Summer Reading for 8th Grade IB English – 2016
1. Please purchase/check out Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
2. Complete a dialectical journal (described below). On the day school resumes in August, you will turn in your journals, which are worth mega points. There will be assessments at that time to check reading. Please email us during the summer if you have questions: [email protected]
Instructions for Dialectical Journal
A dialectical journal is another word for a double-entry or two-sided journal. Draw a line vertically down the middle of a page. On the left hand side, write down particular words, passages, lines, quotes – anything from the text that you find interesting. These may be passages you question, find beautiful or distressing, wonder about, or even relate to your own life experiences. Pay attention to stage directions and narrative technique. Write these citations down along with their exact page numbers. Longer passages need only be referred to by the first several and last few words with an ellipsis in between.
On the right side of the page, react to each passage. Your response may be an emotional or intellectual reaction, a question or hypothesis, a connection to something else you’ve read or experienced, a comment on style, or any type of personal interaction with the text. Try to grow beyond purely personal, emotional reactions in order to discover author’s voice and meaning in the text. If you note a citation every few pages of the play, you’re probably on track for length. If you let 4-5 pages go by without a comment, you’re probably missing some importation passages. In order to not interrupt the flow of your reading, you may want to use Post-It page markers and then come back later to do your responses.
Note-Taking Note-Making______
Pg. #: Citation Why did I include this?______
Pg. #: Citation Why is this important? How does it change the meaning_____
when I paraphrase like this?______
Pg. #: Citation I wonder why the protagonist did this? Is there any______
connection here to his previous actions? What about______
this is significant to me?______
Pg. #: Citation Could this be an example of foreshadowing?______
Pg. #: Citation Why does the style seem to change here? ______
Pg. #: Citation How is this ironic?______
Pg. #: Citation______For what could this be a symbol? ______
Pg. #: Citation______The imagery here is presented for what purpose? ______Dialectical Journal Samples
Dialectical Journal for A Doll’s House by A Sample Ibsen
Pg Quotations My Reactions/Comments/Questions . 12 Enter Nora, humming a tune and in high spirits. It’s Christmas. Most people are in a good mood at this time of year. 12 Helmer: Is that my little lark? When did my This must be Nora’s father or husband. Funny squirrel come home? animal terms of endearment! 13 Helmer: Has my little spendthrift been wasting Helmer seems critical of Nora. He thinks she money again? The same little featherhead. squanders money and that she’s an airhead. Spendthrift is a strange word. It combines spend with thrift (to save money is to be thrifty) but it means someone who spends money easily. 13 Helmer: No debt, no borrowing. There can be no This may be foreshadowing. Will they get into freedom or beauty about a home life that a situation that calls for borrowing? Will he depends on borrowing and debt. change his mind? He seems to have some pretty lofty ideas about this – connecting it to beauty and freedom. He’d never last in today’s world! 14 Helmer: You extravagant little person. It’s a sweet Helmer seems to be pretty condescending. little spendthrift. One would hardly believe how I’ve concluded that he’s her husband, but he expensive such little persons are. treats Nora like she’s a child. Was this normal for the time?
Dialectical Journal for From Sleep Unbound My Reactions/Comments/Questions by Chedid 57 . . . the horse stiffened. Throwing off his torpor, The horse is rebelling against his abusive he rose on his hind legs . . . struggling to free driver . What is that word “torpor”? Is it like a himself from the harness. bridle? (looked it up – it means sleepiness, listlessness, grogginess) 57 I, too, had stiffened in the driver’s seat . . . My It seems Chedid is making a direct connection muscles were tense. between the horse and Samya 60 . . . the horse had bitten him. He didn’t I’m sure this must foreshadow that Samya will understand what sudden rage had come over the soon turn on her “owner,” Boutrous. She is animal. Such a docile horse! docile (tame) so far, but what will happen to make her angry enough to “bite” Boutrous? 60 Zariffa greeted me at the door, exclaiming: “The Wow. This has got to be ironic! Samya’s tears joyous tears of a fiancée are as sweet as honey!” are flowing, soaking the papered box, and Zariffa thinks these are tears of happiness. Little does she know Samya is mortifyingly sad at the prospect of marrying Boutrous.