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English Department 2009 Summer Reading lists are still available. Click the above title for more information.
Select the courses below...
English 9 CP/English 9
Selections: Students are to select and read one of the following:
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
They Cage the Animals at Night by Jennings Michael Burch
Ironman by Chris Crutcher
Assignment: Take notes as you read, concentrating on the following:
1. Take notes on the following themes: (1) friendship, (2) overcoming adversity, and (3) the importance of family.
2. Take notes on character. Focus on how characters are introduced and how they develop as the story progresses.
3. For your notes on themes and character, include relevant quotations and page numbers from the text. (Example: You should support your observations related to the growth of a character—perhaps as a result of a particular event—with a quotation that supports your observation and the number of the page on which the quotation appears.)
English 9 Honors/World History Honors
Selection: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Assignment:
1. Read the novel over the summer, taking notes (to be turned in on the first day) on information related to the following themes:
• The incorruptibility of innocence
• The ineffectiveness of social institutions (such as the workhouse, the justice system, the orphanage, crime, etc)
2. Choose one of the following assignments:
• Research Charles Dickens and establish how his life reflected the novel in a one page response (typed, double-spaced), to be turned in on the first day of school.
• Research the time period of the industrial revolution in England and write a one page response (typed, double-spaced) connecting the incident(s) in the novel to their findings (ex. research the history of the workhouses and explain how the historical facts of these institutions is reflected in the novel), to be turned in on the first day of school.
3. There will be an in-class assessment on Oliver Twist when school begins in September.
English 10 CP/English 10
Selections: Students are to select and read one of the following:
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Assignment:
1. Read one of the above selections. As you read, pay close attention to events that depict cultural conflict(s) and character development that leads to self discovery and establishing the identity of a particular character in the novel.
2. Find 5-6 key passages that depict a cultural conflict and/or address a particular character’s journey as he or she looks to find and define him or herself. The key passages may be either a direct quotation by a character or an excerpt from the narration of the story.
3. When you record your key passages, note the speaker(s), situation surrounding what is said, and the page number. Also include a brief explanation of how that passage either serves as an example of cultural conflict or represents the character.
Sample Set-Up:
The Secret Life of Bees
Speaker: Lily Owens
Passage: You could never say I’d never had a true religious moment, the kind where you know yourself spoken to by a voice that seems other than yourself, spoken to so genuinely you see the words shining on trees and clouds. But I had such a moment right then, standing in my own ordinary room. I heard a voice say, ‘Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open.
Explanation: This passage indicates the first defining moment for Lily as she decides that the only way she is going to extricate herself from the wrath of her father is to leave his house and essentially run away. She decides at this moment to embark on a journey that would get her as far away from her father, T. Ray, as quickly as possible. It is the first of a series of moments that will bring her closer to her true self and to a complete understanding of where she comes from.
English 10 Honors
Selections: Students must read both of the following titles:
Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam Jr. (a memoir)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (a novel)
Assignment:
1. As you read, follow the journey of one character in each of the two books by maintaining a character log. To create a character log…
• Locate and record 7-10 quotes/passages that depict the character’s emotional, physical, or moral journey throughout the book. The quotes/passages may either be something the character said or what was said about the character. (You may select passages that depict how the character matures and changes.)
• Record the page number and speaker along with a brief explanation of how each quote represents a further development in the character’s journey.
2. Students should anticipate a written assessment in September.
Sample Set-Up:
The Secret Life of Bees
Speaker: Lily Owens
Passage: You could never say I’d never had a true religious moment, the kind where you know yourself spoken to by a voice that seems other than yourself, spoken to so genuinely you see the words shining on trees and clouds. But I had such a moment right then, standing in my own ordinary room. I heard a voice say, Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open.
Explanation: This passage indicates the first defining moment for Lily as she decides that the only way she is going to extricate herself from the wrath of her father is to leave his house and essentially run away. She decides at this moment to embark on a journey that would get her as far away from her father, T. Ray, as quickly as possible. It is the first in a series of moments that will bring her closer to her true self and to a more complete understanding of where she comes from.
