Summer Assignments

English 9 - Raise Your Voice: Finding and Developing Personal Voice

Throughout the English 9 course, we will learn to “read like a writer” and develop our own voices in our writing. During the year, we will read a variety of mentor texts that will help us practice and develop analysis skills, as well as understand and emulate examples of effective writing. As we begin the year by reading narrative essays and working to develop our own narrative writing style, we will read a selection of essays that will help us to identify specific writing skills and techniques.

• “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan
• “Hi. I’m Nic” by Nic Stone
• “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros

As you read each of the works, pay attention to the following questions. There is no formal writing assignment due upon arrival in August, but we will use your notes and answers to these questions as the basis for a writing assignment shortly after you return to school:

1. Notice how the writer uses descriptive language in each of the essays. In what ways does the author utilize sensory imagery (details that relate to the five senses—taste, touch, smell, sight, sound)?

2. Consider the author’s purpose. What is the author trying to communicate to the reader through this piece of writing? What is the moral of the author’s story and/or what life lessons can be learned by reading?

MATERIALS: Summer Assignment English 9

Honors English 9 - Raise Your Voice: Finding and Developing Personal Voice

Throughout the Honors English 9 course, we will learn to “read like a writer” and develop our own voices in our writing. During the year, we will read a variety of mentor texts that will help us practice and develop analysis skills, as well as understand and emulate examples of effective writing. As we begin the year by reading narrative works and focusing on developing our own narrative writing style, we will read a selection of essays and a novella that will help us to identify specific writing skills and techniques.

MATERIALS: Summer Assignment Honors English 9

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (Student purchase - ISBN: 9780679734772)

• “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan
• “Hi. I’m Nic” by Nic Stone
• “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros
• Selections from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

   (Students must purchase novel for use during class, ISBN: 9780679734772):
         o “The House on Mango Street” – pages 3-5
          o “Hairs” – pages 6-7
          o “Boys & Girls” – pages 8-9
          o “My Name” – pages 10-11
 

As you read each of the works, pay attention to the following questions.  There is no formal writing assignment due upon arrival in August, but we will use your notes and answers to these questions as the basis for a writing assignment shortly after you return to school:

1. Notice how the writer uses descriptive language in each of the essays. In what ways does the author utilize sensory imagery (details that relate to the five senses—taste, touch, smell, sight, sound)?

2. Consider the author’s purpose. What is the author trying to communicate to the reader through this piece of writing? What is the moral of the author’s story and/or what life lessons can be learned by reading?

English 10 - Fantastic Texts and How to Read Them

Grade 10

Materials: Summer Assignment English 10

1. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria”—Judith Ortiz Cofer
2. “The Lottery”—Shirley Jackson

As you read, please consider the following questions. These questions will be used in class discussion and towards a final writing assignment.

1. Why do you suppose Cofer wrote “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria”? Does she have a purpose beyond changing readers’ perceptions of Latina women? Explain and provide examples.

2. Consider the outcome of Jackson’s, “The Lottery.” What might she be saying about tradition and conformity in a society? Explain and provide examples.

Honors English 10 - Fantastic Texts and How to Read Them

Materials: Honors English 10 (Part 1); Honors English 10 (Part 2) 

1. “Mother Tongue”—Amy Tan
2. “The Ethics of Eating Meat”—Jim Mason and Peter Singer
3. “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants”—Nadine Gordimer

As you read, please consider the following questions. These questions will be used in class discussion and towards a final writing assignment.

1. Why do you suppose Tan wrote “Mother Tongue”? Does she have a purpose beyond changing readers’ perceptions of her mother’s “broken” English? Explain and provide examples.
2. What are Singer and Mason attempting to convince the readers of in “The Ethics of Eating Meat”? Are some of their arguments more effective than others? Explain and provide examples.
3. How does a lack of self-awareness and understanding help to drive the plot forward in
“Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants”? Explain and provide examples.

English 11 - Four Literary Forms

Materials:  Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (ISBN: 978-0-19-953554-5) (Student purchase)

During the summer, read only Volume I of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.  We will read Volume II after we return to school in September.  Keep in mind that some copies of the novel include other minor or incomplete works by Jane Austen (i.e., “Lady Susan,” “The Watsons,” “Sanditon,” et al), but we are only reading Volume I of Northanger Abbey. 

