Summer reading is mandatory for all students at Neville High School.
Students need to read the assigned novel over the summer and complete the annotation project that was distributed in English classrooms in May and is available on the Neville English Department and Library websites. Assignments are due the first full day of school, August 15.
Entering 9th grade:
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros: Read and complete the attached assignment.
Entering 10th grade:
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines: Read and complete the attached assignment.
Entering 11th grade:
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: Read and complete the attached assignment.
Entering 12th grade:
Regular: Read ONLY: 10 “This I Believe” essays, available in guidance or online, linked
to the English Department and library websites.
Honors, Gifted, AP,
and Dual Enrollment: Read BOTH: 10 “This I Believe” essays, available in guidance or online, linked
to the English Department and library websites.
AND
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Read and complete the attached assignments.
Complete the assignment distributed in English classes in May, available below. This assignment is also available on Mrs. Sandifer’s website, the English Department website, and the library website. Extra copies are also available in the guidance office over the summer, if you prefer a hard copy.
Summer Reading for AP and Honors English IV
Please read the following assignments carefully. All assignments are due at the beginning of class on Monday, August 15. Any assignment plagiarized in whole or in part will receive a 0. If you have any questions about any part of the assignment, please do not hesitate to contact me over the summer.
Mrs. Sandifer:
Assignment #1 (Mandatory): Read, annotate, and color code All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
*This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2015. It is currently out only in hardback, but will be available in paperback in June. The school has a small number available for checkout. Please see Mrs. Sandifer for details.
1. Annotate the novel by writing questions and comments in the margins. If you prefer not to write in your book, you may annotate using post-it notes. Your annotations should reflect a CLOSE reading of the novel, as you will use them during our class discussions of the text. You should have at least 3 annotations per chapter. These are SEPARATE from the highlighting. Your notes should be LITERARY, not personal, in nature. See the examples from page 1 below:
2. Color Code your text by using different colored highlighters (you will need five colors) to mark instances of the following motifs. This color coding assignment is your prep work for your first multi-paragraph essay.
* You may use different colored post-it tabs if you cannot mark your book.
Please include a KEY so I will know what the different colors mean. If you are using an e-book, you need to label all notes with the same title.
· Green: Science and nature
· Pink: Childhood/ parenting
· Yellow: Betrayal
· Blue: Isolation / community
· Orange: Intelligence / genius
The first few weeks of school will be devoted to the study of this novel, so you need to know it well. You should not read SparkNotes, Shmoop, or any other “notes” or online summary in lieu of reading this primary text. We want to know what you think. Therefore, you should analyze and interpret the literature on your own. Do your best and don’t worry about “getting it wrong.”
*Turn in your annotated and highlighted book on Monday, Aug 15 along with your typed assignments.*
Sample: “At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels on the rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country.
The tide climbs. The moon hangs small and yellow and gibbous. On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half-dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouths of mortars.”
*you do NOT have to have 3 annotations on each page – just 3 per chapter.
*annotations do NOT have to be in complete sentences, but they should be legible.
Assignment # 2 (Mandatory): Read and annotate selected essays from the “This I Believe” series
“This I Believe” is a popular National Public Radio series of essays, written by Americans “from the famous to the unknown.” Each essay focuses on the phrase “This I Believe,” and the pieces “compel readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.” These will hopefully inspire you as we begin our narrative essay assignment in the fall, which you may choose to use in your college and scholarship applications process.
Read and annotate 3 essays from each of the topics listed below PLUS one other essay of your choice (for a total of 10 essays). The required essays are available on NPR’s website, which is linked to Mrs. Sandifer’s webpage, the English Department’s webpage, and the library webpage under the Summer Reading tabs. If you would prefer a hard copy, you can pick one up in Mrs. Sandifer’s classroom next week, or in the guidance office over the summer. You may access these essays by going to the web address noted or by going to the NPR website or thisibelieve.org and entering the number of the essay. You may choose to listen to the podcast instead of reading the selection; however, if you do this, instead of annotations, you must submit one page of written or typed notes about what you notice in each essay.
Humanism:
"A Philosophy of Freedom and Social Responsibility" thisibelieve.org/essay/16335/
" Our Lives are Ephemeral" thisibelieve.org/essay/54706/
" The Mountain Disappears" thisibelieve.org/essay/16368/
" Roll Away the Stone" thisibelieve.org/essay/16412/
"The Holy Life of the Intellect" thisibelieve.org/essay/31760/
Creativity:
"My Father Told Me I Was Fat" https://thisibelieve.org/essay/12446/
"An Athlete of God" https://thisibelieve.org/essay/16583/
"A Life in Literature" https://thisibelieve.org/essay/144207/
"The Power of Words" thisibelieve.org/essay/4210/
"Disrupting My Comfort Zone" thisibelieve.org/essay/22868/
Discrimination:
"Free Minds and Hearts at Work" thisibelieve.org/essay/16931/
"My Black Mother" https://thisibelieve.org/essay/232/
"The Birthright of Human Dignity" thisibelieve.org/essay/17047/
"We Are Each Other's Business" thisibelieve.org/essay/33/
"A Good Neighborhood" thisibelieve.org/essay/7707/
Assignment # 3: An Optional Assignment for AP students ONLY
Some novels are too long for us to read over the school year; others only appeal to specific groups of students. Therefore, again this summer, AP English is offering you the possibility of reading an extra novel! (Try to contain your excitement… remember, you don’t have to do this.)