Note: The “sample set-up,” which references a passage from The Secret Life of Bees, is for illustration purposes only.
English 11 CP/English 11
Selections: Students are to select and read one of the following:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Assignment:
1. Take notes while reading your chosen novel. In your notes, make sure to include:
• The exploration of two (2) themes you think are significant. (Example: The importance of identity)
• At least 10 quotations, and the explanation of why these quotations are significant.
2. A multiple choice test will be administered on the second day of school, while a formal, written assessment will be given at a later date.
English 11 Honors
Selection: The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester
Assignment:
1. Students should take notes throughout their reading, with emphasis on the following topics and themes:
• The relationship between Dr. W.C. Minor and James Murray
• The social and cultural impact of dictionaries
• The search for absolution and redemption
• Health care in the 19th Century
• The book as both an account of history and a “horror” story
2. A multiple choice test will be administered on the second day of school, while a formal, written assessment will be given at a later date.
English 11 Language and Composition/Advanced Placement
Selection: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Assignment:
The summer assignment has two components: Read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and mark up your book for the stylistic characteristics listed below. You will be tested on both the book and your understanding of these terms during the first week of school. Additionally, we will continue to study the book for several weeks in September.
Therefore, I suggest that you buy your own copy of Great Expectations. Dickens is one of western civilization’s most important writers and he’s been around for over 100 years. Many people consider this book his greatest work. You can find copies of the book in most used book stores. New paperbacks are $7; used paperbacks are currently less than a dollar on amazon.com.
The book is difficult and complex with lots of characters, multiple twists and turns in the plot, and language that we are not comfortable with. Because it is difficult, I also suggest you get a study guide. Read the summary of each chapter, then read the actual chapter in the book. You will enjoy the book much more if you understand it, and this method should improve your reading comprehension skills.
Part two of the assignment asks you to read, understand, and memorize the following terms that authors employ to communicate their message. Try to find at least 5 examples of each technique in the book and mark them. We will be using these terms all year.
Parallelism: Repeated similarities in the way something is written. A famous example from Martin Luther King Jr., “I have a dream that one day the sons of slaves…I have a dream that my four little children one day will…I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama…” Also, look at the third paragraph of the first chapter in Great Expectations beginning with, “At such a time…” to the end of the paragraph.
Colloquial language: Informal conversational style. Example: “What’s up?” In the first chapter, on the second page, someone says to Pip, “Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
Pathos: An attempt by the author to make us feel compassion, pity or just plain heart-wrenching love for a character. Joe is the most worthy of our compassion. Notice Christmas day when he keeps giving Pip gravy to make him feel better that everyone is picking on him.
Irony: Of all the possible outcomes, this is the one you’d least expect given the circumstances. Example: In the first chapter, the peaceful churchyard cemetery -- the final sacred resting ground -- is the last place you’d expect to find a criminal who threatens to cut your throat! Also, listen to Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic”.
Metaphor: Comparing two totally unlike things in order to point out some common characteristic. Example: She lights up my life. He’s a firecracker! Pip says he struggles through the alphabet as though it were a bramble bush.
Personification: Giving human qualities to something not human. Example: That cake is begging me to eat it. Mrs. Joe calls the branch she uses to whip Pip and Joe “The Tickler” as though it had its own personality.
Tone: The mood of a piece of writing. Example: Catcher in the Rye is written with a cocky, rebellious tone whereas Huckleberry Finn has a humorous tone. Dickens uses the landscape of the marshes especially to set a tone for the action. Its dark and dreary, and then a sad, scary thing happens to Pip. At the end of the book, this dark landscape is transformed into sun and beauty when Pip’s luck changes.
Diction: Choice of words to convey a specific meaning. Example: Look at the difference between she cried, she whimpered, she wailed. Dickens says Mrs. Joe doesn’t just get mad, she goes on a Rampage.
