AP English Language & Composition: Summer Assignment

2014-2015
Required Texts:
1. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, 3rd Edition by Samuel Cohen
2. Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
Please read this document thoroughly and email either Ms. Laura Clark (dhslauraclark@gmail.com) or
Ms. Amy Hudak-Bricker (dhshudak@gmail.com)if you have any questions. Obtain your summer
assignment books immediately, as you may have difficulty finding them at the last minute. Email me by
July 1, 2014 if you cannot purchase or find the books.

1. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, 3rd Edition by Samuel Cohen

This text is an anthology of essays that we will use throughout the school year. Although it is available
at local bookstores, we suggest that you order a used copy online for about $10-15 or buy one from a
former AP student. Choose five (5) of the eight essays below to read and annotate, and complete a
SOAPStone chart for each (see attached sheet).
The Joy of Reading and Writing (Alexie)
Letter From Birmingham Jail (King)
The Declararion of Independence (Jefferson)
Everything Bad is Good for You: Games (Johnson)

Why Dont We Complain (Buckley)

How it Feels to be Colored Me (Hurston)
Serving in Florida (Ehrenreich)
On Morality (Didion)

* This assignment must be hand-written in detail. Due Date: Friday, August 8th.
**Please note that there are no acceptable excuses for late assignments. Please email your teacher the
assignment if you are absent on the due date.

2. Eats, Shoots, & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Please read this text in its entirety. This text is meant to help you understand grammar rules that will help
you in your writing and analysis. Pace yourself as you go; this is not a text that is recommended to be read
quickly or in one sitting. As you read, annotate within the margins. You will have an exam on this
grammar text the first week of school. In addition, you are responsible for completing the assignment on
the attached sheet.
*This assignment must be hand-written in detail. Due Date: Friday, August 8th.
* Please note that there are no acceptable excuses for late assignments. Please email your teacher the
assignment if you are absent on the due date.

* Please Note: These are the only summer assignments for AP Lang students. The language arts
department assignments and extra credit opportunities listed for juniors and seniors do not
apply to AP students.
You will need to make enough copies of the SOAPSTone chart to complete this assignment.
If additional copies are needed, please visit one of the following AP Lang websites:
www.aplangclark.blogspot.com
www.aplanghudak.blogspot.com

SOAPSTone Chart (50 Essays Assignment)

For (title) ________________________ Author _____________________
Name ______________________
Speaker

Identify the voice (narrator)

and the point of view from
which he or she is speaking.
Identify the speakers values,
biases, and beliefs (if you are
able). Determine if the speaker
can be trusted.
Occasion What is the time and place? Is
there a particular historical
context that influences the
message or the speaker? What
specific set of circumstances
prompted the writer to write?
Audience Who will hear or read this
message? What are this
audiences biases or values? Is
this audience open to the
message?
Purpose What does this speaker hope to
achieve? What is the main
purpose (argument)?

Subject

What is this work about?

Tone

What is the dominant tone and

what is its effect? Look
primarily at the speakers
attitude. What words, images,
or figures of speech reveal the
speakers attitude? Are there
any shifts in tone within this
document, and if so, what is
the result/effect?
Evidence What evidence does the
speaker give to prove his/her
argument? Give at least three
examples.
Use this stem sentence: To
prove the idea that _____, the
speaker (says, points out,

shows, etc.) _____.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves Assignment

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler: The Tractable ApostropheChapter One
1. Identify the type of apostrophe misuse in each example below and correct the error. For example,
Trousers reduced is a case of a singular possessive used instead of a plural. It should read Trousers
reduced.
a. Pupils entrance (on a very selective school, presumably)
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
b. Lands End
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
c. Mens Toilets
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
d. Violets ready (Is she?)
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
e. Angels in box
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
f. It neednt be a pane (on a van advertising discount glass)
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
g. Dear Mr. Stevens
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
h. Hot Dogs a Meal in its Self
Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
i. Antique,s; Apple,s

Type of misuse:
________________________________________________________________
2. Imagine youre a shopkeeper in Atlanta, Georgia who deliberately stuck ungrammatical signs in his
window as a ruse to draw people into the shop. Come up with four (4) of your own particularly
humorous or egregious ungrammatical signs that misuse the apostrophe, then rewrite the sign using
the apostrophe correctly.
a.
b.
c.
d.

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler: Thatll do, CommaChapter Two
1. Come up with four (4) sentences of your own using the comma. Make sure the meaning of each sentence
is significantly altered by the placement of the comma.
a.
b.
c.
d.

