AP World History Summer Reading Assignment
PART 1: BOOK REVIEW
You are required to do a book review on the following book:
Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses. New York: Walker, 2005. Print.
This book review is intended to serve two purposes:
These should be written in a more formal manner, i.e. a basic essay (but not necessarily 5-paragraph) format with a thesis, introduction and some sort of conclusion. This essay should answer (with explanations as appropriate) the following questions.
Other Points for the Rubric:
BOOK REVIEW RUBRIC
NON FICTION BOOK REVIEW GRADING ______/50
/36 points Content
/2 What question is the author(s) trying to answer? (Why are they writing this book?)
/2 How do they tell/show you that they think this question is important? (Why is it worth researching and writing a book about?)
/2 What is the author’s thesis (that is, the answer to their question)?
/10 What kind of evidence do they provide in trying to answer the question? Summarize as much as possible, but do not omit important evidence.
/3 How convincing do you think they are in defending their thesis? Why do you think so?
/3 Did the author have a specific audience in mind when writing? If so, did this affect their presentation?
/3 What opinion(s) does the author hold towards this subject? Is it helpful or harmful to his or her purpose?
/6 Questions on the reading
/2 Are there other questions that you wish the author had answered? If so, what are they? If no questions are raised for you, say so.
/4 Are there questions that were raised by this reading that you would like answered in the course? If so, what are they? What in the book inspired these questions? You need to come up with at least two questions.
/5 How did you like the book overall?
/2 Would you recommend it for next year’s summer reading list?
/3 Why or why not? Be specific with evidence pertaining to usefulness for next year’s summer reading list.
/14 points Organization/Writing
/5 Coherence – logical development of paragraphs
/5 Organization – paper is well organized and focused
/4 Spelling/Grammar
You are required to do a book review on the following book:
Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses. New York: Walker, 2005. Print.
This book review is intended to serve two purposes:
- To show that you have indeed read the book and understood its message.
- To evaluate your writing and analytical skills. I will be grading the summer assignment more leniently than I will the 2nd semester assignments. The summer assignments will help me get a sense of the level of your writing skills; improving these skills will be a major focus of our class.
These should be written in a more formal manner, i.e. a basic essay (but not necessarily 5-paragraph) format with a thesis, introduction and some sort of conclusion. This essay should answer (with explanations as appropriate) the following questions.
- What question is the author(s) trying to answer? (Why are they writing this book?)
- Why do they think this question is important? (Why is it worth researching and writing a book about?)
- What is the author’s thesis (that is, the answer to their question)?
- What kind of evidence do they provide in trying to answer the question? Summarize as much as possible, but do not omit important evidence.
- How convincing do you think they are in defending their thesis? Why do you think so?
- Did the author have a specific audience (either stated or inferred) in mind when writing? If so, did this affect their presentation?
- What opinion(s) does the author hold towards this subject? Is it helpful or harmful to his or her purpose?
- Are there other questions that you wish the author had answered? If so, what are they? Not having questions is not an option.
- Are there questions that were raised by this reading that you would like answered in the course? If so, what are they? What in the book inspired these questions? You need to come up with at least two questions. Not having questions is not an option.
- How did you like the book overall? Would you recommend it for next year’s summer reading list? Why or why not? Be specific. Saying you did not like the book will not negatively affect your grade, but must explain why or why not.
Other Points for the Rubric:
- I do not appreciate poorly written work and will return to you, for resubmission, with penalties for lateness, any work that I deem to be poorly executed. Therefore, I suggest that you form coherent and well thought-out paragraphs, type your book reviews (please use at least 12 point font and double-space them with at least 1 inch margins on all sides), and proofread them for grammatical and spelling errors. This may be my first impression of you and it should be a good one! No title page or cover is necessary, but a name (yours) is. The title of the book should be underlined or italicized throughout your essay. Please note that just using a word processor’s spelling and grammar check is not sufficient in most cases. I advise having someone else check your book review for spelling, suitable vocabulary, grammar and coherence.
- Write your review yourself. It will not help you on the AP exam to have someone else write this first assignment and a false first impression could make me think that your skills are worsening during the school year.
