Summer Reading Assignment 2016 AP US History (Busbin/Robinson)

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1 Summer Reading Assignment 2016 AP US History (Busbin/Robinson) Reminder: Schedule change requests for the school year will end June 17. Therefore, any student registered for AP US History after June 17 is responsible for completing the summer reading assignments. The Assignment: 1. Select and read ONE memoir from the list provided. No substitutions. If you would like to know more about the books, you can find a synopsis of each one on websites such as Amazon, Books-a-Million, and Barnes and Noble. Choose wisely. Pick something you have not already read. You can purchase a copy of the book, borrow it from a friend or family member, or check it out of the local library. The book that you read for your AP English memoir should be the same one you read for this assignment. 2. Complete the Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth assignment (100 points): a. The Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth assignment, which is a 100 POINT homework/reading grade, is DUE on the FIRST DAY of class. NO EXCEPTIONS! Late assignments will be penalized 10 points PER DAY for each day it is late. b. Please correctly and completely fill out all the boxes on the Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth assignment for your selected memoir. c. You may type the responses if your handwriting is either too large or not legible. d. Before you begin reading, look over the Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth assignment to see what type of information you will need to look for in reading the memoir. e. As you are reading, identify and fill in the information for the boxes that ask you about the source/perspective, context, and audience/purpose of the memoir. f. After you have finished reading, be sure that you have completed each part of the assignment. g. Make certain that wherever you are asked to include text quotations and page numbers, you do so. You will be counted off for failing to use quotes and show text citations. h. NO half-efforts or excuses: Don t throw this together at the last minute. Don t copy information from others from either online (That s plagiarism, and it will get you a zero on the assignment) or from other students in the class (That s cheating, and it will also get you a zero on the assignment). i. Remember: This is our first impression of you. Make it a good one! 3. Compose a 5-paragraph ESSAY on the memoir (50 points): You will use your completed Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth assignment and your knowledge of the memoir you have read to complete an essay prior to the first day of class. Make sure you have done your work and that you bring it with you! Bring the essay and assignment with you on the first day of school regardless of if you have your AP US History class that day or not. Sometimes students schedules change over the summer. We want you to be prepared. 4. A word of caution: The books on this list are adult texts written about the real world from a mature perspective. You need to carefully investigate the books you are interested in prior to choosing one to read. Get your parents approval for whatever book you choose. Also, please be aware that AP US History is a class for mature students who can read and discuss topics with critical minds and an acceptance that US history has not always been glamorous. Some of the sources we examine in class (and that are on this list) explore adult themes and issues while, in some cases, utilizing adult language. Exploring historical events that deal with difficult ethical choices and actions is not intended to condone or celebrate the choices that were made. Instead, AP US History as a class is designed to allow students to see how the American experience is a vivid, dramatic, and unforgettable journey with both moments of celebration and despair. We expect our students to be mature readers (or at least on their way to being so). Choose your book for the summer carefully. 5. If you have Mrs. Robinson, please remember you must also complete her assignment. You do not need to read an additional book however as you will be completing both assignments with the same book. ---Please feel free to contact Dr. Busbin with any questions at wbbusbin@auburnschools.org---

2 Summer Reading AP English 11 and AP US History Choose ONE memoir from this list that you will read for BOTH classes summer work (no substitutions): Second Great Awakening/Emergence of American Identity Walden by Henry David Thoreau Civil War Co. Aytch: A Confederate Memoir of the Civil War by Sam Watkins The Passing of Armies: An Account of the Final Campaign of the Army of the Potomac by Joshua Chamberlain The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant Westward Expansion A Pioneer s Search for an Ideal Home by Phoebe Goodell Judson A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland American Indian Wars Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt Progressive Era/Immigration Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy (autobiography) Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams 1920s/Expatriate Experience A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway Great Depression Children of the Dust: An Okie Family Story by Betty Grant Henshaw Anneville: A Memoir of the Great Depression by Thomas G. Robinson Growing Up by Russell Baker The Growing Season: An American Boyhood Before the War by Samuel Hynes WWII Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Manchester Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Helmet for My Pillow: From Parise Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa a by E.B. Sledge Flights of Passage by Samuel Hynes Japanese Internment Nisei Daughter by Monica Itoi Sone Looking Like the Enemy by Mary Gruenewald 1950 s Migrant Labor Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child by Elva Trevino Hart 1950 s American Experience An American Childhood by Annie Dillard The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck Korean War Colder than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at Chosin Reservoir by Joseph R. Owen Vietnam War If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O Brien In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert S. McNamara What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War by Frederick Downs Dispatches by Michael Herr A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo Civil Rights Movement Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story by Tim Tyson Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Tara Willis Why We Can t Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis with Michael D Orso All Souls: A Family Story from Southie by Michael MacDonald American Indian Movement Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog & Richard Erdoes Ojibwa Warrior by Dennis Bank & Richard Erdoes Women s Liberation Movement In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution by Susan Brownmiller My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem 1960 s Radicalism Outlaw Women: A Memoir of the War Years ( ) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Jennifer Baumgardner Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen by Mark Rudd Space Race Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 by Gene Kranz Cold War Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider s Story of Five Presidents and How they Won the Cold War by Robert Gates Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy s Daughter by Sara Taber Iraq and Afghanistan The Forever War by Dexter Filkins The African American Experience Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston (autobiography) Black Boy by Richard Wright I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Neshi Coates Between the World and Me by Ta-Neshi Coates The Southern Experience All Over but the Shoutin by Rick Bragg Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray The Liars Club by Mary Karr NOTE: The book you choose should be used to complete both Mrs. Robinson and Dr. Busbin s separate assignments.

