2013--2014 Schedule of seminars
Dear students and parents,
Below is the class schedule for the academic year 2013--2014, I will also post this schedule at the blog: ashevillelatinseminars.blogspot.com.
Best wishes, and again a good summer,
Mr. Minick
Monday
9:00--10:50--World History and Literature
11:15--1:05--Latin I
1:15--3:05--3Rs I
Tuesday
9:00--10:50--World History and Literature
11:15--1:05--Latin II
1:15--3:05--3Rs II
Wednesday
8:00--9:50--World History and Literature
9:00--10:50--AP World History
11:15--1:05--Latin III
1:15--3:05--AP World History
Thursday
9:00--10:50--AP Latin
11:15--1:05--AP English Language and Composition
1:15--3:05--AP English Literature and Composition
Schedule for the Academic Year 2013--2014
August 8--Parent meeting/payment due for fall semester
August 19--Classes begin
Week of November 25--Thanksgiving break
December 19--Christmas break/Christmas party
January 6--Second semester begins/payment due for spring semester
Week of March 17--Spring break
Week of May 5--final classes
End of year celebration TBA
Books for Latin Seminars
Latin I
Henle Latin (0829410260)
Henle Grammar (978-0-8294-0112-7)
Latin Made Simple (978-0-7679-1861-9)
Latin II
Same as Latin I
Latin III
Latin for Americans (provided in-class)
Wheelock’s Latin (provided in-class)
Review Text in Latin Three and Four Years by Freundlich (978-0877205586)
Vulgate Bible (provided in class)
Advanced Placement Latin
AP Virgil--Aeneid (978-0-86516-765-0)
AP Virgil Workbook (978-0-86516-7742)
AP--Gallic Wars (978-0-86516-778-0)
Workbook for Caesar’s Gallic Wars (978-0-86516-753-7)
Latin in Three and Four Years (978-0877205586)
Aeneid in English(Translation by Mandelbaum recommended)
AP Latin summer work: Memorize the assigned vocabulary sheets. You’ll need the books this summer to start the vocabulary. Read the entire Aeneid in English. These are absolute requirements for the first day of class. We will have some gatherings through the summer.
N.B.: The Caesar and Virgil texts and workbooks may be ordered either from Amazon or from the publisher, Bochazy-Carudcci.
Books for 3Rs I and II
3Rs I
Writer’s Inc. (978-0-669-47186-1)
Harp and Laurel Wreath edited by Laura Berquist (ISBN 0-89870-716-1)
Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus (978-0-470-22268-3)
The Bible (King James or RSV recommended)
Treasure Island (Provided in class)
Gift of the Magi (0-486-27061-0)
Importance of Being Earnest (provided in class)
Little Women (any complete edition)
True Grit by Charles Portis (any complete edition)
Animal Farm by George Orwell (any complete edition)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (provided in class)
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (any complete edition)
Christmas Carol (provided in class)
Henry V (any complete edition of the play)
Summer reading for 3Rs I: Select a book unread by you previously of no less than 300 pages and read it. Bring that book to the first class. (No comic books or graphic novels).
3Rs II
Writer’s Inc. (978-0-669-47186-1)
Harp and Laurel Wreath edited by Laura Berquist (ISBN 0-89870-716-1)
Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus (978-0-470-22268-3)
The Bible (King James or RSV recommended)
A Christmas Carol (Provided in class)
The Princess Bride (provided in class)
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (provided in class)
Henry V (Shakespeare: any complete edition)
War Stories by Paul Dowswell (ISBN 978-0794514990)
Little Women (any complete edition)
To Kill A Mockingbird (any complete edition)
Importance of Being Earnest (provided in class)
Edith Hamilton’s Mythology (provided in class)
Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis: any complete edition)
Summer reading 3Rs II: Select a book unfamiliar to you of no less than 300 pages and read it. Bring that book to class. (No comic books or graphic novels).
Books for World History and Literature
Complete Idiot’s Guide to World History (ISBN 978-1-61564-148-2)
Middle East For Dummies (978-0764554834)
Writer’s Inc.
