8th Grade Summer Assignment

Summer of 2014

1) ReadThe Outsiders by S.E Hinton. Answer two of the following questions:

1) How does Ponyboy’s relationship with Darry change over the course of the novel? What leads to this significant change?

2) How is the theme expressed that sometimes bonds of friendship are stronger than familial bonds?

3) How is the theme expressed that hardship can be a catalyst (cause) for personal strength, growth, and insight?

4) How does the author use poetry to emphasize a central idea of the story?

Guidelines

  • Each question should be responded to in two double spaced typed pages.
  • Each question should be answered directly.
  • Specific references to the text should be used to support answer.
  • Writing should be proofread for errors in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
  • Ideas should be expressed with clarity.

2)Select ONE book from the 8th Grade Independent Book Initiative list and read it for the first day of school. Annotate a minimum of three chapters of the text with the annotation sheet model provided. You can recreate the model on your own loose leaf paper. Each chapter you annotate should comment on at least four quotations. Parent approval is needed for each book selected. Please bring your permission slip for the first book you’re reading on the first day of school.

Independent Reading Initiative

You are required to select ONE book over the summer prior to 8th grade and one book per marking period to read for enjoyment. You can choose from a great selection of fiction, nonfiction/memoir, world history, U.S History, or science books. If there is a book that is not on the recommended list that you wish to read, please email me for approval. Your parents must approve of ALL books you read, so there will be permission slips administered each marking period when you select your independent reading book. At the end of each marking period, you will do some narrative writing on the work that you chose, which will be incorporated into your formal assessment grade. AUDIO BOOKS are acceptable but they must be accompanied by looking at the text. You can get books through any of the New York Public Libraries or through our class lending library. Anyone who lends a book that he/she owns or purchases to the library for a year will receive 100 points towards their homework grade. This would be an excellent contribution to our 8th Grade ELA community.

Fiction Choices

*The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

*The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

*The Road by Cormac McCarthy

*The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

*Trevor: A Novella by James Lecense

*The Hobbit by J.R Tolkien

*1984 by George Orwell

*Go Ask Alice (Anonymous)

*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

*How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

*In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

*Night by Elie Wiesel

*All the Time in the World by E.L Doctorow

*The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

*The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets by Kathleen Alcott

*Zombie by J.R Angelina

*The People of Forever are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjui

*Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

*Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

*The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

*Dragonwings by Laurence Yep

*As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

*Light in August by William Faulkner

*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

*Black Boy by Richard Wright

*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

*When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

*The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Nonfiction Choices

*The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

*Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

*The Fire in the Ashes by Jonathan Kozol

*Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol

*Ordinary Resurrections by Jonathan Kozol

*The Color of Water by James McBride

*They Don’t Like Me: Lessons on Bullying and Teasing from a Preschool Classroom by Jane Katcy

*Decoded by Jay Z

*My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change by Sam Bracken

*Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

*Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

*How Children Succeed by Paul Tough

*Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

*The Other West Moore by West Moore

*Unstuck in Time: A Journey through Kurt Vonnegut’s Life and Novels by Gregory D. Sumner

*Mountains Beyond Moutains by Tracy Kidder

*Swan: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver

*Imperfect: An Improbable Life by Jim Abbott and Tim Brown

*I am Nunjood, Age 10, and Divorced by Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui

*Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems by Billy Collins.

*Moving to Higher Ground-How Jazz Can Change Your Life by Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey Ward.

*Half a Life: A Memoir by Darin Strauss

*Extraordinary, Ordinary People by Condoleeza Rice

*Do You Dream in Color: Insights from a Girl Without Sight by Laurie Rubin

*In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

*Full Text of Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

*Wild by Cheryl Strayed

*When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir by Said Sayra fi

*Unbroken: A World War 2 Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption.

*Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

*”Letter on Thomas Jefferson” by John Adams

*The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

*Random Family by Adrian Nicole Leblanc

*The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

*Quiet by Susan Cain

*Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry

World History Choices

*The Scouts by Susan Cohen

*Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood by Barbara Demick

*Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

*Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth by Adharanand Finn

*In a Single Garment of Destiny: A Global Vision of Justice by Martin Luther King

*10 Years that Shook the World: A Timeline of Events from 2001 by Loretta Napoleoni

*National Geographic Concise Atlas of the World by National Geographic

U.S History Choices

*Me the People: One Man’s Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America by Kevin Bleyer

*Confederate Currency by Pierre Fricke

*Everyday Heroes: 50 Americans Changing the World One Non-Profit at a Time by Katrina Fried

*A Young People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

*A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

*Stuff Every American Should Know by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnased

*All Labor Has Dignity by Martin Luther King JR.

*Lies My Teacher Told me by James Loewen

*Presidential Campaign Posters: Two Hundred Years of Election Art by The Library of Congress

*The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia by Smithsonian Institution

*How the States Got Their Shapes Too by Mark Stein

*A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki

*Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

*Roots

Science Choices

*Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics by Jim Al-Khalili

*The New Cool: A Visionary Teacher, His First Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts by Neal Bascomb

*How I Killed Pluto and Why I Had It Coming by Mike Brown

*The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

*Black Gold: The Story of Oil in Our Lives by Albert Marrin

*The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

*Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stott

*National Geographic Angry Birds: The True Stories of the Fed Up, Feathered, and Furious Written by Mel White

Permission Slip for Summer Reading

Student Name:

Parent Name:

Parent Signature:

Cellphone Number:

Best email to reach me at:

Best times to reach me:

Comments/Questions:

_

  1. Passage/ Quotation
Provide a direct quotation and page number /
  1. Explanation of the significance of details from the text (Analysis)
or
  1. Connections: to yourself, another text, the world
or
  1. Questions (Is there something you don’t understand? Is there an opportunity for a discussion question you’d like to pose to the class?

Quotation (in MLA format)