RISING 11th GRADE SUMMER READING LIST
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Rationale: 

According to a study by professors at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, students who received books for summer reading at home demonstrated a significantly higher level of reading achievement.  Furthermore, the study concluded that students who do not read in the summer can [over time] fall a year behind students who do (Allington, McGill-Frazen, 2010).

Goals of Summer Reading: 

• To increase student literacy and prepare students for Honors English III
• To neutralize summer learning loss by keeping students’ minds actively engaged while on summer break
• To promote independent learning, personal responsibility, and deep thinking in students
• To allow students a level of choice in their learning and to promote a deeper understanding of overarching themes within and across texts
• To promote an understanding and appreciation of the stylistic art of prose

E​xpectations for Summer Reading:

• Make brief annotations throughout your book: highlight and label important character descriptions and events, comment on interesting descriptions and your reactions, keep track of possible themes and other patterns you notice. 
• Your marginalia should include some writing, labeling, defining, response, and reaction – annotation is more than simply highlighting.  Jot down keys events and write a brief summary of each chapter at the start/end of the chapter – a few bullet point notes is sufficient. 
• While annotation is not expected on every page, and it should not be a tedious process, you need to actively engage with the book and write down notes to help you remember your reading when school begins.  Aim for a couple of annotations every 3-4 pages and at the end of each chapter.
• Note that some extra credit options may be listed, and you will have to complete extra tasks in addition to reading the listed book.

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HONORS ENGLISH:

Theme: Love and Relationships

Essential Questions: How are love and relationships currently defined?  How dependent is the current definition on our past?  Are our defining ideas about love and relationships consistent or contradictory?  Are there some messages about love and relationships that appear more frequently than others?  How does love change over time?  Or does it?  Can love end like relationships sometimes can end?  If so, then is that real love?  What are the roles of love in our lives?  Can love be used for nefarious purposes?  For control for instance?  

Summer Reading Requirement and Selections: Carefully read and annotate the required novel, your choice novel, and your extra credit play.  Your summer reading consists of one novel everyone will read, one novel of your choice from the list below, and if you so choose an extra credit play. 

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***Required Novel 1***

Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
(British, twentieth century)

“Big Brother is Watching You!”  Posters with this slogan are perennial reminders that in Orwell’s imagined future there are no freedoms.  However, like all dystopian worlds there is one person who searches for truth:  here that person is Winston Smith, a cog in the governmental wheel that controls and crushes all opposition.  In a work that has been described as prophetic, Orwell creates a dark vision for the future in which all personal privacy and personal choice have been removed.  Love, freedom, happiness, friendship, family.  All of these givens have become anachronistic reminders of what once was and what never will be again.  Orwell’s novel stands testament as a stark warning against apathetic living and allowing the unbridled spread of totalitarian ideas throughout the world.

As you are reading and annotating think about the essential questions above.   In the margins, note the relationships in the texts.  Note also the basis for these relationships.  These reflections will help you to begin to see how relationships and love are defined by others.  Remember that there are different kinds of love (familial, romantic, platonic) that form the foundations for the relationships that Orwell creates.  Pay close attention to each of these relationships.  Are they based on love or are they based on what someone defines as love?  Think particularly about outside forces and how characters react to those forces.  Remember too, the titles of the book:  What is their meaning to the texts as a whole?  Happy Reading!!

***

***Choice Novel 2***

Choose a novel from the list below.  Carefully read and annotate with the essential questions in mind.  I encourage you to form book club groups so that you will have a couple other people to talk to while reading.  Be sure to choose a novel you have not studied in class before or read on your own.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte
(British, nineteenth century)

My Antonia
Willa Cather
(American, nineteenth century)

Brontë creates a moving and poignant tale of an outcast, Jane Eyre, whose character and courage are tested as she finds love, explores mysteries, and experiences heart ache.  Readers will laugh, cry, and cheer as they travel with Jane though her journey.  Will she find happiness and fulfillment?  Will she rise to her true potential?  Will she find love?  Will she find a family?  Or will all be for naught?  Read this stirring tale of one young woman’s challenges to discover the answer to these and other questions.
​

 
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro ©2005
​(American, contemporary)

Ishiguro’s novel contains a mystery that keeps readers guessing.  The plot is set at what seems to be a pleasant English boarding school where the needs of students are well tended.  But is it?  The protagonist, Kathy grows from a young school girl to adulthood; however, it is only when she and her friends leave the safety of their school that they learn the real truth.  In his novel, Ishiguro is said to have broken “through the boundaries of the literary novel,” as he creates an indictment of human ignorance.  
​

Dust Tracks on a Road
Zora Neale Hurston © 1942
(American, contemporary)