If you would like to start your year with an extra test grade that you may use in any nine weeks, or you just want something else to read, choose one of the novels listed below. To get the extra grade, you must BOTH annotate the novel (following the same rules as with All the Light We Cannot SEe, although you only need to annotate for the optional novel, not color code and highlight) AND take the AR test in the first week that you return to school.
It is definitely challenging to create a list of books 1) that haven’t been taught by any other teacher at Neville, 2) that I think teenagers would read “for fun,” and 3) that the College Board would also deem “of significant literary merit.” Here’s my best attempt. These are in alphabetical order by author. I have copies of all of them (multiple copies of some) if you would like to borrow one for the summer. Also feel free to ask follow-up questions – or even suggest alternate novels – through e-mail.
- The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. This book is weird and funny and awesome. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and features “a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd.” Both the author and the protagonist were born in the Dominican Republic and later immigrated to New York. Yes, there are many absurdly long footnotes and parts are in Spanish, but I still loved this book.
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. This novel bears the distinction of being the most frequently tested work on the AP exam. That being said, I wouldn’t exactly call it a fun summer read, but I read it when I was 17 and I still remember it as one of those books that changed the way I thought about the world. It is a coming-of-age story of an African American boy who moves from a small town in the South to New York.
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Maybe because some part of me has always wanted to teach at a New England prep school, this is one of my favorite books of all time. Be warned – it is one of the longer selections on this list, but if I had to choose just one, this would be it.
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. The shifting viewpoints in this book detail the experiences of four sisters whose parents are zealous missionaries who move the family to the Congo for a year where they attempt to convert the native population.
- The Namesake by Jumpa Lahiri. We read this as a class novel several years ago. The main character is the son of Indian immigrants, and his struggle with his parents as he grows into a young man resonates with many teenagers.
- All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Don’t be fooled by the title – this is a rugged Western by the same author that brought us the brutal No Country for Old Men. In this book, John Grady Cole can’t stand that his parents are getting a divorce and that he will have to leave his beloved ranch. So, he jumps on his horse and takes off for Mexico with his best friend.
- Beloved by Toni Morrison. This book offers a brutally realistic picture of the horrors of slavery and is not for the faint of heart. Toni Morrison writes prose as if it were poetry and her use of the English language never fails to make me fall in love with her work each time I pick up one of her novels.
Summer reading is mandatory for all students at Neville High School.
Entering 11th grade: Of Mice of Men by John Steinbeck
Students need to read the assigned novel over the summer and complete the annotation project. Books will be due the first full day of school, Monday, August 15, and the first major writing project and 100 point grade will be based on these annotations.
If you have any questions about any part of the assignment, please do not hesitate to contact us over the summer.
Mrs. Etzel: . Mrs. Sawyer:
Mrs. Waters:
1. Color Code your text by using different colored highlighters for different topics (you will need two colors) to mark instances of the following motifs. This color coding assignment is your prep work for your first essay.
2. Annotate the novel by writing questions and/or comments in the margins. You should have at least 2 annotations per chapter. Each group of words that you highlight must be explained using an annotation.
Please use the following colors to color code your book.
Yellow: Protective natures (How do characters Blue: Darkness/ Evil (What darkness exists in the
try to protect each other? How do they protect world? How can characters face the darkness they
themselves?) find in the world? In themselves?)
Analyze and interpret the literature on your own. Do your best and don’t worry about “getting it wrong.”
*Turn in your annotated and highlighted book on Monday, August 15 along with your typed assignments.*
Sample:
“The first man stopped short in the clearing, and the follower nearly ran over him. He took off his hat and wiped the sweat-band with his forefinger and snapped the moisture off. His huge companion dropped his blankets and flung himself down and drank from the surface of the green pool; drank with long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse. The small man stepped nervously beside him.
‘Lennie!’ he said sharply, ‘Lennie! For God’ sakes don’t drink so much.’ Lennie continued to snort into the pool. The small man leaned over and shook him by the shoulder. ‘Lennie. You gonna be sick like you was last night.’”
*you do NOT have to have 2 annotations on each page – just 2 per chapter.
*annotations do NOT have to be in complete sentences, but they should be legible.
*** Students must annotate a paper copy of the book. Electronic versions are not allowed for this assignment. Copies are available at the school. Please ask your teacher if you need a copy.
Summer reading is mandatory for all students at Neville High School.
Entering 10th grade: A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
Students need to read the assigned novel over the summer and complete the annotation project. Books will be due the first full day of school, Monday, August 15, and the first major writing project and 100 point grade will be based on these annotations.
If you have any questions about any part of the assignment, please do not hesitate to contact us over the summer.