Summer
Reading 2008
Summer
reading assignments include READING
some of the selections described below and WRITING
READING LOGS which will be collected the first day of class, August 21, and
graded as part of the first semester grades.
The works have been chosen purposefully; they prepare the students for
the content of English they will be studying the 2008-2009 school year. Pick up the books at the library or buy them
online or at a bookstore (school does not have them available). Borders in the Union Gap Mall has been given our book list
and may have available copies.
Please
do assignments carefully and neatly, clearly noting the works,
chapters/sections, and two elements to the Reading
Log (“Discussion Questions” and “Response”). You will be expected to stop after the Chapters
designated and complete a “Reading Log”
that has the following two components (see the notes below for the explanation
of what each of these are:
·
TWO
Discussion Questions
·
ONE
Response paragraph (of 7-10 sentences)
that uses examples from the story. If
you quote part of the story, make sure to put the page reference.
WRITING
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
The
question should be one that would need examples from the text to support
it. Therefore, it is not a question
which can be answered by citing an example.
For example (from Huckleberry Finn,
by Mark Twain):
PERSONAL RESPONSE
TO THE TEXT
The
following hints are given as possibilities for your paragraph (of 7-10
sentences) for each chapter.
Essentially, as you complete a reading you need to Find a Focus,
a focused aspect of the novel. The
following examples of a "focus" and questions concerned with the
focus may guide your writing of responses to your reading. Remember to support your idea with specific
events/examples from the story:
First Reaction: What is your first
reaction or response to the text? Feelings:
What feelings did the text awaken in you?
What emotions did you feel as you read the text?
Perceptions: What did you see
happening in the text? Paraphrase it
-retell the major events briefly.
Visual Images: What image was called
to mind by the text? Associations:
What memory does the text call to mind -of people, places, events, sights,
smells, or even of something more ambiguous, perhaps feelings or attitudes?
Thoughts, Ideas: What idea or thought
was suggested by the text?
Selection of Textual Elements:
Upon what, in the text, did you focus most intently as you read -what word,
phrase, image, idea?
Judgments of Importance: What is the
most important word in the text? What is
the most important phrase in the text?
What is the most important aspect of the text?
Identification of Problems:
What is the most difficult word in the text?
What is there in the text or in your reading that you have the most trouble understanding?
Author: What sort of person do
you imagine the author of this text to be?
Patterns of Response: How did you
respond to the text -emotionally or intellectually? Did you feel involved with the text, or
distant from it?
Evaluations: Do you think the text
is a good one -why, or why not?
Literary Associations: Does this text
call to mind any other literary work (poem, play, film, story
--any genre)? If it does, what is the
work and what is the connection you see between the two?
READING ASSIGNMENTS
for each grade level
Incoming
Freshmen—Class of 2012 (read both books)
The House on Mango Street, (Sandra Cisneros): 6 Reading logs (Chapters 1-7, 8-14, 15-21,
22-28, 29-35, 36-44)
A fiction novel of short stories covers a
year in the life of Esperanza, a Chicana
(Mexican-American girl), who is about twelve years old when the novel begins.
During the year, she moves with her family into a house on Mango Street where
she does not have any privacy, and she resolves that she will someday leave
Mango Street and have a house all her own.
NOTE: Current Students enrolled in the “High School Prep”
program this summer will read this book and do the assignments as part of their
English class. The book will be provided
for the class but you are welcomed to purchase and bring your own copy to the
class.
Old Man and the Sea, (Ernest Hemingway): 5 “Days”—5 Reading Logs (story takes place
over 5 days so do a log after each day: depending on the book publisher the
days break down into the approximate pages: 1-28, 28-41, 41-63, 53-95, 95-end)
Bad luck fisherman, old man Santiago, is
befriended by a boy, Manolin, who helps him with
catching a really big marlin. Taking
place in Cuba, the story follows the two on their five day adventure of fishing
from a row boat on the ocean without poles.
Manolin learns about life in the adventure.
Sophomores—Class
of 2011 (read three books):
(Must read the following two)
Enrique’s Journey: The Story of
a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother (Sonia Nazario): Prologue and 7 Chapters--8 logs
Non-fiction novel of the struggles and
journey of 13-16 year old boys and girls who leave their homes in Central
America to make the journey to the US to find their mothers who had traveled to
the USA years before in order to find jobs and send money back to have their
kids raised in their poverty stricken towns.
Enrique is one of the boys whose journey is chronicled. More about the story can be found at http://www.enriquesjourney.com.
Inherit the Wind (Jerome Lawrence and
Robert Lee): 3 Acts—3 Reading Logs
A play based on the “Scopes Monkey Trial” of
the 1920’s, the play follows the court trial of Bert Cates, science teacher who
teaches evolution. Bert’s case becomes a
political issue between Matthew Brady, the lawyer for the prosecution who sides
with a creationist approach to teaching, and Henry Drummand,
the lawyer defending Bert who sides with teaching evolution.
(For your third book choose one of the following)
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd): 9 Reading Logs: Chapter 1, 2/3, 4/5, 6/7, 8, 9, 10/11, 12/13,
14
A fiction novel about
a 13 year old girl who runs away with her nanny from an abusive family. Set in the early 1960’s troubled years of the
civil rights problems in the South, the girl finds refuge and redemption with a
trio of women who keep bees.
A Separate Peace (John Knowles): 9 Reading Logs: Chapter 1, 2/3, 4, 5/6, 7, 8, 9/10, 11/12, 13
Finny and Gene are best friends in a boarding
school in the USA during World War II.
