WHS English Department Summer Reading Extra Credit Assignment
Summer reading is encouraged but not required this year. If you are interested, it will count as extra credit on your 1st Marking Period Grade. You are to choose ONE of the assessments for ONE of the recommended grade-level novels below. If your work is thorough, completed, and submitted on the first day of school, you will be given an additional “Reading Literature'' and a “21st Century Grade”. * Though this is the recommended list, you may select another book to read only if it is approved by your current English teacher. This must be done by June 17th.* Please remember, you must do this project on a book that you have a) not read before and b) is grade/reading level appropriate.
Write a Character Point of View Letter Write a letter from the point of view of one of the characters in your book to a “potential” reader. Your goal is to have the character write a persuasive letter to this “potential” reader, trying to convince him/her why he should read the book....a sort of “testimonial” advertisement for the book. Include a MINIMUM of three specific events in the book from this character’s point of view. Since your character is advertising the book, you may not want to give away the ending, but you could comment on events that lead up to the ending and end with a cliffhanger comment in the letter. Remember...YOU are not writing the letter, but your selected CHARACTER is. Try to capture the essence/personality of that character...how would that character write a letter?
Timeline Project Create a timeline showing the five most significant points in the novel. The timeline should be something that symbolically represents the novel (For Example: If your novel was The Wizard of Oz, your timeline might be in the form of the yellow brick road). With each of the five events shown on the timeline, you must include an analysis of why that event is so important in the novel and how it helps to drive the plot and /or develop the characters. The written portion should be included on the timeline. You can use your own creativity to determine how you want to do so.
Literary Analysis Essay Write a five paragraph essay in which you analyze a literary element in the book or play you read. You must include at least three pieces of textual evidence in your essay to support your analysis. Your paper will need to be submitted via turnitin.com (you will get the turnitin.com information from your teacher on the first or second day of school).
Literary Elements to choose from (REMEMBER: CHOOSE ONE ELEMENT): -Character/Characterization -Conflict -Theme -Symbol -Plot -Setting/Mood Journal/Diary You will place yourself into the shoes/soul of the main character. From a first person perspective, you will write five diary entries about five different parts/pieces from the novel. Each entry will be at least 250 words. You should include not just plot details, but also the character’s reactions, feelings on the item that you are writing about, and any other relevant ideas that you want to express from the perspective of the character. Write this from the perspective of the character in diary format. It is important that you feel that you really know this character and can provide the proper insight and reflections of this character.
Video Project This option allows you to be creative and to make a video related to the novel you selected for summer reading. You have the option to work individually or with other students that also selected the same novel. If you decide to work as a group, all students must have an active role in creating the video project and must each submit a paragraph identifying their specific role in creating the project. Also include scrolling credits in your actual video project so the teacher knows “who did what.”
● Select a chapter or scene from the novel and recreate it on film. Think carefully about visual symbols, specific characters, specific spoken lines, use of music and/or SFX, etc… that might lend themselves to your scene or chapter. Be sure to indicate in your title screens which novel, chapter, scene, etc…you are basing your film on. ● Create an interview/talk show (for example, like Ellen, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, James Corden ) segment in which characters from your novel are the guests on the show. What kinds of questions will your host ask them and how would they respond? Keep them in character based on the way they are portrayed in the novel. You may throw in commercials (commercials must relate to the novel too), gimmicks (David Letterman used to do a “top 10” list...could there be a “top 10” list based on your novel?).
Musical Soundtrack
● Write original lyrics and compose a song based on your novel. Record the song and make a music video that completely mirrors and relates to the novel in some way. This could work well for those novels that are more serious. You could use still shot images and create montages to go along with your recorded song. This option can be completed with a partner.
● Pick five songs that depict important scenes within the novel. Analyze the lyrics of these songs and write a one paragraph explanation for each of the songs you choose, explaining how the lyrics of each song relate to the major themes of the overall piece. Summer Reading Novel List Entering 9th Grade:
Dairy Queen (Catherine Murdock) Dorrie, or DJ, works hard on her family farm so that the family can stay afloat after her two older brothers head off to college on football scholarships. Her family is dysfunctional—her dad can’t work, her mom can’t stop, and her younger brother doesn’t talk. DJ bottles up all the feelings she has about having to give up her life to run the farm. Asked to help train a local boy for September’s football season, Dorrie starts to find that it’s not just football she’s in love with… she looks forward to the end of her training… but will the school let a girl play football?