Humor: You know this word. An example in the book: Pip thinks his dead mother’s real name is “Also Georgiana” because that’s what’s written on her tombstone because she’s laid to rest next to her husband. That’s supposed to be funny. Also in chapter 2, Pip’s sister brought Pip up “by hand”, which used to mean bottle-fed, because his mother died and couldn’t nurse him, but Pip thinks it means she smacks him around a lot (which she does).
Satire: A kind of humor, but it makes fun of something. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show makes fun of real news shows. Dickens uses satire often because he has very strong criticisms of society. He especially satirizes adults who brutalize young children in this book.
English 12 CP/English 12
Selections: Students are to select and read one of the following:
Me Times Three by Alex Witchel
Sandra Berlin lives in Manhattan and works for a chic fashion magazine. She is newly engaged to her high school sweetheart and knight in shining armor. She sees her future and it looks perfect until she meets Bucky’s other fiancée who tells her about the third.
While reading, students should consider and take notes on the following issues:
• Women’s belief in the Cinderella story
• Accepting flaws and forgiveness
• Coming of age
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Richie Perry, a Harlem teenager, volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren’t the only hardships.
While reading, students should consider and take notes on the following issues:
• The effects of war on the individual
• The role of African-Americans in war
• Coming of age
Assignment:
During the first week of school, be prepared to complete an in-class writing assignment on one or more of the topics listed below the title you have selected. In preparation for completing this assignment, students are reminded to take notes as indicated above and to bring those notes to class.
English 12 Advanced Humanities
Assignment:
There are three components. You must do all three.
1. Students are to select ONE of the following books and read it:
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Take notes on plot, development of characters, themes, and your responses to what you read. The notes will NOT be graded, but they will help you get a good grade on the assessment. See Ms. Tuttle for information and recommendations about each one.
2. Visit one of the following museums and see a “show”: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, or the Guggenheim, all in New York City. Special shows at these museums are listed in the newspaper, New York Magazine. Get an audiovisual headset at the show; its worth $3-$4 to learn about what you’re looking at. Take notes on the artist’s life, work, and why a major museum thought this person deserved a show. Hang onto the free promotional brochures you can pick up at the show and buy a few postcards so you remember what you’re seen and prove that you went. If you are traveling this summer to another major U.S. city, or to Europe, see Ms. Tuttle to discuss other museum possibilities. (Note: You will not pass the test in September if you just wander around and look at a bunch of stuff! See a specific show!)
3. Learn about one of the following famous pieces of classical music. Make a tape and listen to the music throughout the summer so that you can recognize it. You should know who composed it, when, the historical context, important characteristics, and why it’s so famous. These very well-known pieces are available in the library:
Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy
Etude in E Opus 10 No. 3 by Chopin
Firebird - Infernal Dance of Katschei by Stravinsky
Piano Concerto #21 in C - 2nd movement by Mozart
Suite #3 - Air on a G String by J.S. Bach
Symphony #1 (“Titan”) - 3rd movement by Mahler
Symphony #3 (“Eroica”) - 1st movement by Beethoven
Tristan and Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod by Wagner
English 12 Literature and Composition/Advanced Placement
Selections: Students must read both of the following titles:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Assignment:
Throughout the year, the course will focus on two specific questions: What is the author trying to achieve in a work? How does the author accomplish this? Keep these questions in mind as you read the assigned texts. You will be required to answer these questions on your assessment the first week of school.
1. Read The God of Small Things AND A Farewell to Arms. Select 5 KEY PASSAGES from each work. Please be prepared to discuss WHY they are considered KEY PASSAGES the first day of school. (Students should bring printed copies of selected passages to class on the first day of school.)
2. Define and understand the following literary devices: allegory, allusion, archetype, attitude, diction, figurative language, hyperbole, imagery, irony (dramatic, situational, verbal), motif, paradox, point of view, purpose, setting, style, symbol, syntax, tone. (Note: Students should be prepared to apply all of the devices that pertain to each text on the assessment during the first week of school.)