3 NAME: BOOK: AP US History Assignment: Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth Assignment PART I-The Perspective Understanding who the speaker is and their relationship to the phenomena being explored is critical. Describe who the author is (occupation, ethnicity, age, etc.) and what their role is in the historical event/trend/time being described. Provide AT LEAST three attributes that break down the author. In describing perspective, one must identify relevant biases the author carries that may skew their interpretation. Identify AT LEAST 3 biases and explain why such may be relevant (example: due to the younger age of the author, Select three sample passages/quotes from the text that help provide insight into the perspective. Be sure to list the page number after each passage. 3) PART II-Historical Context In breaking down the memoir as a means of gaining historical insight, it is necessary to identify the historical phenomena (event, trend, experience, time/geography of focus) that a historian would use the memoir as a means of gaining insight into. Describe the phenomena that you believe the memoir to represent below: Briefly research the topic the memoir focuses on (Vietnam War, Irish immigrant in 1890s, Civil War, etc.). In doing so, write out what you believe are the 5 key/essential facts one must possess about that topic that would help them better understand the memoir you have read

4 Select three sample passages/quotes from the text that reveal critical insight to a historian wishing to better understand this phenomena. Be sure to list the page number after each passage. 3) PART III-Audience & Purpose While not overt in many cases, an historical source has an audience or a particular group that a document is aimed at reaching. The audience is in many cases, closely related to the purpose of the memoir. Describe who or what you believe the audience to be. Justify your response. An historical source serves a purpose beyond simple entertainment value. For instance, it may serve to convince someone of a fact or to persuade one to action. Describe what you believe the purpose of the memoir to be. Justify your response. Select two sample passages/quotes from the text that reveal a possible audience the author is speaking to in the memoir. Be sure to list the page number after each passage. Select two sample passages/quotes from the text that reveal a possible intended purpose in writing of the memoir. Be sure to list the page number after each passage.

5 AP US HISTORY SUMMER ASSIGNMENT REFLECTION ESSAY DIRECTIONS: Upon completing your memoir reading as well as the Deconstruction of the Memoir as Historical Truth assignment, compose a five-paragraph essay answering the following prompt. Your essay should be typed, doublespaced, and utilizing size 12 Times New Roman font. Do not copy anyone else s work as this is cheating and will result in a ZERO for the assignment. Read the following two quotes regarding the value of memoirs as historical truth: The act of making something from what is already there always involves a simultaneous creation and destruction... Even what seems like the purest, most self-contained type of creativity -- turning the events, images, and ideas of one's life into a written story --is a destroyer. Writing about one's memories, trimming, padding, moving them around, reshaping them until they fit a readable or "tellable" form, changes these memories in great or small ways. What the writer remembers after her act of creation is not her memory of the event that is the subject of her essay or story, but the written account of her memory. Lisa Knopp a writer presents a life through a lens that reflects both inward and outward... [T]he best memoirists allow their life experiences to shed light on a culture, a historical moment, a time, a place, a social problem, a political issue that remains timely. Natalie Rachel Singer Taking into account the quotes above, answer the following essay question in respect to the memoir you read: Should (your memoir) be embraced by historians as a source that provides them historical truth regarding the historical topic explored in the memoir? Why or why not? Your essay needs to include the following: An introduction paragraph, which helps set the context of the essay A thesis statement, which indicates your position on the question presented, and is located at the conclusion of the introduction paragraph Three body paragraphs that each focus on a specific and separate argument related to your thesis o Each body paragraph should open with a sentence stating the theme or argument of that paragraph o Ideally, each body paragraph has a MINIMUM of 2-3 points (accompanied by analysis) it makes to solidify its argument or purpose o Each body paragraph should strive to conclude with a closing sentence that either summarizes the argument or helps transition to the next paragraph Specific evidence taken from the memoir, or from further research, utilized in the body paragraphs to support your arguments o Please cite the page if you are quoting directly from the memoir o Any research incorporated that is borrowed from another source should be cited o NOTE: It is not necessary to include outside sources A closing paragraph that revisits the arguments provided as well as stresses the importance or significance of the topic. If you have Mrs. Robinson, please remember you must also complete her assignment. You do not need to read an additional book however.