- Do not collaborate (talk, Skype, email, Facebook, etc.) about your assignment. This is meant to be an individual assignment. Any similarities in someone else’s assignment could result in both parties receiving a “0” or failing the course.
- Quotes from your actual book are not necessary unless you feel it would really help you make a point. If you do, please cite the page number parenthetically.
- To do this assignment well you only need to use your head (and have read the book in its entirety). Other information is not necessary to complete this assignment (including excerpts from amazon.com or other review), so do not feel the need to do research. However, if you do get ideas from somewhere else, give credit to the source instead of getting a ‘0’ for plagiarism. Use parenthetical citations (see Noodletools.com) for your quotes or just to give credit for ideas that are not yours originally.
- This paper is to be emailed to me by July 28th. My email is [email protected]
BOOK REVIEW RUBRIC
NON FICTION BOOK REVIEW GRADING ______/50
/36 points Content
/2 What question is the author(s) trying to answer? (Why are they writing this book?)
/2 How do they tell/show you that they think this question is important? (Why is it worth researching and writing a book about?)
/2 What is the author’s thesis (that is, the answer to their question)?
/10 What kind of evidence do they provide in trying to answer the question? Summarize as much as possible, but do not omit important evidence.
/3 How convincing do you think they are in defending their thesis? Why do you think so?
/3 Did the author have a specific audience in mind when writing? If so, did this affect their presentation?
/3 What opinion(s) does the author hold towards this subject? Is it helpful or harmful to his or her purpose?
/6 Questions on the reading
/2 Are there other questions that you wish the author had answered? If so, what are they? If no questions are raised for you, say so.
/4 Are there questions that were raised by this reading that you would like answered in the course? If so, what are they? What in the book inspired these questions? You need to come up with at least two questions.
/5 How did you like the book overall?
/2 Would you recommend it for next year’s summer reading list?
/3 Why or why not? Be specific with evidence pertaining to usefulness for next year’s summer reading list.
/14 points Organization/Writing
/5 Coherence – logical development of paragraphs
/5 Organization – paper is well organized and focused
/4 Spelling/Grammar
PART 2: Chapters 1-2 Study
The second part of the summer project will be to study Chapters 1 and 2 of the Encounters and Traditions textbook. You will be tested on this material on the third day of school in August. You will also turn in outlines for both chapters on the day of the test. These outlines must be handwritten and must be 1-2 pages long for each chapter. Keep them brief. They will be turned in on college ruled notebook paper that will later be put in a 3 ring binder on the second day of school before your test.
Along with that, you will be responsible for reading the documents and answering the associated questions from the Summer Reading Primary Documents handout. These will also be due to me on the day of the test. You need to answer the following sections from the handout:
The second part of the summer project will be to study Chapters 1 and 2 of the Encounters and Traditions textbook. You will be tested on this material on the third day of school in August. You will also turn in outlines for both chapters on the day of the test. These outlines must be handwritten and must be 1-2 pages long for each chapter. Keep them brief. They will be turned in on college ruled notebook paper that will later be put in a 3 ring binder on the second day of school before your test.
Along with that, you will be responsible for reading the documents and answering the associated questions from the Summer Reading Primary Documents handout. These will also be due to me on the day of the test. You need to answer the following sections from the handout:
- Document 2.1
- Document 2.2
- Document 2.3
- Document 2.4
- Document 2.5
- Using the Evidence: Life and Afterlife in Mesopotamia and Egypt
- Question 2, 4, 5
Lastly, I strongly encourage (but do not require) all students to have a personal laptop for use in class in August. There are many things that we will do in the class that will require a tablet or laptop computer. Having a personal laptop will allow us to enhance the lessons planned in class and provide multiple ways of learning through use of primary documents, computer interactive, etc. If you do not have a laptop, you can purchase one for as little as $150 at Bestbuy or Amazon. Chromebooks, Windows PCs and Macs will all work great in the class. Chromebooks are probably the cheapest (and preferred) option.
Encounters and Traditions Textbook | |
File Size: | 24292 kb |
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Summer Reading Primary Documents | |
File Size: | 4808 kb |
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Summer Reading Primary Documents - READABLE | |
File Size: | 7310 kb |
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