Senior Summer Reading Assignment

Senior Summer Reading Assignments

Dear Honors English IV Students,

Congratulations! You will soon be seniors, and I hope your junior year has been fun and rewarding. On behalf of the Honors English IV teachers, we look forward to working with you next year, when we will improve your essay writing and your close reading skills.

To that end, all students who are or will be enrolled in Honors English IV for the 2008-2009 academic year, whether in the fall or spring, are required to complete the summer reading assignment before the first day of class. Any student who adds the course over the summer or during drop/add must also have completed the summer reading and take the test. If you are uncertain as to whether or not you will be taking this course, play it safe: complete the summer reading anyways.

The Books:

Each Honors English IV student will read two novels: one required and one self-select. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is the required novel; it must be read by all students. You may choose the second novel from ten listed below. These books may be found at local bookstores, the public library, or on the internet.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

Silas Marner, George Eliot

A Passage to India, E.M. Forster

Assessment:

On the first day of class, each student will take a test on Wuthering Heights and will turn in a Double Entry Journal for both books.

Summer Reading Assignment:

Read the books.
You are required to keep a Double Entry Journal for each book.
This assignment must be done by hand in a notebook, not on loose leaf paper, not on a computer.
Please write in blue or black ink (pencil smudges too easily).
Write on both sides of the page.
Each entry is composed of the following:
One quotation with page number(s)
A brief response (two or three sentences) identifying the lines and discussing the significance. You are not required to use specific literary terms for all quotations, but the use of terms is good practice for the test and highly recommended.
Your DEJ is due on the first day of class. No late journals will be accepted.
You must complete 15 entries are required for each book you read. Your entries should be spaced fairly evenly throughout the book. For example, your entries for a 300 page book should be approximately every 20 pages.
Journals must be pledged as completely original work. Any evidence of plagiarism or copying from any source, including your peers, will result in a zero for the assignment—a decidedly bad way to begin the year.
Points will be deducted for incomplete, unreadable, or perfunctory journals. Point deductions will be figured on the number of entries for each book. Missing entries will lower your grade. Unreadable, unacceptably brief entries and thoughtless commentary will lose credit at the rate of 5 to 10 points per entry.
Journals that are thoughtfully and completely done, readable, and in correct form will receive an "A." Spectacular journals will receive an "A+."
Use the example below as a guide for what is expected of a spectacular journal.

Sample journal entries from Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier: winner National Book Award 1997.

Notice that each entry contains at least one passage with the page number and a literary term with thorough, thoughtful commentary.

Passage	Commentary
1. "I am coming home one way or another, and I do not know how things might stand between us." P. 17	1. Charles Inman writes this line in a letter to Ada Monroe. He is a wounded Confederate soldier recovering in a hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. Even though he is afraid the war has changed him and his wounds are spiritual as well as physical, he is determined to be reunited with the woman he wants to marry. Shortly after writing this letter he deserts the army and begins his three-hundred-mile journey on foot. Good use of foreshadowing.
2. "When they got to the cove, darkness was falling and Monroe was wet as a trout and there were dogwood petals on his face." P.29	2. In this scene Ada Monroe has returned with her neighbors to where she had discovered her father’s dead body. Ada, the city girl, is now left alone to manage the household and small farm left to her by her father. Much of the book focuses on Ada’s struggle to become self-sufficient. The imagery of the dogwood petals and the simile "wet as a trout" create a hauntingly beautiful and somber atmosphere.

Some friendly advice:

To safeguard both pleasure and sanity, do not put this off until the end of the summer. When you’re laying out at the beach on those lazy, languorous summer days, take your novels and a notebook with you. If nothing else, they’ll keep you from falling asleep and burning your skin to a brittle crisp.

Regards,

Brad Robinson

brobinson@chs.carteret.k12.nc.us