over a first edition of 'Paradise Lost' than I'd give my

baby a set of crayons and an original Rembrandt. I wouldn't mark up a painting or a statue. Its soul, so to

speak, is inseparable from its body. And the beauty of a rare edition or of a richly manufactured volume is

like that of a painting or a statue.

But the soul of a book "can" be separate from its body. A book is more like the score of a piece of music

than it is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. Arturo

Toscanini reveres Brahms, but Toscanini's score of the G minor Symphony is so thoroughly marked up that

no one but the maestro himself can read it. The reason why a great conductor makes notations on his

musical scores -- marks them up again and again each time he returns to study them--is the reason why you

should mark your books. If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in the way, buy

yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.

Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you awake. (And I don't mean merely

conscious; I mean awake.) In the second place; reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to

express itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually the thought-through book. Finally,

writing helps you remember the thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author expressed. Let me develop these three points.

If reading is to accomplish anything more than passing time, it must be active. You can't let your eyes glide

across the lines of a book and come up with an understanding of what you have read. Now an ordinary

piece of light fiction, like, say, Gone with the Wind, doesn't require the most active kind of reading. The

books you read for pleasure can be read in a state of relaxation, and nothing is lost. But a great book, rich in

ideas and beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer great fundamental questions, demands the most

active reading of which you are capable. You don't absorb the ideas of John Dewey the way you absorb the

crooning of Mr. Vallee. You have to reach for them. That you cannot do while you're asleep.

If, when you've finished reading a book, the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read

actively. The most famous "active" reader of great books I know is President Hutchins, of the University of

Chicago. He also has the hardest schedule of business activities of any man I know. He invariably reads

with a pencil, and sometimes, when he picks up a book and pencil in the evening, he finds himself, instead

of making intelligent notes, drawing what he calls 'caviar factories' on the margins. When that happens, he puts the book down. He knows he's too tired to read, and he's just wasting time.

But, you may ask, why is writing necessary? Well, the physical act of writing, with your own hand, brings

words and sentences more sharply before your mind and preserves them better in your memory. To set

down your reaction to important words and sentences you have read, and the questions they have raised in

your mind, is to preserve those reactions and sharpen those questions.

Even if you wrote on a scratch pad, and threw the paper away when you had finished writing, your grasp of

the book would be surer. But you don't have to throw the paper away. The margins (top as bottom, and well

as side), the end-papers, the very space between the lines, are all available. They aren't sacred. And, best of

all, your marks and notes become an integral part of the book and stay there forever. You can pick up the

book the following week or year, and there are all your points of agreement, disagreement, doubt, and

inquiry. It's like resuming an interrupted conversation with the advantage of being able to pick up where you left off.

And that is exactly what reading a book should be: a conversation between you and the author. Presumably

he knows more about the subject than you do; naturally, you'll have the proper humility as you approach

him. But don't let anybody tell you that a reader is supposed to be solely on the receiving end.

Understanding is a two-way operation; learning doesn't consist in being an empty receptacle. The learner

has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to argue with the teacher, once he

understands what the teacher is saying. And marking a book is literally an expression of differences, or

agreements of opinion, with the author.

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.

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 and making my personal index on

the back end-papers, I turn to the front and try to outline the book, not page by page or point by point (I've

already done that at the back), 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.

If you're a die-hard anti-book-marker, you may object that the margins, the space between the lines, and the

end-papers don't give you room enough. All right. How about using a scratch pad slightly smaller than the

page-size of the book -- so that the edges of the sheets won't protrude? Make your index, outlines and even

your notes on the pad, and then insert these sheets permanently inside the front and back covers of the

book.

Or, you may say that this business of marking books is going to slow up your reading. It probably will.

That's one of the reasons for doing it. Most of us have been taken in by the notion that speed of reading is a

measure of our intelligence. There is no such thing as the right speed for intelligent reading. Some things

should be read quickly and effortlessly and some should be read slowly and even laboriously. The sign of

intelligence in reading is the ability to read different things differently according to their worth. In the case

of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get

through you -- how many you can make your own. A few friends are better than a thousand acquaintances.

If this be your aim, as it should be, you will not be impatient if it takes more time and effort to read a great

book than it does a newspaper.

You may have one final objection to marking books. You can't lend them to your friends because nobody

else can read them without being distracted by your notes. Furthermore, you won't want to lend them because a marked copy is kind of an intellectual diary, and lending it is almost like giving your mind away.

If your friend wishes to read your Plutarch's Lives, Shakespeare, or The Federalist Papers, tell him gently

but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat -- but your books are as much a part of

you as your head or your heart.

Hairs

Everybody in our family has different hair. My

Papa’s hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And me,

my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands.

Carlos’ hair is thick and straight. He doesn’t need to

comb it. Nenny’s hair is slippery – slides out of your

hand. And Kiki, who is the youngest, has hair like fur.

But my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like

little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and

pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet

to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding

you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread

before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room

for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin,

and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and

Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair

that smells like bread.

“fur” = cute,

cuddly, innocent

“hair” =

symbolic of the

character’s

personality

traits

(Esperanza’s

opinion)

“lazy” = reveals Esperanza’s fear of

remaining in poverty (90)

“never obeys” = reveals Esperanza’s

resolve to break the cycle of poverty

and customary tradition (88, 108)

“barrettes or bands” = symbolic of

suppressive or oppressive influences of

poverty, society, and culture (10-11)

“straight” = straight and narrow,

correct, righteous, the example

“Carlos” = as first born male in a

Hispanic family is given privileges thereof

‘slippery’ =

sly, crafty,

knows too

much for her

own good

“sweet…that smells like

bread” = Despite her house

(4), Esperanza has a home.

She feels love and knows the

comforts of a mother: caring,

feeding, holding her.

Esperanza feels valued at

home albeit unvalued in the

world (45).

“warm with skin” (rather

than warm from skin) =

healing power of touch: care,

comfort, love

“broom, all

up” = coarse,

disheveled , his

priority is labor

(56-57) hard

labor

6 Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street 7