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Summer Reading Assignment (Summer 2010)
Pre-AP/IB English 10
Mrs. Hastings, Ms. Rogers, and Ms. Robinson
In Pre-AP/IB English 10, you will study World Literature and look for connections among texts from a variety of locations. Therefore, for your summer reading options, we have provided you with a nice selection of fiction novels written by renowned authors from around the world. You should select one novel from our list, read it, and complete the typed responses as directed below.
Reminder: The last day to make schedule changes for the 2010-2011 school year is June 15. Therefore, all students registered for Pre-AP/IB English 10 at that date are responsible for summer reading assignments.
- Select a novel from the list provided, and complete the typed responses as outlined in this document. Please give each typed section a heading (i.e., Reader Response I, Reader Response II, Prose Passage Analysis, and Overall Evaluation). IMPORTANT: For each of the responses, use the following format when you type them: Times New Roman font, 12 point font, single-spaced, and ½ page in length.
- Reader Response (25 points per section – You will turn in 2 of these total) – Divide your book in half (if not by chapters, then by page numbers). After you finish reading each half, type a reader-response to that section. DO NOT write a plot summary; instead, write about your reactions to the plot, the characters, and/or the way the story is told. You may also choose to make predictions. Your responses must contain enough specificity to prove that you have completely read the novel with great care. Points will be deducted for general, vague, and/or unspecific responses.
- Prose Analysis (40 points) – This is a crucial section of the assignment. It shows your ability to choose important passages within the novel and intelligently analyze them. Points will be deducted for responses that are general, vague, or that fail to accurately reflect the plot and/or the characters.Choose ONE of these options:
OR
2.) Chose one passage from the novel about one of the main characters that shows either how the character changes in the novel or what kind of personality this character has. Type the passage (with page numbers) in a section titled “Prose Analysis Passage.” The passage should be several paragraphs long and can be up to 1-2 pages of the text that you deem significant. Then, provide a ½ page explanation for either how this passage shows how the character changes or what kind of personality traits this character exhibits.
- Overall Opinion (10 points): This last section allows you to explain your overall opinion of the novel. Please respond to this section by explaining what you liked/disliked about this novel. You may also respond to such questions as these: Would you recommend it to others and why? Is this a novel you will add to your list of favorites and why?
- This assignment is due the first day you have class with your English teacher. For some of you that will be the first day of class. (Remember: the school year always starts on a Blue day so check your schedule. If you aren’t sure which day you will see your English teacher, bring your assignment on the first day of school just in case.)
- DO NOT PROCRASTINATE!! Select a book and start reading now. The first day of school will be here sooner than you think.
- LATE PENALTY: A late penalty of 10 points PER DAY will be deducted from the final grade on this assignment for any student not turning the assignment in on the first day of class. NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!!
- As stated in earlier instructions on this sheet – you must follow directions exactly when typing your responses. Do not use extra large font or double-spacing just to fill the space. If you misplace these sheets, visit the AHS web site (www.auburnschools.org/ahs) and click on the Academics link; then, click on AP/IB Summer Assignments and on Pre-AP/IB English 10.
Mrs. Hastings: [email protected]
Ms. Rogers: [email protected]
Ms. Robinson: [email protected]
Summer Reading Choices (Summer 2010)
Choose ONE from this list (no substitutions):
[A synopsis of each novel is located on the AHS website: www.auburnschools.org/ahs. Click on Academics; click on AP/IB Summer Assignments; click on Pre-AP/IB English 10.]
Novel Choices 2010
Latin American
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
Middle Eastern
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Russian
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
German
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Chinese
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
American
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Native American
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
Afghan American
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story by Tamim Ansary
African American
A Lesson before Dying by Ernest T. Gaines
Chinese American
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
British
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Austrian-Hungarian
The Trial by Franz Kafka
French
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A word of caution: The books on this list are adult texts written about the world from an experienced perspective. You need to carefully investigate the books you are interested in prior to choosing one to read. Get your parents’ approval for whatever book you choose. Also, please be aware that Pre-AP/IB English 10 is a class for mature students who can read with critical minds. We will read some novels with adult issues and themes, for we are attempting to better understand the human experience. Therefore, we expect our students to be mature readers.
Summer Reading Choices and Novel Synopses (Summer 2010)
Latin American
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, Garcia Marquez's extraordinary Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) relates one of literature's most remarkable stories of unrequited love. "This shining and heartbreaking novel," Thomas Pynchon wrote in The New York Times Book Review, is one of those few rare works "that can even return our worn souls to us."
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
This story, dazzling in its simplicity and wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an Alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a meditation on the treasures found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is art eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.