In this novel, you’ll be introduced to one of Jane Austen’s earliest heroines, Catherine Morland, a young woman who will serve as your first character study.  The novel is divided into two parts (Volume I and Volume II), and thus two dimensions of Catherine’s character emerge under two starkly different circumstances.  Enjoy your first foray into the universe of Jane Austen!

As you read, identify those moments in which Catherine finds herself at the crossroads of major decisions, decisions that will define her character within the societal boundary of Bath, England.  We’ll use these pivotal moments as springboards for discussion in the first couple of weeks of the school year before heading into the second half of the novel.

Honors English 11 - Irish Literary Renaissance & From Book to Film

Materials:  The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen (ISBN: 0385720149) (Student purchase)

[NOTE: The novel is divided into three sections.  Students should only read the first section titled “The Arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Montmorency” which spans eight chapters. The remaining two sections will be read in September.]

If only there were a novel written by an Irishwoman who lived during the final years of the Irish War of Independence and could depict life as it was experienced by the Anglo-Irish who were being pushed out of Ireland by the Irish resistance.  Oh, right, there is: The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen, an Anglo-Irish woman herself who lived through this experience first-hand.  Her novel attempts to capture the “sensations” around the final period of the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s.  Published in 1929, Bowen’s novel is a slice of the end of a decades-long struggle between Irish Nationalists, Anglo-Irish society, and Britain. 

We’ll use this novel to understand a culminating point in the struggle between two colliding ideologies in Ireland.  As you read, get a sense of Bowen’s perspective of the struggle as it is conveyed through her characters.  Which characters are the targets of her sympathy?  If you could interview Bowen about her novel, what questions might you ask her?  We’ll use your notes and questions as jumping-off points when you return in September.

AP English 11 - AP English Language and Composition

Materials: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (ISBN: 015626224X) (Student purchase)

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (ISBN: 0312626681) (Student purchase)

In these unique works of Orwell and Ehrenreich, you will discover life at or below the poverty line through the eyes of two writers who lived it.  Orwell’s book, published in 1933, takes you to the dregs of Paris and London and drags you through the desperate world of many people he encounters there.  Ehrenreich’s book, published in 2001, is a kind of Down and Out update, exposing life in America for house cleaners, retail workers, and restaurant servers who work long, stressful hours for minimum wage pay.  Both books are not strictly exercises in journalism, but rather expositions of deeply personal convictions about the state of welfare that permeates their respective societies during their respective historical periods. 

As you read, consider the language (the actual choice of words themselves) that each author uses to construct particular moments of strife, despair, and suffering.  How would you describe Orwell’s and Ehrenreich’s writing styles in these moments?  Select a few passages from Orwell that complement a few passages from Ehrenreich.  We’ll use these passages as jumping-off points when you return in September.

English 12 - Memoirs and Creative Non-Fiction

Materials: Educated by Tara Westover (ISBN: 0399590528) (Student purchase)

Over the summer, please read Part One of Tara Westover’s Educated - we will write about this section soon after the school year begins. While reading consider the following questions: Who are her teachers? How do the lessons she’s learning change the way she sees herself, her place in her family, and her place in the broader world?

We will read the remainder of the memoir together in the beginning weeks of the school year.

Honors English 12 - Detective Fiction and True Crime Narrative

Materials: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (ISBN: 0679745580) (Student purchase)

Capote’s In Cold Blood was the first of a genre, the “non-fiction novel.” Its composition brought into question the veracity of this type of text, but it serves as a great foundation for the fiction and non-fiction we will read during the year.

When we return in the Fall, please read the first three sections: “The Last to See Them Alive”, “Persons Unknown”, and “The Answer.” We will begin by writing about these sections, but also finish the text soon thereafter.

I highly recommend reading Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, too. This text is optional, but it is an easy and compelling read that will help contextualize other works we will encounter during the year.

AP English 12 - AP Literature and Composition

Materials:  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (ISBN: 9780141439518) (Student purchase)

Over the summer, read Volumes I and II in Pride and Prejudice. While reading, make sure you have a working understanding of the Regency period in England. Take the time to research the importance of primogeniture, entailment, and preferment. Pay close attention to how Austen utilizes setting and characterization in the novel, too.

We will start with Volume III when school begins and write about the novel shortly thereafter.
Also, please choose one of the following novels to read individually. When we return, we will crowd source information for these texts (since there are many possible titles on the AP exam):
Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Invisible Man, Howards End, The Poisonwood Bible, Atonement, All the Pretty Horses, The Color Purple, The Awakening, Great Expectations, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Beloved, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Heart of Darkness, Crime and Punishment