Book 1: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Summer Reading: Honors World Literature

Mr. Widness

Book 1: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

This is a short novel that you may find odd. Read it for the plot, characters, setting, and literary elements. I expect you to be able to read and comprehend the novel and retain specific details (including characters) from it. For that reason, I recommend annotating your copy or taking notes if you are using a library book. We will have a test over this book the first week of school.

Book 2: How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

This book outlines important ideas that I want you to start to become aware of when your read literature. You will read part of the book over the summer, and we will continue to read it throughout the year.

There are a couple editions of this book. If you get a used copy, I will copy the chapters that are in the new edition and pass them out on the first day of class. If you get a new copy of the revised edition, I will copy the chapters that have been revised out. You will not be responsible for those chapters during the first week of school.

Read the first 10 Chapters of the book (roughly the first 100 pages). Create a document (Word or GoogleDoc) with an MLA Heading, then, cut and paste the chart below into it, and fill in the information for each chapter:

Chapter Title / Summary in your own words / Foster’s Literary Examples / Your Own Literary Example

This assignment is due the first week of school.

Acquiring Books: Bookstores have these books. You can also order them online from Amazon or elsewhere. I generally purchase my books from used online bookstores. Here are the ones that I use:

www.alibris.com, www.abebooks.com, www.betterworldbooks.com, and www.thriftbooks.com