Summer reading list for 12th grade
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This comes from the "Professional Readings" section of the May 10, 2008 National Council of Teachers of English Chronicle:
"Although he says there's not a lot of research on the point, Richard Allington cites a study by Jimmy Kim that found students should read at least four to five books over the summer months in order to keep their skills strong. If they read any fewer than that, they will probably lose ground, summarizes Allington, who is professor of education at the University of Tennessee and author of What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs and co-author of Classrooms That Work: They Can ALL Read and Write."
The article then goes on to discuss the reading materials students should be reading. It suggests that students choose from a recommended list ("managed choice") but also have some complete freedom to choose their own,"within reason."
With this in mind, our summer reading will serve all purposes: continued critical reading practice, re-reading practice, and new reading that leads to next year's curriculum.
I Prose — fiction / novel
Re-reading:
The Wars Timothy Findley — required
Sorrow of War Bao Ninh — optional, your choice
Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood — optional, your choice
These may be used again on an IB exercise if not used in Assignments #1 or #2.
New reading:
Novel: Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte — strongly suggested as background reading
II Poetry
This section is exploratory. We will be studying poetry in the senior year for use on an assessment, so anything you can preview ahead of that will add to your understanding and enjoyment of this most important genre.
Pick and choose your way through the following sites, creating your own reading assignments and written applications:
Poetry: Read about poetry in general on these sites:
Poets.org — pretty basic site for exploration
Understanding and Explicating Poetry — advanced for explication
Poetry terms
Sonnet websites: Figure out what a sonnet is and read several by at least these famous sonneteers:
Shakespeare
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Gwendolyn Brooks
Claude McKay
Contemporary poetry: You choose — read a current poet's work, especially social commentary, political commentary, or personal/confessional poetry — look for the sonnet form and its variations. A good website:
Glossary of Poetic Terms
III.Prose/non-fiction — essays, letters, autobiography, travel narratives
Discover the non-fiction side of these IB recommended authors! Google their names and then the type of non-fiction work you want to see based on the letters following their names: (e)= essays (l)= letters (a)= autobiography (t)= travel narratives:
Africa
Ajale, Olabisi (t)
Clark, JP (t)
Equiano, Olouadah (a,t)
Asia
Narayan, RK (t)
Caribbean
Anthony, Michael (a)
Brodber, Ema (e)
Lamming, George (a)
Europe
Macaulay, Rose (t)
Arnold, Matthew (e)
Bell, Gertrude (l,t)
Bird, Isabella (t)
Dalyrymple, William (t)
Hazlitt, William (t)
Keenan, Brian (a)
Kingsley, Mary (l,t)
Lamb, Charles (e)
Lessing, Doris (e)
North America (Canada and US)
Douglass, Frederick (a)
DuBois, WEB (a,e)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (e)
Franklin, Benjamin (a)
Hoffman, Eva (a, e)
White, EB (e)
Kingston, Maxine Hong (a, e, l)
Parkman, Frances (t)
Thoreau, Henry David (e)
Walker, Alice (e)
Washington, Booker (a)
Wolff, Tobias (a)
Recommended written work for each genre read:
**Annotation of texts for possible use on a thesis essay or creative piece
**Reader's journal:
- personal response to the literature — I's with page #'s
dissonance—what you strongly disliked
intensity—what you strongly liked
idiosyncrasy—what you found in the literature that is
unique to you - lliterary techniques (the terms of literature) that you find and can apply to whatever you are reading
- personal response to poetry — use one of the ways to analyze a poem on the poetry websites — use as many terms as you can
**Do a creative writing about the reading from one of these ideas — or create your own:
- Converse with specific points in the text as if they were human.
- Write about any personal connections you have with the reading.
- Write a letter to the author and/or return a letter from the author to you.
- Write an imaginary interview with the author or a character.
- Compose a prequel or sequel to the work.
- Rewrite the text from a different point of view.
- Rewrite the text into a different genre.
- Borrow an incident or theme from a work to write a piece of your own based on a similar incident or theme.
- Borrow the genre or form of a work to create a piece of your own cast in the same genre or form (a pastiche).
- Draft a fictional biography or autobiography of a character in the work.
- Write an additional part to include in the original.
- Write your own poetry but with a connection to some you have read. You might explore a theme differently, a poetic form in your own theme, key words from a poem that you "repurpose" in your own poem, etc...