They are also rivals. Is Gene,
the narrator of the story, responsible for Finny’s
accident? In the midst of the unfolding
friendship/rivalry, the boys wrestle with the reality of probably having to go
to war while trying to block out that inevitable reality as they look toward
finishing high school.
Ethan Frome (Edith
Wharton): 9 Chapters—9 Reading Logs
Finding himself laid up in the small New
England town of
Juniors—Class
of 2010 (Read 3 books; one from each set):
Set A: Read one of the following
Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini): 8 Reading Logs (Chapters 1-3, 4-6, 7-9,
10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 20-22, 23-end)
The fiction novel tells the story of
Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of
Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger): 8 reading logs (Chapters 1-3, 4-6, 7-9,
10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 19-22, 23-26)
A fiction novel, The Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield.
Holden is not specific about his location while he’s telling the story, but he
makes it clear that he is undergoing treatment in a mental hospital or
sanatorium. The events he narrates take place in the few days between the end
of the fall school term and Christmas, when Holden is sixteen years old.
Set B: Read one of the following
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck): 9 reading logs (1-3, 4-6, 7-10, 11-14, 15-17,
18-21, 22-25, 26-28, 29-34)
Wang Lung is a poor
young farmer in rural, turn-of-the-century China. During the time in
which the novel takes place, Chinese society is showing signs of modernization
while remaining deeply connected to ancient traditions and customs. When Wang
Lung reaches a marriageable age, his father approaches the powerful local Hwang
family to ask if they have a spare slave who could marry his son. The Hwangs agree to sell Wang a 20-year-old
slave named O-lan, who becomes his wife. In a changing Chinese society, The Good Earth traces the lives of Wang
Lung and O-lan through poverty, wealthy, famine, and
infidelity.
The Awakening (Kate Chopin): 8 Reading Logs (Chapters 1-5, 6-9, 10-14,
15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-35, 36-39)
The
Awakening opens in the late 1800s in Grand Isle, a summer holiday resort
popular with the wealthy inhabitants of nearby
Set C: Read one of the following
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel
Hawthorne): 9 reading logs (1-3, 4-5,
6-8, 9-10, 11-13, 14-16, 17-19, 20-22, 23-24)
Told by a nameless narrator living 200 years
after the story takes place, The Scarlet
Letter examines the life of Hester Prynne—a woman living in 17th
century Boston who has recently had a child apparently out of wedlock. The story follows Prynne and her daughter
Pearl as they both grow in a society which views them both as sinful outcasts.
Beloved (Toni
Morrison): 9 reading logs (1-3, 4-6,
7-9, 10-12, 13-16, 17-18, 19-22, 23-25, 26-28)
Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel
deals with the grim psychological legacies of slavery. The central character is
Sethe, a former slave in her mid-30s, living in Ohio
after the Civil War. Sethe is haunted not only by
violent and sickening memories of rape and murder, but also literally by her
dead child Beloved, killed in gruesome circumstances. The story of how Beloved
died, and the terrible history that led to it, emerges slowly throughout the
story.
Seniors---
Class of 2009 (read 3 books)
Note: AP students are encouraged to submit
assignments to Br. James during the course of the summer
(either e-mail or drop off at the administrative office at
school) as you finish a novel.
(Must read the following)
Grendel (John Gardner): 6 Reading Logs (Chapter 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8,
9/10, 11/12)
Set in the Viking times, Grendel takes the Beowulf story
and tells if from the point of view of Grendel, the
monster that Beowulf the famous warrior and hero drives from King Hrothgar’s castle.
(Choose 2 of the following 4)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe): 10 Reading Logs (Chapters 1-3, 4-6, 7/8,
9-11, 12/13, 14-16, 17-19, 20/21, 22/23, 24/25)
In this fiction novel, Okonkwo is a wealthy
and respected warrior of the Umuofia
clan, a lower Nigerian tribe that is part of a consortium of nine connected
villages. He is haunted by the actions of Unoka, his
cowardly and spendthrift father, who died in disrepute, leaving many village
debts unsettled. In response, Okonkwo, becomes a clansman, warrior, farmer, and family provider
extraordinaire.
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte): 11 Reading Logs (Chapters 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12,
13-15, 16-18, 19-21, 22-24, 25-27, 28-30, 31-end)
Set in 1760’s England, a man moves into an
eerie old estate and learns the story of Heathcliff,
an abandoned boy who is taken in by the family of the estate. He is befriended by the daughter of the family,
Catherine, while the others somewhat reject him. They fall in love and she marries another but
their romance hangs on even after one’s death—the ghost comes back.
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens): 14 Reading Logs (Chapters 1-3, 4-7, 8-10,
11-13, 14-16, 17-19, 20-26, 27-35, 36/37, 38/39, 40-46, 47-52, 53-56, 57-59)
In this fiction novel, Pip,
a young orphan living with his sister and her husband in the
marshes of
Brave New World (Aldous
Huxley): 9 Reading Logs (Chapters 1/2,
3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12, 13/14, 15/16, 17/18)
Set in the future, this science fiction story
depicts a world of genetically engineered castes of people, the Alphas, Betas,
Deltas, Epsilons, and Gammas, who are all “programmed” for various functions to
assure social stability. A drug, soma,
is also thrown in to keep people under control.
Unknown to most in the sheltered society is the outside, “Savage
Reservations” where people are living much more freely and openly. Of course, a couple characters find a way to
break free and visit the Savage Reservations, thus throwing the ordered world
into chaos.