Barron’s 1100 Words You Need To Know (ISBN 978-1-4380-0166-1)
Boys’ Book of Battles (online)
Poems online
The Bible
Antigone (provided in class)
Socrates’ Phaedo (online)
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (any complete edition)
The Day Christ Died by Jim Bishop (any complete edition)
Rule of St. Benedict (online)
Christian Mystery Plays (provided in class)
Romeo and Juliet (any complete edition)
The Communist Manifesto (online)
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (any complete edition)
Out of Africa by Karen Blixen (Isak Dineson) (any complete edition)
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (any complete edition)
Summer reading: Read any book of your choice, three hundred words or more and historical in nature, which you haven’t read before. (Avoid American history). This may be a novel, a biography, or a history. Bring that book to the first class.
Books for AP Seminars
Note to AP students, particularly to those in literature: You must have the correct edition of the book. Several--the Norton Critical Editions--have important essays and notes at the end of the book. We use the books in class and must reference page numbers. You’ll slow the class down by using a different edition.
N.B. The test preparation books--the Barron’s, the Princeton Review, the 5 for a 5--are this year’s editions (2013). There is no real advantage in getting the 2014 books. They provide the same information, and we need the books in August for class. Order by the ISBN.
AP English Literature
5 Steps to a 5 (978-0071751742)
Literature 0316488763 (Used. Blue cover. MUST have this edition)
How to Read Literature like a Professor (978-0-06-000942-7)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (any complete edition)
The Power and The Glory by Graham Greene (any complete edition)
Heart of Darkness (provided in class)
Wuthering Height (ISBN 0-393-97889-3) (Must have this edition)
Anna Karenina (978-0393966428) (Must have this edition)
The Great Gatsby (any complete edition)
The Sound and the Fury (0393964817 (Must have this edition)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (any complete edition)
Plays and poems (contained in our textbook, Literature)
Summer reading: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
AP Literature notes: A California advertisement (1860) for Pony Express riders read: “Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to face death daily. Orphans preferred.”
If I were composing a similar ad for AP English Literature, I would write: “Wanted. Young, intense, reckless readers. Not over 19. Must be book-smitten. Willing to give their hearts and minds to literature. Bibliophiles preferred.”
I am excited about our class this fall. We’ll be reading everyone from what Ezra Pound called “the Rooshians” to Fitzgerald. My hope this year is to focus on literature--on poetry, drama, short stories, and novels--that should fire our imaginations.
AP English Language and Composition
Barron’s AP English Language and Composition (978-1438002033)
The Bedford Reader (978-0-312-66779-5)
The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey (any complete edition)
An Education for Our Time by Josiah Bunting (any complete edition)
Eats, Shoots and Leaves (978-1592402038)
Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace 4th edition (978-0205830763)
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman (any complete edition)
American Essays (provided in class)
With Love and Prayers (provided in class)
The Writer’s Workshop (provided in class)
Summer reading: The Day I Became an Autodidact
This year I am making several major changes to the curriculum for AP English Language and Composition. Several essays and perhaps books will be assigned from online sources. Our main focus will be on reading books about writing and on writing itself.
AP World History
Cracking the AP: World History Exam: Princeton Review (978-0307944917)
Global History (AMSCO) (ISBN 1-56765-607-2)
The Creators by Daniel Boorstein (1-978-0679743750)
Online sources
Summer reading: The Creators: Prologue, Parts I and II (approximately 63 pages). Read, study, and absorb these pages. Make notes on the main historical figures in each biographical sketch.
Notes for AP World History: This afternoon a neighbor was working the garden behind her house. She was in her thirties, tanned and fit, and dug vigorously into the earth. The thought occurred that we humans have done this same thing for thousands of years, this same act of mixing our labor with dirt, sun, water, and seed to produce food by which we might live.
There is a romance to history. It is the story of human beings, our ancestors, who by all their struggles and labors brought us into being. And this history is anything but dead--it surrounds us, and we just don’t see it.
In the coming year we will learn many things together about the history of the world and its many peoples, but I want you to remember, while we are in the middle of all those facts and interpretations, that we are always concerned with real human beings, people who lived and walked this earth and sometimes brought forth great art and vast civilizations.