Middle Eastern
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in the alleys and orchards of Kabul in the sunny days before the invasion of the Soviet army and Afghanistan’s decent into fanaticism. Both motherless, they grow up as close as brothers, but their fates, they know, are to be different. Amir’s father is a wealthy merchant; Hassan’s father is his manservant. Amir belongs to the ruling caste of Pashtuns, Hassan to the despised Hazaras. This fragile idyll is broken by the mounting ethnic, religious, and political tensions that begin to tear Afghanistan apart.
Russian
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand's classic novel has been inspiring readers for over half a century. Rand's hero is Howard Roark, a brilliant young architect whose revolutionary building designs lead him to wage a desperate battle against his colleagues, society, and even the woman he loves. Roark refuses to compromise. In defense of his selfish choices, Roark stuns his critics by developing a radical moral philosophy every bit as revolutionary as his buildings.
Russian (continued)
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Simply stated, Doctor Zhivago is one of the most powerful books published in the 20th century and will be read long after the memory of its publication history has faded; it not only brings the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet era to life, it tells the stories of some of the most memorable characters to be found in all of literature.
German
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
One of the most widely read novels of the twentieth century, Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha explores the struggle of the soul to see beyond the illusions of humankind and achieve a deeper wisdom through spirituality. Born into wealth and privilege, Siddhartha renounces his place among India’s nobility to wander the countryside in search of meaning. He learns suffering and self-denial among a group of ascetics before meeting the Buddha and coming to realize that true peace cannot be taught: It must be experienced. Changing his path yet again, Siddhartha reenters human society and earns a great fortune. Yet over time this life leaves Siddhartha restless and empty. He achieves enlightenment only when he stops searching and surrenders to the oneness of all.
Chinese
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Wang Lung, rising from humble Chinese farmer to wealthy landowner, gloried in the soil he worked. He held it above his family, even above his gods. But soon, between Wang Lung and the kindly soil that sustained him, came flood and drought, pestilence and revolution....
Through this one Chinese peasant and his children, Nobel Prize-winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life, its terrors, its passion, its persistent ambitions and its rewards. Her brilliant novel—beloved by millions of readers throughout the world—is a universal tale of the destiny of men.
Chinese American
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
In 1949, four Chinese women begin meeting in San Francisco for fun. Nearly 40 years later, their daughters continue to meet as the Joy Luck Club.
*Note: All novel synopses are taken directly from www.barnesandnoble.com. Search the book on their website for more information or to order the text.
Summer Reading Choices and Novel Synopses (Summer 2010)
American
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
Native American
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American legends,Animal Dreams is a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's largest commitments. With this work, the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees and Homeland and Other Stories sustains her familiar voice while giving readers her most remarkable book yet.
Afghan American
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story by Tamim Ansary
A passionate personal journey through two cultures in conflict.The day after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Tamim Ansary sent an anguished e-mail to twenty friends, discussing the attack from his perspective as an Afghan American. The message reached millions. Born to an Afghan father and American mother, Ansary grew up in the intimate world of Afghan family life and emigrated to San Francisco thinking he’d left Afghan culture behind forever. At the height of the Iranian Revolution, however, he took a harrowing journey through the Islamic world, and in the years that followed, he struggled to unite his divided self and to find a place in his imagination where his Afghan and American identities might meet.
African American
A Lesson before Dying by Ernest T. Gaines
A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
British
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Huxley´s vision of the future in his astonishing 1931 novelBrave New World -- a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering.
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.
Austrian-Hungarian
The Trial by Franz Kafka
'Someone must have been telling tales about Josef K. for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.' A successful professional man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. The mysterious court which conducts his trial is outwardly co-operative, but capable of horrific violence. Faced with this ambiguous authority, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure. He consults various advisers without escaping his fate. Was there some way out that he failed to see? Kafka's unfinished novel has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem.
French
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
One of the first great novels of the Romantic era, Victor Hugo’sThe Hunchback of Notre Dame has thrilled generations of readers with its powerfully melodramatic story of Quasimodo, the deformed hunchback who lives in the bell tower of medieval Paris’s most famous cathedral. Feared and hated by all, Quasimodo is looked after by Dom Claude Frollo, a stern, cold priest who ignores the poor hunchback in the face of his frequent public torture. But someone steps forward to help—the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, whose single act of kindness fills Quasimodo with love. Can the hunchback save the lovely gypsy from Frollo’s evil plan, or will they all perish in the shadows of Notre Dame?
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
For Edmond Dantes, life couldn't be better. At 19, he is soon to be captain of his own ship and about to be married to his true love, Mercedes. But his life is suddenly turned upside down when on his wedding day he is arrested. Without a fair trial, he is condemned to solitary confinement in the miserable Chateau d'If. Soon, it is clear that Edmond has been framed by a handful of powerful enemies, jealous of his success.
