BOOK #1: Summer Required
My Dog Skip by Willie Morris – Set in the 1940s and based on the memoir by Willie Morris, My Dog Skip is the story of a boy and his dog growing up together in Yazoo, Mississippi.
As you read, take notes about the characters, their motivations, the symbolism, the plot episodes, the settings, temptation, the themes of the story, the allusions to other works of literature, etc. Review the notes you have made before you come to class.
Assessment: Objective quiz on Tuesday, August 12, 2008. *
BOOK #2: Your choice from the list below.
As you read, take notes about the characters, their motivations, the symbolism, the plot episodes, the settings, temptation, the themes of the story, the allusions to other works of literature, etc. Review the notes you have made before you come to class.
Assessment: In-class response writing that you will on Tuesday, August 12, 2008. You will need to bring your book to class.*
*This one test on both texts will count as two major grades.
Choices for Summer Reading: Choose One
Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares - The four girls who starred in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants -- Tibby, Bee, Lena, and Carmen -- find themselves wrapped up in a summer of unexpected surprises.
Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff - In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn baby-sits for a teenage mother.
You Don’t Know Me by David Klass - Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow classmate and other problems at school.
In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeline Blais - A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tells the story of a high school girls' basketball team's championship season and their fierce, funny, sisterhood-is-powerful quest for excellence.
Anne Frank and Me by Cherie Bennett - After suffering a concussion while on a class trip to a Holocaust exhibit, Nicole finds herself living the life of a Jewish teenager in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - Agatha Christie's most famous and acclaimed novel! Ten strangers are gathered together on an isolated island by a mysterious host. They share the darkest secrets of their pasts, and then, one by one, they die.
Necessary Roughness by Marie G. Lee - Sixteen-year-old Korean American Chan moves from Los Angeles to a small town in Minnesota, where he must cope not only with racism on the football team but also with the tensions in his relationship with his strict father.
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers - Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.
The Pearl by John Steinbeck - For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dreams blind him to the greed that the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors. Baring the fallacy of the American dream--that wealth erases all problems--Steinbeck's classic illustrates our fall from innocence.
The Pigman by Paul Zindel - Meet Mr. Pignati, a lonely old man with a beer belly and an awful secret. He's the Pigman, and he's got a great big twinkling smile. When John and Lorraine, two high school sophomores, meet Mr. Pignati, they learn his whole sad, zany story. They tell it right here in this book — the truth, and nothing but the truth — no matter how many people it shocks or hurts.
Books to be read throughout the year:
1st quarter:
Nothing But the Truth by Avi - A ninth-grader's suspension for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" during homeroom becomes a national news story.
2nd quarter:
Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman - Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him.
3rd quarter:
West Side Story by Irving Shulman – Tony and Maria find their love threatened by the hatred of two rival New York street gangs. Based on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
4th quarter:
Tears of a Tiger by Sharon Draper - The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car, and many others in the school.
RUBRIC FOR SUMMER WRITING IN RESPONSE TO READING : Download Rubric 