Summer Enrichment 2025

Summer Enrichment 2025

The summer enrichment opportunities are below. These activities are intended to help support your learning and help you prepare and practice for your classes in the fall but are not required. If you are unable to access the documents below, you can pick up a hard copy from Fairfax High School over the summer.

AP Language & Composition Summer Activities

In order to prepare you for success in AP Lang next year, you are heavily encouraged (though not required) to complete any or all of the following tasks. This will help us hit the ground running at the start of the year and ensure that you have material to discuss and utilize in your first quarter assignments.

Read a Book

Textual analysis is the cornerstone of the AP English Language courses. It is valuable to have a breadth of texts to refer to as you think about authorial intent and write your own arguments. In order to keep your reading skills sharp and add to your mind’s library, we ask that you read at least one novel-length book over the summer. This may be fiction or nonfiction, but should be at least 100 pages. Try to read a work with established literary value; there are plenty of suggestions available on Goodreads. *

*Please avoid The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, In Cold Blood, Into the Wild, The Things They  Carried,  and Their Eyes Were Watching God,  as we plan to read those together.

Listen to a Work

Much of our work in AP Lang asks you to consider how people make arguments about the world and society in non-literary works, such as music. Listening to a full album in one sitting, or a full podcast episode, will also help you to develop some of the single-minded, long-term focus that is required of you for the AP exam. For an extra challenge, try listening to your chosen work without doing anything else; simply sit and focus exclusively on what you are listening to.

Watch a Movie

A good analytical thinker has many points of reference for their thoughts about the culture they live in. Watching movies can be a great way to develop a greater understanding of the values and norms in our society. We recommend watching a movie that has been recognized as a touchstone in American culture; the Criterion Collection is a great place to start looking.

Read the News

This course asks you to make connections between texts and real world, current issues. Being well informed about the world will give you a major leg up in your analysis and understanding in this course. This does not mean to doomscroll freely; be deliberate about what you consume, and focus on reading above all other forms of news media. We recommend that you find a free news summary newsletter, such as 1440 , Skimm , PBS , Nature , or C-SPAN . Building a daily reading practice will also help you succeed as an AP student overall.

For each activity, jot down scenes, details, ideas, or quotes that particularly affect you or spark your interest. Having these notes will help you recall what you read and kickstart your analysis in the fall. We look forward to discussing all the wonderful things you read, listen to, and watch this summer when we see you in August. Have a great summer!

AP Seminar English 10 Suggested Summer Activity 

Get informed! 

In order to prepare you for success in AP Seminary English 10 next year, we suggest you become knowledgeable and comfortable about what’s going on across the world through various outlets. This will help ensure that you have topics to discuss and draw upon in our work. 

Our course will ask you to display knowledge of and make arguments about world issues. Being well informed about the world will aid in your analysis and understanding in this course. This does not mean you should doomscroll freely; be deliberate about what you consume. We recommend that you access a credible news resource, such as CNN10 , PBS Newshour , AP , or Reuters . You can even quiz yourself each week with the New York Times Student News Quizzes or enter a contest where you can have your work published via the New York Times Annual Summer Reading Contest , which asks you to respond weekly to any articles of interest. 

Over the course of the summer, it would be a good idea to jot down details, topics, ideas, or quotes that particularly affect you or spark your interest. Having these notes will help you recall what you read and kickstart our work in the fall.

AP Spanish Summer Optional   Immersion Activities

Prof. López

¡Felicidades! You have chosen to continue your study of Spanish at the AP level. The AP Spanish Language and Culture Exam is designed to test your skills in order to see how well they compare to abilities found in a third-year college course. The exam will test all of the major language skills: listening, reading comprehension, speaking, and writing in addition to general cultural knowledge of the Hispanic World. 


Here is a list of recommended activities to maximize your exposure to español during the summer:

If you have any questions during the summer about AP course, please reach out a @email

¡Qué tengas un buen verano!