In this imaginative memoir detailing her rise from poverty in the rural South to her taking an honored place among the leading intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston reveals a candid glimpse of both her private and public life:  one of an artist, an anthropologist, a chronicler, and a champion of the African American experience.  Hurston’s work, at one time out of print, might have been lost to us had it not been for contemporary author Alice Walker who was instrumental in bringing Hurston to a larger reading audience.  
​
​

Persuasion
​Jane Austen
(British, nineteenth century)

Welcome to the world of Jane Austen.  Here you will meet Anne Elliot, whose malleable personality has led her to her current state.  An event that predates the story proper has led to an intense internal conflict and longing within Anne.  Will she have a chance to change her future?  Will she become a woman who finds her voice and in turn finds lasting happiness?  Or will she continue her life with the status quo?  Is love possible for her?  As you discover the answers to these burning questions look out for Austen’s use of irony as she, through her characters, observes social customs, love, relationships, and marriage.  

As an immigrant, Antonia Shimerda travels westward to find the American Dream.  In the process she also finds Jim Burden.  It is his voice that narrates this tale of courageous passion and strength.  Antonia remains as one of the most memorable literary characters.  Be ready for beautiful descriptions and sentimental portraits of interesting people from a reflective narrative voice.  Each of these support characters breathe magic and memorable mystery into Cather’s narrative.
​

 
Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Northrup © 1853
​(American, nineteenth century)

Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana, is a memoir by Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. It is a slave narrative of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D.C., sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana. He provides details of a painful and harrowing experience to regain his stolen life in a true account of both loss and reclamation. 

 
We
Yevgeny Zamyatin, ©1921, trans.  Clarence Brown
​ (British, twentieth century)

We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.

***For EXTRA CREDIT please read:***
For extra credit you may choose to read one of the following plays. 
​Read your choice play carefully and annotate with the essential questions in mind.
​

An Ideal Husband
Oscar Wilde
​ (British, nineteenth century)

Set in the England, this play is full of quick wit and humor.  Characters are forced to reexamine their preconceptions of each other and of their world.  Included in this tour de force are young lovers, society matrons, overbearing fathers, and a femme fatale.  All come together to create a sparkling satire of society the late nineteenth century Britain (and indeed any century, even our own).

Much Ado About Nothing 
Shakespeare
​ (British, sixteenth century)

In this comedy, Shakespeare creates some of his most enduring characters.  You will meet the young lovers, Hero and Claudio; the older one-time lovers, Beatrice and Benedict; the honorable Don Pedro; the villainous Don John; and the comedic Dogberry and his merry men.  This play’s plot is built upon misunderstanding, misinterpretations of what is seen and heard, and a battle between the sexes at whose heart is personal pride and fear of being hurt.

Pygmalion
George Bernard Shaw
​​ (British, twentieth century)

Here we have one of Shaw’s most well-known plays.  Its protagonist, Eliza Doolittle, awkward London flower girl becomes a social experiment for linguistic expert Henry Higgins.  In the process changes come to all, some too late unfortunately.  In his play that is widely performed today, Shaw satirizes our own preconceptions.  

AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE:

Theme: Love and Relationships

Essential Questions: As you are reading and annotating, think about the essential questions above.   In the margins, note the relationships in the texts.  Note also the basis for these relationships.  These reflections will help you to begin to see how relationships and love are defined by others.  Remember that there are different kinds of love (familial, romantic, platonic) that form the foundations for the relationships that both Orwell and your choice author create.  Pay close attention to each of these relationships.  Are they based on love or are they based on what someone defines as love or on something else?  Think particularly about outside forces and how characters react to those forces.  Remember too, the titles of the book:  What is their meaning to the texts as a whole?  Happy Reading!!

***ALL READ:***
​Carefully read and annotate the following two works

Brave New World
Aldous Huxley © 1932
(British, twentieth century)

 Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
​ (British, twentieth century)

In his novel, Huxley created a dystopian world in which people experience no pain, no suffering, and no worries.  The rulers of the World State have created a drug, soma, which eliminates all feelings of worry and suffering.  In his haunting prediction of what the world could become, Huxley paints a portrait of a future where people are genetically altered, psychologically conditioned, and morally manipulated so that those in power can remain in power.  The strength of the human will is systematically controlled so that no one born within the World State presents a threat to the status quo.

“Big Brother is Watching You!”  Posters with this slogan are perennial reminders that in Orwell’s imagined future there are no freedoms.  However, like all dystopian worlds there is one person who searches for truth:  here that person is Winston Smith, a cog in the governmental wheel that controls and crushes all opposition.  In a work that has been described as prophetic, Orwell creates a dark vision for the future in which all personal privacy and personal choice have been removed.  Love, freedom, happiness, friendship, family.  All of these givens have become anachronistic reminders of what once was and what never will be again.  Orwell’s novel stands testament as a stark warning against apathetic living and allowing the unbridled spread of totalitarian ideas throughout the world.

