English IV Advanced Placement Language and Composition
Post Modern Fiction: Breaking the Frame
Summer/Second Trimester Book Presentations
Professor: Jaimie Crawford

1) Find out those of your classmates who wish to present on the same summer reading book as you: *maximum six people per group; one group per book/ first come, first serve.

2) Make a note of your presentation days; each group will have two days to present.

3) Outlines of presentations must be approved by me at least one week prior to presentation date: a brief description of what you will do in your presentation

4) Presentations must include the following:

LANGUAGE & STYLE OF AUTHOR: Choose a pivotal or representative part of the book or play (no more than 500 words) to focus on for your presentation. Class copies should be made of this part of the book so that the class can follow your report. You will have to write an AP style essay discussing the style and language of this part of the novel or play as well. Remember to specify your thesis (choose a few aspects of the language and style to address within the passage as well as their particular common goal), and to cite textual examples to support your thesis. This is a written and oral project; one essay per group. Reread some of the sample AP passages, prompts, and student responses on the website for an example of what I am looking for. To help in the identification of rhetorical and literary devices the author uses and the effect of these devices: See Glossary of Terms.

  READING COMP. FROM THE SAME PIVOTAL SECTION: Using the pivotal part of the book or play that you chose (discussed above), write a 10 question AP Reading Comprehension Quiz. Use the Reading Comp. we did in the first week of class for a model; be sure your questions are challenging: Include at least one of each of the following question types: 1) vocabulary context--the following word in context most likely means what? 2) rhetorical or literary device--the passage uses all of the following devices except? 3) specific literary technique--lines 8-10 are an example of what literary technique? 4) passage meaning and tone--the author’s theme / tone can best be described as what? 5) passage content (or implied content)--the author addresses all of the following except what? Remember, be challenging but fair. The group should work together to create these questions. Provide answers on a separate sheet.

  CRITICAL READING QUESTIONS: Turn to pp.29-30 in John Gage’s Shape of Reason. Think about the reason why your author wrote the book you are presenting. This is a tough question since it will not be explicitly told to you in the text of the novel. But if you think about it, it seems obvious that Fitzgerald is interested in providing a social critique of the disillusionment that the "American Dream" instilled in his generation. Or that Paton thinks that the key to avoiding hate crimes is establishing understanding at a personal, local level. Perhaps now you are beginning to see that just like any nonfiction containing explicit arguments (Guns are should be banned because they are one of the leading causes of death), novels and plays contain implicit arguments just as strong. Choose a passage or chapter that particularly addresses one "argument" in the novel and answer Gage’s 10 questions concerning this argument.

  METHOD OF AUDIO-VISUAL PRESENTATION: You must include one of the following: a powerpoint presentation or a website on the author and novel including graphics and links to other sites on the subject.

  POSTMODERN EXERCISE: Using Joyce Carol Oates’s "Turn of the Screw" and Kathy Acker’s "Great Expectations" as models, rewrite one chapter /passage of your novel or scene of your play. Your goal is to quote Norton, "to discover the fallow spaces left underexplored in the original as much as to devise the new meanings for the story made possible by the passage of history...to pay homage to the original, but with an irreverance born of the desire to find the new story within the old"(393). Be creative. Let yourself go.

  Don’t be afraid to have some fun with this assignment.

  INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR: After gathering biographical materials and at least one real interview, write a five minute script to perform in front of the class of an interview with the author discussing issues such as where, why, when, how he/she wrote the book, was raised, lived, etc... Be explorative and make this entertaining.

USE this Salon Interview with David Foster Wallace as a MODEL for your own interview.

  BRIEF SISKEL&EBERT REVIEW: A critique of the novel--thumbs up/down--why? Should it be on next year’s reading list?

  IF THE BOOK IS ALSO A MOVIE--give the class a quick comparison/contrast between the book and the movie. What occurs in the novel that does not happen in the movie; and vice-versa? How is the book modernized in the movie?

 (All written work should be turned on the second day of your presentation if you do not wish your grade to be penalized)

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