Important Information about KEY PASSAGES:
Because literature is patterned, writers may “charge” certain passages more than others. These “key passages” deserve reading at a different (usually slower) pace. Because they bring the themes of the text or characters into sharper focus, they illuminate the work as a whole. The question to be asked is “How do the specific details of this passage link up with the work as a whole?” We read these sentences as a comment on the whole action.
A story sets forth a series of events – physical, emotional, intellectual. Its pace is usually steady, seemingly uninterruptible; seldom does a narrator come to center stage with explicit interpretive comment. Yet out of our continuing, close, silent collaboration with writers, we as readers manage to define comprehensive order and meaning and spell it out in our own terms. We often do this by organizing our perceptions after we have read the entire story – into an extended commentary on a single section of the story. The section – a few sentences, a paragraph, sometimes a bit of conversation – is one that we ourselves believe, on the basis of our reading, casts direct light upon every other part of the story. To center our understanding of the story as a whole, we bring the section to life as a key passage. (Benjamin DeMott)
English 12 Senior Topics I: Comedy and Madness
Selections: Students are to read the following:
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Ignatius J. Reilly, an obese, 30-year-old medievalist, lives in New Orleans with his mother, whom he torments day in and day out with his constant rants about the world and its imperfections. One day, his life is suddenly thrown into upheaval after a run-in with the law, and through his adventures of trying to find some means of employment he encounters a colorful cast of caricatures who face interesting conflicts of their own.
Assignment:
While reading, students should consider taking notes on the following ideas:
• Comedy: Look for examples of comedy as a farce and satire. Make note of specific events and key passages that are simply funny. Begin to explore why those examples are comical and make the reader laugh.
• Madness: Pay attention to madness both in terms of mental disorders and chaos within society. Look for specific events and key passages that help illustrate your own definition of “madness”, and think about what you would qualify as out of the ordinary.
A multiple choice test will be administered on the second day of school, while a formal, written assessment will be given at a later date.
English 12 Senior Topics II: Graphic Novel and Literature that Moved America
Selections: Students are to read the following (novel and one graphic novel):
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
And either
Persepolis Vol. 1: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
or
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
On the Road:
On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago.
Persepolis Vol. 1: The Story of a Childhood
Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns:
This masterpiece of modern comics’ storytelling brings to vivid life a dark world and an even darker man. Frank Miller completely reinvents the legend of Batman in his saga of a near-future Gotham City gone to rot, ten years after the Dark Knight's retirement. Crime runs rampant in the streets, and the man who was Batman is still tortured by the memories of his parents' murders. As civil society crumbles around him, Bruce Wayne's long-suppressed vigilante side finally breaks free of its self-imposed shackles.
Assignment:
(You are required to complete the On the Road assignment and choose to complete either the Persepolis or Dark Knight Returns assignment):
• On the Road: Construct a 1-2 page typed response that considers some aspect or style of the text. You may choose to focus on the way Kerouac tells the story. Or you may choose to focus on a particular character and his development (or lack of development) throughout the story. You may also consider looking into how the novel depicts the Beat generation by comparing the story to historical information.
• Persepolis Vol. 1: The Story of a Childhood: Construct a 1-2 page typed response that considers the following: What is the role of women in the story? How does religion define certain characters in the book, and affect the way they interact with each other? What is Satrapi suggesting about the relationship between past and present, and between national and personal history? Why did Satrapi choose the comic book format in which to tell her story? (recommended – but not required – further reading: Persepolis Vol. 2)
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns: Construct a 1-2 page typed response that considers the definition of a hero. How does Frank Miller illustrate and explore the changes an individual goes through? How does Batman’s “heroic” image reflect our current time period? Does Batman’s depiction differ from the classic idea of a hero or not? (recommended – but not required – reading for background: Batman: Year One)
All assignments will be turned in on the first day of school. Test to follow discussion of texts.
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