Entering 10th Grade

The curriculum for English III/IV begins this summer with a required reading assignment. You are to read George Orwell’s Animal Farm. In addition to reading the book,  you must also complete a reading log to track your reading of the book. All reading logs will be collected by your English teacher in September. Any late work submitted will receive half credit ONLY.

It is strongly encouraged that you complete the reading log while reading Animal Farm. Neatly record all log entries on loose leaf, in a composition notebook, or if you prefer, it may be typed. Clearly label the title of each book; include the author’s name and range of pages. There is an example of how you should format each log on the following pages. In this log (a composition or spiral bound notebook is highly recommended) you will choose a significant passage, quote, or dialogue, then write a response.
 

READING LOG INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Choose SIX (6) passages of at least 1-2 paragraphs minimum.  Be sure to include TWO (2) entries for the beginning, TWO (2) for the  middle, and TWO (2) for the end.

2. Your reflection is  based on selecting and responding  to at least ONE (1) of the following reading prompts for EACH passage or quote. Copy the selected reading prompt. Each response must consist of at least 4-5 sentences minimum. The rule of thumb is that your response should be of equal length or longer than the excerpted passage you are reflecting on.

READING PROMPTS

1) Who is speaking? Where does this particular scene take place (setting)? Explain the character’s thoughts, motives, and actions (i.e. What does the person mean?).

2) How would you summarize the idea expressed here?

3) What does this passage reveal about the character(s) or ideas in this book? What is your opinion of the character(s)? Use textual evidence to support your response.

4) What literary device/technique (i.e. symbolism, flashback, irony, metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, etc.) does the author use to express meaning?

5) I really don’t understand why….

6) I agree/disagree with the idea/statement that…..

7) I think the message the author is trying to express is…..

8) This passage is similar to a time in my life when….. OR: This passage reminds me of the character _____________________________from the literary work named, ___________________________. (Include the character’s name and the title of the literary work.)

9) If I were (include the character’s name), …..OR: If I were (specify the situation/dilemma, etc.),  I would have said/done…...

10) This passage, quote, or excerpt is important ….

PLEASE NOTE: A sample of the reading log for each literary work is below.

Title of book & author: Animal Farm, George Orwell

Excerpt

“The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he forced his shoulders painfully backward… If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death”

Page #/Paragraph #: Page 34, paragraph 4

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Reflection: Question #2: How would you summarize the idea expressed here?    

Winston is participating in routine exercise in this part of the book. Everyone has to do it and if you don’t you can get in trouble. As he is doing the exercise, his mind wanders. He begins to think that his government is too controlling and gets off track. The woman in the Telescreen yells at him and he gets back to exercising correctly. He thinks that the control the Party has over people and history is worse than death or torture.

Remember:All reading logs will be collected by your English teacher. Any late work submitted will receive half credit ONLY.

Entering the 12th Grade

Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter, by Adeline Yen Mah A riveting memoir of a girl's painful coming-of-age in a wealthy Chinese family during the 1940s. In Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah returns to her roots to tell the story of her painful childhood and her ultimate triumph and courage in the face of despair. Adeline's affluent, powerful family considers her bad luck after her mother dies giving birth to her. Life does not get any easier when her father remarries. She and her siblings are subjected to the disdain of her stepmother, while her stepbrother and stepsister are spoiled. Although Adeline wins prizes at school, they are not enough to compensate for what she really yearns for -- the love and understanding of her family. 

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Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the U.S. is there at all. 

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Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison. Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos - once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell - moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life. 

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The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. 

They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. 

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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance , by Barack Obama Nine years before the Senate campaign that made him one of the most influential and compelling voices in American politics, Barack Obama published this lyrical, unsentimental, and powerfully affecting memoir, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller when it was reissued in 2004. Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama’s struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and white American mother—a struggle that takes him from the American heartland to the ancestral home of his great-aunt in the tiny African village of Alego. 

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Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah The New York Times bestseller about one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed. Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. 

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Mama’s Girl , by Veronica Chambers

On the streets of Brooklyn in the 1970s, Veronica Chambers mastered the whirling helixes of a double-dutch jump rope with the same finesse she brought to her schoolwork, her often troubled family life, and the demands of being overachieving and underprivileged. Her mother—a Panamanian immigrant—was too often overwhelmed by the task of raising Veronica and her difficult younger brother on her meager secretary's salary to applaud her daughter's achievements. From an early age, Veronica understood that the best she could do for her mother was to be a perfect child—to rewrite her Christmas wish lists to her mother's budget, to look after her brother, to get by on her own.Though her mother seemed to bear out the adage that "black women raise their daughters and mother their sons," Veronica never stopped trying to do more, do better, do it all. And now, as a successful young woman who's achieved more than her mother dared hope for her, she looks back on their mother-daughter bond. The critically acclaimed Mama's Girl is a moving, startlingly honest memoir, in which Chambers shares some important truths about what we all really want from our mothers—and what we can give in return. 

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The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.  Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success.

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- WRITING ASSIGNMENT: MINIMUM of TWO PAGES for each NOVEL

Your Summer Reading Response is word-processed, Times New Roman, 12-point font and doubled-spaced. Your paper must have a heading placed on the left hand side of the margin: 

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Name Teacher (Ms. Butler)

Course (12th grade English)

Date

Title of the Book and Author 

Complete A, B & C below for both books: 

A. You should have at least 2-3 sentences explaining each description below: 

✓ Setting: where and when the story takes place (including sub-settings or 

locations) ✓ Characters: main character(s) and at least one (1) minor character ✓ Plot: a brief description of the storyline ✓ Themes: major issues of the story ✓ Conflicts: significant obstacles or problems the main character(s) faces 

B. Choose any three (3) events in the novel you believe highlight the book’s major theme(s) & conflict(s). Use textual evidence that includes page references and discuss why you chose each event. Each event should be a paragraph of 6-8 sentences in length. 

C. Your response must also answer any six (6) of the following: 

✓ What is the important incident, event or topic covered in this book? Why? ✓ What is your favorite part of the book? Why? ✓ Are there any parts of the book you would change? Explain why or why not. ✓ Did you feel happy, sad, angry, excited or uncertain after reading this book? 

Explain. ✓ What will you remember most about this book? Why? ✓ What would you like to say to the author? ✓ What did you learn from this book? ✓ Have you read other books like this one? Explain. ✓ What three things does everyone need to know about this book? ✓ How many stars (1-5) would you give this book? Explain your rating.