The Big Field (Mike Lupica) Written by a sports journalist, The Big Field is a great pick for anyone that loves sports, baseball particularly. Keith, 14, plays in the American Legion 17 & Under League as shortstop with the Boynton Beach Cardinals. His dreams of leading his team to the Florida State Finals, however, are crushed when Darryl, a new kid, joins the team and takes his spot at shortstop. To make matters worse, Keith’s normally aloof shortstop legend dad starts paying attention to Darryl. It’s a story about baseball, a story about fathers and sons, and a story about believing in yourself.
Sunrise over Fallujah (Walter Dean Myers) The story of Birdy, an 18 year old fresh Army recruit from Harlem. Birdy is the nephew of Richie Perry, the Vietnam vet that Walter Dean Myers introduced in Fallen Angels. The story follows Birdy’s journey into Iraq to help stabilize and interact with the Iraqi people.
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) Orphan Mary is sent to her miserable but rich uncle’s estate, but she is disappointed when there is nothing to do. Upon exploring, however, she finds that there is a secret garden, one that was closed off after her aunt died, as well as a cousin she never knew she had, living high in a dark room. The Secret Garden is the story of Mary and her journey to try to bring life back to her uncle’s estate.
Blade of Secrets (Tricia Levenseller) Eighteen-year-old Ziva prefers metal to people. She spends her days tucked away in her forge, safe from society and the anxiety it causes her, using her magical gift to craft unique weapons imbued with power. Then Ziva receives a commission from a powerful warlord, and the result is a sword capable of stealing its victims' secrets. A sword that can cut far deeper than the length of its blade. A sword with the strength to topple kingdoms. When Ziva learns of the warlord’s intentions to use the weapon to enslave all the world under her rule, she takes her sister and flees. Joined by a distractingly handsome mercenary and a young scholar with extensive knowledge of the world's known magics, Ziva and her sister set out on a quest to keep the sword safe until they can find a worthy wielder or a way to destroy it entirely.
Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults): A True Story of the Fight for Justice (Bryan Stevenson): In this young adult adaptation of the acclaimed bestselling Just Mercy: A True Story of the Fight for Justice, Bryan Stevenson delves deep into the broken U.S. justice system, detailing from his personal experience his many challenges and efforts as a lawyer and social advocate, especially on behalf of the most rejected and marginalized people in the United States. In this very personal work, Bryan Stevenson recounts many and varied stories of his work as a lawyer in the U.S. criminal justice system on behalf of those in society who have experienced some type of discrimination and/or have been wrongly accused of a crime and who deserve a powerful advocate and due justice under the law.
Entering 10th Grade:
Artichoke's Heart (Suzanne Supplee) Rosemary Goode doesn't have a carefree life; being an overweight binge eater makes her self-conscious around other teens, and her Aunt Mary's constant criticizing doesn't help matters. Rosemary works at her mother's salon, where she sees the beautiful and popular girls getting primped for dances. Her single mother tries to help her, buying a treadmill (on which Rosemary hangs clothes) and arranging for therapy sessions. Rosemary's friendship with a fitness-obsessed, friendly new girl improves her outlook on exercise, and a budding relationship with Kyle, a popular athlete at school, confuses and exhilarates her. Her mother's cancer diagnosis shocks and unnerves her, but the teen and her mom deal with the situation with realism and honesty.
Instructions for Dancing ( Nicola Yoon) Evie Thomas doesn't believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually. As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything--including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he's only just met. Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it's that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around and toward each other, Evie is forced to question all she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?
The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls) Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever. Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.
The London Eye Mystery ( Siobhan Dowd) The facts seem simple enough. While their mothers have coffee, Ted and his older sister, Kat, and their cousin, Salim, wait in a queue to ride the London Eye, an observation wheel that allows those locked in the glass-and-steel capsules to see 25 miles in every direction. A stranger from the front of the line offers one free ticket, and since Salim is the visitor, stopping in London before moving with his mum to New York, he takes it. Ted and Kat see him enter the capsule and follow his ride, but to their shock, he doesn’t exit with his fellow riders. This book is much more than a taut mystery. In Ted, Dowd offers a complex young hero, whose “funny brain . . . runs on a different operating system” (seemingly Asperger’s Syndrome) and who is obsessed with shipping forecasts and with his inability to connect well with others. After several long days have passed with no sign of Salim, Ted must use the skills he has and overcome some of his personal challenges to find his cousin.
