Guiding Questions: What makes a story worth telling, worth reading, worth sharing?

Goals: Create a love of reading. Learn to value that quiet time with just you and a good book. Practice skills that will help you analyze literature for the rest of your life!

Tasks:

  • First, read the descriptions of each of the books on the District Reading List posted on the FHS website.Choose carefully! Find a great place to curl up this summer and enjoy. Before you return to school in August, you will need to do the following:
  • Next, purchase a compostition notebook. This will be your reading journal. You will use it throughout the year. The color and line width do not matter, but the notebook does need to be size 8 ½ by 11 and it needs to be bound on the side like a composition notebook, meaning NO spiral notebooks.
  • Reserve the first two pages of your composition notebook as your Table of Contents. Put the words Table of Contents centered on the top line of the first page. Make a numbered list of your entries, starting on line 2 of the first page. It should look something like this:

Table of Contents

  1. [Name of your chosen book] Title Page
  2. [Name of your chosen book] Vocabulary

3-5. [Name of your chosen book] Quote Analysis

6. [Name of your chosen book] Recommendation

Each of the four tasks you will complete will be on its own page in the book, and therefore will be recorded as a separate entry in the Table of Contents.

Task 1: Create a title page for your book. It should have the title and author and should be creative. Get out some colored pencils or markers, or cut and paste images from magazines or the internet and decorate the page. Your title page should be different from the actual cover of the book – we are interested in your imagination!

Task 2: The next page will be your vocabulary page. As you read, write down any words that are new to you. Look them up and write down the definitions here. If you have an e-reader, then this task becomes very easy. Holding your thumb on the word will reveal that word’s definition for you. You need to have at least 15 words from your book.


Task 3: Write a significant quote on each of the next three pages.Even though this task will take multiple pages to complete, you only need one entry for it on your Table of Contents. You will need one quote for each page for a total of 3 quotes. Each quote analysis should be at least 150 words (it’s not that long – this paragraph, for instance, is seventy-nine words long!). Include the following in paragraph form:

  • An explanation. What was going on? Who said it? Who were they speaking to?
  • Why did you choose this quote? Are you inspired by this quote in some way?
  • Connections: text-to-text, text-to-world, or text-to-self
  • Inferences: Can you read between the lines? What can you assume from this quote?
  • Questions: What is unclear? What do you wonder about?

Example from Kurt Vonnegut’s Fahrenheit 451:

“ It was the hand that started it all . . . His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms . . . His hands were ravenous.”

This passage from “The Hearth and the Salamander” refers to Montag’s theft of books from the old woman’s house. Montag guiltily portrays his actions as an involuntary bodily reflex. He describes his crime as automatic and claims it involves no thought on his part. He blames his hands for several other crimes in the course of the book, and they become a powerful symbol for Montag’s instincts of rebellion, will, and moral imperative. Montag’s thoughtless actions here are akin to Mildred’s unconscious overdose, as they are the result of some hidden sense of dissatisfaction within him that he does not consciously acknowledge.

Montag regards his hands as infected from stealing the book and describes how the “poison works its way into the rest of his body.” Montag uses the word “poison” to refer to his strong sense of guilt and wrongdoing. Later, the novel incorporates a reference to Shakespeare, as Montag compulsively washes his hands at the fire station in an attempt to cleanse his guilt. His feeling they are “gloved in blood” is a clear reference to Lady Macbeth. Montag’s hands function as a symbol of defiance and thirst for truth.

Task 4: Write a 200 word reccomendation page. On a five-star scale, how do you rate this book? Give us a summary without giving away the ending. Why did you rate it what you did?*

When you return to school, you will receive a grade on your reading journal. You will also be involved in literature circles where you will be graded on your contribution to the group.

*The best book recommendations may be published in the FHS Gazette (our school’s newspaper), or displayed on a bulletin board on campus.

Have a great reading summer! We look forward to meeting you in August!

Ms. Fussell, Ms. Mayfield, Mrs. Patrick, and Ms. Steigman