2. Punctuate the following paragraph taken from The New Yorker. Use a bright color to make your
corrections.
Not long ago in Paris I met a young Muslim woman named Djamila Benrehab who at the age of twenty
had donned not only a black head scarf but a billowy black abaya and under it all a tight black bandanna to
her eyebrows that left only the circle of her face exposed. Djamila is a big apple cheeked endearing person.
She speaks a beautiful lilting French and is intelligent and quite charming. Her dream is to leave Paris and
go to Brooklyn where she has heard Muslim girls go veiled and nobody minds and in any case It cant be
worse than here.
3. Punctuate the following sentences. Use a bright color to make your corrections. (For explanations see
page 97.)
a. Leonora walked on her head a little higher than usual.
b. The driver managed to escape from the vehicle before it sank and swam to the riverbank.
c. Dont guess use a timer or a watch.

d. The convict said the judge is mad.

4. Come up with three (3) sentences that properly employ commas to offset restrictive clauses. Include at
least one sentence whose meaning would be changed significantly if commas were not used.
a.
b.
c.

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler: Airs and GracesChapter Three
1. Insert the necessary semicolons and other punctuation in this passage by Jane Austen using modern
punctuation rules. (Austen was very fond of semicolons.) Use a bright color to make your corrections.
Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who for his own amusement never took up
any book but the Baronetage there he found occupation for an idle hour in consolation in a distressed one
there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect by contemplating the limited remnant of the
earliest patents there any unwelcome sensations arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity
and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century and there if every other
leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed
2. Insert the necessary parenthesis, colons, semicolons, commas, and periods in this famous passage by
James Joyce using the punctuation rules youve learned; use a bright color to make your corrections:
There was no hope for him this time it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house it was
vacation time and studied the lighted square of window and night after night I had found it lighted in the
same way faintly and evenly. If he was dead I thought I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened
blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me I am not
long for this world and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true
(Dubliners, 1916)

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler: Cutting a DashChapter Four

1. In the following paragraph, insert the necessary exclamation points, italics, ellipses, and parentheses.
(Brackets are used where a punctuation mark is needed.) Use a bright color to make your corrections.
Well, maybe youre right, baby. You cant come together with nothing, and youre nothing [ ] SNAP [ ] It
went snap tonight at Daddys party [ ] Dripping contempt, but there is fury and loss under it [ ] I sat there
at Daddys party and I watched you[ ] I watched you sitting there, and I watched the younger men around
you, the men who were going to go somewhere.
(Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1962)

Exercises to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler: A Little Used Punctuation MarkChapter Five
1. Insert the necessary hyphens. Use a bright color to make your corrections.
Arulpagrasams British manager duct taped a banner reproducing M.I.As spray painted, circular orange
and green logo to the turntables, which were suspended from the ceiling by chains.
(The New Yorker, 2004)
2. Now that you are an expert at using the hyphen, write a passage in which you employ the hyphen in
each of the ten ways described on pages 171-174. Continue your sentences on the back of this page or on
a separate page, if necessary.

Choose one of the following four exercises to complete.

1. Take a walk or drive through your neighborhood and city or anywhere you travel this summer.
Write down or photograph at least ten (10) signs or advertisements that are egregiously
punctuated. Look particularly for those pesky apostrophes and delightful/horrific examples of
idiotic sign-writing. Type, hand-write, or paste (in the case of photographs) these examples into
one unified document. Label each error by the date and place you found the mistake. Under the
error, write the correct usage.
2. Look through your local newspaper and find at least ten (10) errors, such as, DEAD SONS
PHOTOS MAY BE RELEASED. Print, cut, or photocopy examples you find onto one unified
document. Label each error by the date and publication in which you found the mistake. Under the
error, write the correct usage.
3. Look on Amazon for a film/book/product review, and keeping mind Lynne Truss rules, correct the
punctuation. Find at least ten (10) reviews of at least three (3) sentences each. Cut, copy, or paste
the reviews onto one unified document. Then, correct the punctuation. You can do this by hand on
the printed document, or find another way to show the corrections, perhaps by re-typing the review
with corrected punctuation, or by making the corrections in a different color on your word
processor. Label each error by the date and place you found the error.
4. Find punctuation errors through a combination of the above methods. Find at least ten (10)
different examples and combine them onto one unified document. Label each error by the date and
place you found the mistake. Under the error, write the correct usage.