Rumblefish (S.E. Hinton)- Rusty-James is the number-one tough guy among the junior high kids who hang out and shoot pool at Benny's, and he enjoys keeping up his reputation. What he wants most of all is to be just like his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy. But by his own admission, Rusty-James isn't a particularly smart person, and he relies more on his fists than his brains. Up until now he's gotten along all right because whenever he gets into something he can't handle, the Motorcycle Boy bails him out. But Rusty-James' lack of direction, his longing for the days of the street gangs and his blind drive to be like his brother eat away at his world until all come apart in an explosive chain of events. And this time the Motorcycle Boy isn't around to pick up the pieces. (This was taken directly from S.E. Hinton’s website).
*All American Boys (Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely) Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins are two young men, one black and one white, whose lives are forever changed by an act of extreme police brutality. Rashad wakes up in a hospital. Quinn saw how he got there. And so did the video camera that taped the cop beating Rashad senseless into the pavement. Thus begins ALL AMERICAN BOYS, written in tandem by two great literary talents, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The story is told in Rashad and Quinn’s alternating perspectives, as they grapple with the complications that spin out of this violent moment and reverberate in their families, school, and town. Over the course of one week, Rashad tries to find the strength to accept his role as the symbolic figure of the community’s response to police brutality, and Quinn tries to decide where he belongs in a town bitterly divided by racial tension. Ultimately, the two narratives weave back together, in the moment in which the two boys, now changed, can actually see each other—the first step for healing and understanding in a country still deeply sick with racial injustice.
* Dear Zoe (Philip Beard): A 15-year-old girl struggles to cope with private grief in an age of public catastrophe in this debut novel. When her little sister, Zoe, dies after being struck by a car on September 11, 2001, savvy, self-aware Tess DeNunzio works through her grief by writing letters to Zoe. Tess's candid observations about her feelings of guilt (she witnessed the accident) and her mourning process give warmth and clarity to her descriptions of daily life in the aftermath. Not sure how to deal with her bereaved mother and uncommunicative stepfather, Tess moves across Pittsburgh to live with her real dad, an underemployed weight lifter with a good heart. There she gets to know her biological father, reevaluates her childhood values, and falls in love for the first time, all the while learning how to work through her despair as the one-year anniversary of her sister’s death approaches.
Entering 11th Grade:
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom): Part melodrama and part parable, The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life. Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected.
Looking for Alaska (John Green): Miles Halter, a sixteen-year-old with a fascination for last words, begins his scholastic adventure at Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama with an introduction to his roommate Chip "Colonel" Martin, a trailer-bred genius. Chip nicknames the skinny Miles "Pudge" and introduces him to Alaska Young, a beautiful, literate and intellectually gifted teenager with a head full of elaborate pranks. Under the tutelage of his new (and real) friends, Miles learns to drink, smoke, escape punishment, and understand people. A few days following a major, adrenaline-pumping prank, Alaska drives insanely drunk, crashes her car and dies instantly. Miles and Chip, both grieving for their lost friend, wondering if she committed suicide or was killed accidentally, search for evidence of the reasons behind her death. They also feel guilty because they were the last people to see her alive and did not stop her from driving drunk. From his experiences with this loss, Miles learns valuable lessons about loyalty, friendship, and life. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd): Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily’s fierce-hearted black “stand-in mother,” Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, SC---a town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna.
We Used to Be Friends (Amy Spalding): Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends explores the most traumatic breakup of all: that of childhood besties. At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy’s name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they’re no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they’re getting a divorce. Funny, honest, and full of heart, We Used to Be Friends tells of the pains of growing up and growing apart.
*The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story (Hyeonseo Lee): An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal totalitarian regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”? Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family. This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life – not once, but twice – first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit *Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe): This novel concerns the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion throughout the nine villages of the Igbo ethnic group of Umuofia in Nigeria. When Okonkwo wins a 15-year-old boy in a settlement with another tribe, he takes him in and raises him as his own son. After they grow to love each other as true family, the oracles inform Okonkwo that his adopted son must be sacrificed and Okonkwo is determined to take part in the killing to show his own strength; however, this misdeed leads to further misfortunes in the protagonist’s future, involving murder, exile, and the irreversible footprint that Christianity and the white man are leaving on the African tribes.
*Educated (Tara Westover ) Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Entering 12th Grade:
*The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini): This is a tragic tale of a childhood sin and one man’s quest to redeem himself, set against a backdrop of a turbulent Afghanistan. Amir, the wealthy narrator, betrays his best friend and family servant Hassan in one devastating instant that irreparably changes their formerly content existence. Amir eventually moves to America but he never forgets the heartbreak of his past or the best friend he ever had. Finally, he returns to his homeland to repair some of the damage his childhood selfishness created and make amends for his mistakes.
Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom): This true story about the love between a spiritual mentor and his pupil has soared to the bestseller list for many reasons. For starters: it reminds us of the affection and gratitude that many of us still feel for the significant mentors of our past. It also plays out a fantasy many of us have entertained: what would it be like to look those people up again, tell them how much they meant to us, maybe even resume the mentorship? Plus, we meet Morrie Schwartz--a one of a kind professor, whom the author describes as looking like a cross between a biblical prophet and Christmas elf. And finally we are privy to intimate moments of Morrie's final days as he lies dying from a terminal illness. Even on his deathbed, this twinkling-eyed mentor manages to teach us all about living robustly and fully.
Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer) This is a poignant, compelling narrative about Chris McCandless, an intelligent, intense, and idealistic young man, who cut off all ties to his upper middle class family. He then reinvented himself as Alexander Supertramp, a drifter living out of a backpack, eking out a marginal existence as he wandered throughout the United States. A modern day King of the Road, McCandless ended his journey in 1992 in Alaska, when he walked alone into the wilderness north of Denali. He never returned…Krakauer investigates this young man's short life in an attempt to explain why someone who has everything going for him would have chosen this lifestyle, only to end up dead in one of the most remote, rugged areas of the Alaskan wilderness. Whether one views McCandless as a fool or as a modern day Thoreau is a question ripe for discussion. It is clear, however, from Krakauer's writing that his investigation led him to feel a strong, spiritual kinship with McCandless. It is this kindred spirit approach to his understanding of this young man that makes Krakauer's writing so absorbing and moving. Krakauer retraced McCandless' journey, interviewing many of those with whom he came into contact. What metamorphosed is a haunting, riveting account of McCandless' travels and travails, and the impact he had on those with whom he came into contact. Krakauer followed McCandless' last steps into the Alaskan wilderness, so that he could see for himself how McCandless had lived, and how he had died. This book is his epitaph.
*Ember of Night (Molly E. Lee)I am a weed. Unloved by my abusive, alcoholic dad. Unwanted by my classmates. Unnoticed by everyone else. But I’d suffer anything to give my kid sister a better life—the minute I turn eighteen, I’m getting us the hell out of here. And some hot stranger telling me I am the key to stopping a war between Heaven and Hell isn’t going to change that. Let the world crumble and burn, for all I care. Draven is relentless, though. And very much a liar. Every time his sexy lips are moving, I can see it—in the dip of his head, the grit of his jaw—even if my heart begs me to ignore the signs. So what does he want? I need to figure it out fast, because now everyone is gunning for me. And damn if I don’t want to show them what happens when you let weeds thrive in the cracks of the pavement…We can grow powerful enough to shatter the whole foundation. On the Come Up ( Angie Thomas): Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least make it out of her neighborhood one day. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died before he hit big, Bri’s got big shoes to fill. But now that her mom has unexpectedly lost her job, food banks and shutoff notices are as much a part of Bri’s life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it. On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’s homage to hip-hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; of the struggle to become who you are and not who everyone expects you to be; and of the desperate realities of poor and working-class black families.
The Road (Cormac McCarthy) McCarthy's latest novel, a frightening apocalyptic vision, is narrated by a nameless man, one of the few survivors of an unspecified civilization-ending catastrophe. He and his young son are trekking along a treacherous highway, starving and freezing, trying to avoid roving cannibal armies. The tale, and their lives, are saved from teetering over the edge of bleakness thanks to the man's fierce belief that they are "the good guys" who are preserving the light of humanity. In this stark, effective production, Stechschulte gives the father an appropriately harsh, weary voice that sways little from its numbed register except to urge on the weakening boy or soothe his fears after an encounter with barbarians. When they uncover some vestige of the former world, the man recalls its vanished wonder with an aching nostalgia that makes the listener's heart swell. Stechschulte portrays the son with a mournful, slightly breathy tone that emphasizes the child's whininess, making him much less sympathetic than his resourceful father. With no music or effects interrupting Stechschulte's carefully measured pace and gruff, straightforward delivery, McCarthy's darkly poetic prose comes alive in a way that will transfix listeners.
Internment (Samira Ahmed) Rebellions are built on hope. Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens. With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today.
*These novels contain mature content.