THE NEWARK PUBLIC SCHOOLS Central High School 246-250 18th Avenue Newark, New Jersey 07108 Phone: 973-733-6897 Fax: 973-733-8212

Christopher Cerf Kimberley Harrington (Acting) State District Superintendent Commissioner of Education Sharnee Brown Principal

Dear Parents, Guardians, and Students,

At Central High School, student success is our greatest priority. To that end, your child is required to read a novel during the summer. Reading builds not only literacy skills needed for the PARCC and other exams, but it also builds vocabulary, writing, speaking, listening, comprehension, interpretation, and analysis skills that will benefit them in all aspects of their goals. Reading helps develop foundations in other academic subjects as authors often reference history, mathematics, science, and other topics within the greater purpose for their literary works.

Current research on summer reading shows that a several-month break in reading activities can hinder academic growth. Our efforts were focused on providing students with engaging texts that will prepare them for success in the curriculum during the upcoming school year. The intention of this summer reading program is to support continued use of the reading strategies we have learned throughout the school year while providing our students with the opportunity to pass the summer months with both enjoyment and mental exercise.

The summer reading program is mandatory, with the connected assignment due for an assessment grade during Week 1 (September 5-8, 2017) of the upcoming school year. Please see the list on the next pages, which contain the novel students in each grade level are expected to read, as well as the associated assignment.

Of course, students who choose to go beyond the given text are encouraged choose from the additional options provided! Please support your children in this program, as well as in reading books of choice on their own throughout the summer. The following list of resources is available for attaining the novels:

Branch Brook Library, Clinton Library, Main Library, North End Library, Springfield Library, 235 Clifton Ave. 739 Bergen St. 5 Washington St. 722 Summer Ave. 50 Hayes St. Vailsburg Library, Van Buren Library, Weequahic Library, Roseville Library, Barnes & Noble 75 Alexander St. 140 Van Buren St. 355 Osborne Terr. 99 N 5th St. 42 Halsey St. www.amazon.com/books www.librivox.org www.bn.com www.youtube.com www.planetebook.com Buy/Rent @ Amazon.com Free Audio Books Buy/Rent & B&N Free Audio Books Free Ebook PDF https://listennj.overdrive.com/ Sign in with your Newark Library Card!

Sincerely,

Sharnee Brown Principal Changing Hearts and Minds to Value Education 9th Grade Summer Reading (for students entering 9th grade)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Read it online!)

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.

Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

Ambitious readers, after reading the mandatory text, are encouraged to also try:

 Animal Farm by George Orwell – Read it online!  Lord of the Flies by William Goldring – Read it online!  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - Read it online!

10th Grade Summer Reading (for students entering 10th grade)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Read it online!)

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

Ambitious readers, after reading the mandatory text, are encouraged to also try:

 The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane – Read it online!  The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – Read it online!  Into the Wild by John Krakauer – Read it online!  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe – Read it online!

11th Grade Summer Reading (for students entering 11th grade)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Read it online!)

The exemplary novel of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, The Great Gatsby (1925), stands as the supreme achievement of his career. T. S. Eliot read it three times and saw it as the "first step" American fiction had taken since Henry James; H. L. Mencken praised "the charm and beauty of the writing," as well as Fitzgerald's sharp social sense; and Thomas Wolfe hailed it as Fitzgerald's "best work" thus far. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when, The New York Times remarked, "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s that resonates with the power of myth. A novel of lyrical beauty yet brutal realism, of magic, romance, and mysticism, The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.

Ambitious readers, after reading the mandatory text, are encouraged to also try:

 1984 by George Orwell – Read it online!  Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich  The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison – Read it online!  The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Read it online!  A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry – Read it online!  Fences by August Wilson – Read it online!

12th Grade Summer Reading (for students entering 12th grade)

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (Read it online!)

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.

Ambitious readers, after reading the mandatory text, are encouraged to also try:

 Beloved by Toni Morrison – Read it online!  Native Son by Richard Wright - Read it online!  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Read it online!  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - Read it online!  Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - Read it online!  Black Boy by Richard Wright - Read it online! The Assignment:

Students,

When you return to school in September, you will be responsible for presenting a “book talk” about what you learned when reading the novel(s).

The following items must be included in your talk. To be prepared, bring in a written assignment (not a formal essay) that you can use when presenting. The notes or reading journals you keep while reading must be your own work; DO NOT PLAGIARIZE!

 Characters o Names (label each character “major” or “minor”) o Traits . Mental . Emotional . Physical . Social

 Plot o Introduction/Exposition/Conflict o Rising Action o Climax o Falling Action o Conclusion/Resolution

 Theme(s)

 Connections o What period in history connects to this story? o Describe how at least one element of this story can relate to your own life. o Describe how at least one element of this story relates to another text you have read? This can be a novel, poem, article, speech, movie, or play.

 Review the novel. o Share how you felt about the book. Did you like it? Explain why you would or would not recommend this book for next year’s incoming class.