2020 Summer Work AP Seminar

Assignment Number One

Recommended Completion Date: July 17th

Reading: For a Pilsen nonprofit, gentrification makes promoting the arts a double-edged sword 

• Read the article “For a Pilsen nonprofit, gentrification makes promoting the arts a double-edged sword” and complete the GIST organizer while you are reading.

Assignment Number Two

Recommended Completion Date: July 31st

Reading: Gentrification fears rise as East Garfield Park, Austin, South Lawndale housing prices increase

• Read the article “Chicago gentrification fears rise as East Garfield Park, Austin, South Lawndale housing prices increase” and complete the GIST organizer while you are reading.

Assignment Number Three

Recommended Completion Date: August 10th

You must wait until you receive feedback on assignments one and two.  This assignment will not be accepted if you have not completed the first two assignments.

Process Reflection One

• What a piece of feedback did you find most helpful?  What changes did you make as a result of that feedback?
• What is a piece of feedback that you chose to ignore?  Why did you choose not to take it?
• What worked about your reading process?
• What didn’t work?
• How might you need to change your process as you progress through the course?

Assignment Number Four

Recommended Completion Date: August 17th

Reading: In Chicago, Neighborhoods That Are More Black Don’t Gentrify

• Read the article “In Chicago, Neighborhoods That Are More Black Don’t Gentrify” and complete the GIST organizer while you are reading.

Assignment Number Five

Recommended Completion Date: August 28th

Reading: How Gentrification Takes Shape Across Chicago Neighborhoods

• Read the article “How Gentrification Takes Shape Across Chicago Neighborhoods” and complete the GIST organizer while you are reading.

Assignment Number Six

Recommended Completion Date: September 1st

You must wait until you receive feedback on assignments one through five.  This assignment will not be accepted otherwise.

Process Reflection Two

• Based on the feedback I gave you after the first two assignments, how did you change your approach to reading/writing assignments four and five?
• Were those changes successful?  How do you know?
• What practices did you keep?
• How will you continue to adjust your reading practices as the course continues?

How to become a scholar:

Here’s the deal. You need to read some books. Reading and writing improves when you read books, especially books that have complex language structures you can emulate. Any reading is good, but I recommend challenging yourself. You should read 5-10 books this summer. That is what scholars do. I’m not going to collect anything and you will not need to demonstrate to me that you have read. However, I will be able to tell who made moves towards becoming a scholar very easily from the work you turn in. This class is hard and you will do a lot of reading. If you can read something in an hour instead of 90 minutes, it will make your life easier. Here is a list of books I am recommending to you, some of which I will be reading myself. Note that, while all these books have literary merit, some of the themes explored in these books may require caution. If you have questions about the content of a specific book, email myself, [email protected] or Mr. Toner, [email protected].

Narrative Nonfiction

• Kate Moore: The Radium Girls (I’m going to read this one this summer)
• Matthew Desmond: Evicted
• Paul Fleishman: Eyes Wide Open
• Jon Ronson: The Psychopath Test
• Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner: Freakonomics  (I’m going to read this one this summer)

• Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner: Super Freakonomics
• Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow (I read this one last summer and reading it would have helped several people with their research this year if they had chosen to do so.  If you read only one book, read this one)

• Luis Alberto Urrea: The Devil’s Highway
• Jon Krakauer: Under the Banner of Heaven (I read this one recently.  It is pretty intense so read some reviews carefully before you decide to read it)

• Alex Kotlowitz: There Are No Children Here
• Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner: Think Like a Freak
• Thomas Hine: The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager
• David Quammen: Spillover
• Eric Schlosser: Fast Food Nation
• Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
• Sudhir Venkatesh: Gang Leader for a Day
• Richard Preston: The Hot Zone
• Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns (I read this one recently as well.  It is very long, but it is also very informative)
• Richer Rothstein: The Color of Law (I read this one last summer and reading it would have helped several people in their research this year if they had chosen to do so)

Fiction

• George Orwell: 1984
• Colson Whitehead: Underground Railroad
• Colson Whitehead: The Nickel Boys (I just read this one and it was incredible)

• Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing
• Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns
• Viet Thahn Nguyen: The Sympathizer (I just read this one and it was excellent)

• Jesmyn Ward: Salvage the Bones
• Jesmyn Ward: Sing, Unburied, Sing
• Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
• Anything by Toni Morrison
• Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

You should also consider doing the following things:

1. Learn some new words.  One of the biggest struggles in this class is vocabulary.  You will start learning new words if you do more reading, but there’s nothing wrong with picking out a word every day and trying to learn what it means.  Try a word of the day website.  I’m going to be posting new words every so often on the classroom.  Practice using them.
2. Start listening to a podcast about something substantive, such as:

• Revisionist History

You can ask Mr. Toner for more recommendations.

I personally enjoy the history podcasts Hardcore History, Revolutions, and Backstory.

Again, none of the book reading, word learning, or podcast listening will be graded, but this is where your journey into the land of scholarship begins.