BRENTWOOD HIGH SCHOOL

REQUIRED SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT

Entering 10th Grade Part II – We Beat the Street by the Three Doctors and Sharon Draper

ASSIGNMENT: We Beat the Street Reader Response Journal

You will be responsible for completing BOTH of the following assignments as you read the novel. Please bring thesecompleted assignments with you on the first day of school. You are encouraged to annotate, or take notes, while reading the novel as well. Since you are not allowed to write in the book, post-it notes can be used instead.

Reader Response Assignment #1

This novel contains many pieces of advice and words of wisdom. Below are threequotes from the novel. For each one:

1)Explain how this particular quote relates to the characters and/or events in the book.

2)Relate the quote to life. Can you apply this advice to yourself? How can you relate to this? How is this an important piece of wisdom for people your age? Make a connection to your life or the world.

Quote #1: “In life you are going to have to make some hard decisions. Always try and make sure you make them with the very best intentions. If you do that, no matter what you decide and no matter what the outcome, it will be the right decision, because you make it for the right reasons.” (Page 43)

Quote #2: “Creative outlets are good for the soul, as well as the community. Everyone benefits when art or music or literature is shared.” (Page 152)

Quote #3: Choose your own quote from the story. Respond to your selection.

***Each response should be around 3-5 sentences***

Reader Response Assignment #2

The focus of 10th grade English is ethics and morality. Ethics is defined as the moral principles and values held by an individual or group. In 10th grade, you will read stories that ask you to question the ethics of individual characters or even society as a whole. For your last part of the summer reading project you will consider ethical, and unethical, decision making in We Beat the Street.

For each section of the book, you are required to do the following:

  1. Choose an excerpt from the text that you think illustrates ethical, or unethical, decision making. In other words, choose a quote that illustrates a character making a good decision or a bad decision?
  2. Write out the line(s) and give the page number.
  3. Explain how you think this quote relates to ethics or morality. Why did you choose this quote? What is it illustrating about ethics or morality?

Choose one quote for each of the following sections:

Section 1: Chapters 1-7

Section 2: Chapters 8-14

Section 3: Chapters 15-22 ***Each response should be around 3-5 sentences per question***