​

***

​***REQUIRED CHOICE BOOK: SELECT ONE***

For the third required book, you may choose to read one of the following works.  Read your choice book carefully and annotate with the essential questions in mind.  You will have a separate assessment for this work.  Do not choose a work that you have read or studied before.  You will be writing about both works.
​

An American Childhood
Annie Dillard ©1989
(American, contemporary)

Annie Dillard is a wonderful writer who looks back on her life as a young girl growing up in 1950s America.  In this text she address the idea of happiness and how one may maintain happiness throughout life.  In her memoir her father and her mother loom large, yet it is her mother who is portrayed as a revolutionary figure.  Dillard ends her piece with a poignant realization about life and its contradictions.  Her lyrical writing style makes this work one of the most memorable of this year’s choices.
​

Outliers: The Story of Success
Malcolm Gladwell ©2008
(American, contemporary)

In this nonfiction text, Gladwell takes us into the world of the people whom he terms “outliers.”  These are among the brightest and most successful people.  His text answers the question:  “What is it that makes these people the successes that they are?”  As he explores this question, along the way he examines the secrets of billionaires, what it takes to be a great athlete, a good student, and even a famous rock star.  
​

 
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro ©2005
​(American, contemporary)

Ishiguro’s novel contains a mystery that keeps readers guessing.  The plot is set at what seems to be a pleasant English boarding school where the needs of students are well tended.  But is it?  The protagonist, Kathy grows from a young school girl to adulthood; however, it is only when she and her friends leave the safety of their school that they learn the real truth.  In his novel, Ishiguro is said to have broken “through the boundaries of the literary novel,” as he creates an indictment of human ignorance.  
​

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte
(British, nineteenth century)

Brontë creates a moving and poignant tale of an outcast, Jane Eyre, whose character and courage are tested as she finds love, explores mysteries, and experiences heart ache.  Readers will laugh, cry, and cheer as they travel with Jane though her journey.  Will she find happiness and fulfillment?  Will she rise to her true potential?  Will she find love?  Will she find a family?  Or will all be for naught?  Read this stirring tale of one young woman’s challenges to discover the answer to these and other questions.
​

My Antonia
Willa Cather
(American, nineteenth century)

As an immigrant, Antonia Shimerda travels westward to find the American Dream.  In the process she also finds Jim Burden.  It is his voice that narrates this tale of courageous passion and strength.  Antonia remains as one of the most memorable literary characters.  Be ready for beautiful descriptions and sentimental portraits of interesting people from a reflective narrative voice.  Each of these support characters breathe magic and memorable mystery into Cather’s narrative.

 
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote © 1966
​(American, twentieth century)

In Cold Blood is nonfiction novel by American writer Truman Capote, published originally as a four-part series in The New Yorker magazine in 1965 and in book form in 1966. Capote used the techniques of fiction to tell the true story of the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Kansas by a pair of drifters and of the subsequent capture, trial, and execution of the killers.
 
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​
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Persuasion
Jane Austen © 1818
(British, nineteenth century)

Welcome to the world of Jane Austen.  Here you will meet Anne Elliot, whose malleable personality has led her to her current state.  An event that predates the story proper has led to an intense internal conflict and longing within Anne.  Will she have a chance to change her future?  Will she become a woman who finds her voice and in turn finds lasting happiness?  Or will she continue her life with the status quo?  Is love possible for her?  As you discover the answers to these burning questions look out for Austen’s use of irony as she, through her characters, observes social customs, love, relationships, and marriage.  
.

Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Northrup © 1853
​(American, nineteenth century)

Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana is a memoir by Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. It is a slave narrative of a African American man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D.C., sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana. He provides details of a painful and harrowing experience to regain his stolen life in a true account of both loss and reclamation. 

We
Yevgeny Zamyatin, ©1921, trans.  Clarence Brown
(British, twentieth century)

Dust Tracks on the Road
Zora Neale Hurston ©1942
 (American, contemporary)

In this imaginative memoir detailing her rise from poverty in the rural South to her taking an honored place among the leading intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston reveals a candid glimpse of both her private and public life:  one of an artist, an anthropologist, a chronicler, and a champion of the African American experience.  Hurston’s work, at one time out of print, might have been lost to us had it not been for contemporary author Alice Walker who was instrumental in bringing Hurston to a larger reading audience.  
​
​
​

The Road from Coorain
Jill Ker Conway ©1989 
(Australian-American, contemporary

​In this memoir Conway recounts her life journey, spanning immense distances between different worlds, different ideas, and different ways of life.  Growing up in the Australian outback, Conway was seven before she saw another girl.  She lived in a beautiful yet savage and unforgiving landscape that she loved.  Her parents were strong forces early in her life, but her journey continued.  The road led her to many accolades:  scholar, historian, and first woman president of Smith College.  Her story was fraught with both happiness and anguish as she lived what has been termed the “difficult life of the free.”

​We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.

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