FLHS English Language Arts Summer Assignment
For AP Seminar Students (in Fall 2020)
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Part A and Part B are due on the first day of class

 Summer Assignment Part A: Article Search and Evaluation

  1. Choose a socially-relevant topic that is trending in the news.  For a topic to be considered “trending,” it should appear in the media for at least two days in a row.  (Entertainment “news”—gossip— is not socially relevant!) Some relevant examples are: climate change, the upcoming presidential election, racism in police departments, standardized testing in schools, gender inequality, Covid-19, remote learning, etc.
  2. A perspective is a point of view conveyed through an argument.    Your task is to find a total of five articles, each from a different source, and each conveying a perspective on your topic.  (In other words, no more than one article should be from the New York Times, no more than one article should be from The Atlantic, etc).  Keep hard copies of these articles, please!  You will turn in the articles with your completed summer assignment!
    1. A brief note about perspectives:
      1. A single article can contain multiple perspectives.  (Ex: an article on Covid-19 can cite one perspective from Dr. Brown at Cornell and another perspective from Dr. Smith at Harvard).
      2. A different perspective DOES NOT necessarily mean an opposing viewpoint. (Ex: Dr. Brown and Dr. Smith both agree that Covid-19 is highly contagious.  As you can see, they both have the same viewpoint about Covid-19, but the perspective comes from two different doctors-- hence how they’re considered two different perspectives).
  3. For EACH article, fill in the chart on the following page.  Include textual evidence to support your responses.  (You must complete one chart per article for a total of charts).
 
Summer Assignment Part B: Written Response
Please respond to these three prompts.  Make sure to number each part of your response to ensure that you respond to all parts of this question.  Your response should be double-spaced and typed in 12-pt font.  Use textual evidence where necessary.

  1. Using two to three paragraphs, explain how the articles you found for your topic are similar and different.  For this part of your response, you may want to comment on the information provided by each article, the way that each article is structured, the quotations used in each article (and who said them), the opinions and arguments presented, and any additional features of the articles that can be similar to or different from each other.
  2. Using two to three paragraphs, explain the different perspectives that are presented in each article and how those perspectives are similar to and/or different from each other.
  3. Lastly, in one paragraph, explain which perspective you thought was strongest and why.

Click here to download the PDF version of this assignment