12th Grade ENGLISH HONORS Summer Reading Assignment
Ms. Larson-Long
[email protected]
L3English12.weebly.com
Hello wonderful incoming 12th graders. There are three components to your summer reading assignment:
DURING SUMMER BREAK:
1. Read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey and collect evidence in the graphic
organizer included below.
2. Answer the attached reading questions
NEXT YEAR:
3. Complete a timed writing based on your experience with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest.
Your PROMPT (to be completed once you return to school next fall):
Should One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey have been assigned for summer reading
homework? After reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, write an essay in which you
address this question and argue your selected position with evidence from the text.
Allow me to explain this assignment in more detail:
Over the summer you will be collecting evidence to help you answer the prompt above in a well-developed 5-paragraph
essay during the first week of school (you are NOT writing this essay over the summer). This summer assignment is
intended to help you prepare for your first grade in ELA 12.
When deciding on whether this novel should have been assigned, consider the following points
to help you brainstorm:



Is the novel teaching a meaningful lesson (or lessons)?
Would the novel produce meaningful discussion in class?
Does the novel introduce new content or material that students may be unfamiliar with?
CONTEXT FOR THE NOVEL:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel written by Ken
Kesey. Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative
serves as a study of the institutional processes and the human
mind as well as a critique of behaviorism and a celebration of
humanistic principles. Published in 1962, the novel was
adapted into a Broadway play by Dale Wasserman in
1963. Bo Goldman adapted the novel for the 1975
film directed by Miloš Forman, which won five Academy
Awards.
Time Magazine included the novel in its "100 Best Englishlanguage Novels from 1923 to 2005" list
DURING THE SUMMER VACATION FILL OUT THE ORGANIZER BELOW:
What is your overall opinion? Should One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest have been assigned as summer reading?
Yes
No?
REASON 1: What is 1 overall reason why this book should/should not have been assigned?
QUOTE 1
What is one
piece of evidence
you could use
FROM THE TEXT
to support your
point?
QUOTE 2
What is another
piece of evidence
you could use
FROM THE TEXT
to support your
point?
REASON 1: What is 1 overall reason why this book should/should not have been assigned?
QUOTE 1
What is one
piece of evidence
you could use
FROM THE TEXT
to support your
point?
QUOTE 2
What is another
piece of evidence
you could use
FROM THE TEXT
to support your
point?
REASON 1: What is 1 overall reason why this book should/should not have been assigned?
QUOTE 1
What is one
piece of evidence
you could use
FROM THE TEXT
to support your
point?
QUOTE 2
What is another
piece of evidence
you could use
FROM THE TEXT
to support your
point?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Reading Questions
DIRECTIONS
On a separate sheet of paper answer the following questions FULLY in 3-4 (or more) complete sentences. These responses
can be type or handwritten.
1.
This novel is set during the 1960s. Are the thematic concerns of Cuckoo's Nest still relevant today? Do they speak to the
21st century...or are they outdated?
2.
Cuckoo's Nest centers around a classic plot device—the introduction of disorder into an ordered environment. How does
Randlel McMurphy destabilize the psychiatric ward? First, discuss how "order" is maintained...who enforces it...and what
form "order" takes. Then talk about what happens when McMurphy enters the story.
3.
Was Chief Bromden mentally insane when he was committed to the hospital 10 years ago? How does he appear when
we first meet him? What is the cause of his hallucinatory fog—his medications or his paranoia or something else?
4.
Trace the change in Bromden that occurs over the course of the novel. What does he come to understand about
himself? Why he has he presented himself as "deaf and dumb"? Why does he believe he has lost his once prodigious
strength? What effect does McMurphy have on him?
5.
At one point, Bromden pleas with the reader to believe him. He says, "But it's the truth even if it didn't happen." What
does he mean—how can something be true if it's not based in reality?
6.
Is McMurphy crazy? Under what circumstances does he enter the hospital ward? If this is a parable...or allegory, what
does McMurphy represent symbolically? Can he be seen as a Christ figure, one who sacrifices himself for the good of
others?
7.
What is Dr. Spivey's theory of the Therapeutic Community—and how does McMurphy challenge it? What does he mean
when he compares the process to a flock of chickens?
8.
As a follow-up to Question 4, what does Nurse Ratched represent? What's funny, by the way, about her name? Talk
about her ability to disguise her true "hideous self, which she shows readily to Bromden and the aides, from the
patients. Bromden sees her as a combine...and nicknames her "Big Nurse." What are the implications of those words?
9.
How does Ratched maintain power over her patients?
10. How does Ratched eventually gain control over McMurphy? Why does he gradually submit to her—and why does the
newly subdued McMurphy confuse the other patients? What has he become to them?
11. Talk about the fishing trip that McMurphy arranges for the inmates. What does McMurphy teach the other patients
about being on the outside? What's the symbolic significance of the fishing expedition?
12. Why doesn't McMurphy escape from the ward the night that Billy has his "date" with Candy?
13. Ultimately, Ratched looses her hold over the ward. Why?
14. What is this novel about? What dichotomy is being suggested by Ratched and the hospital vs. the patients? Good vs.
evil? Power & authority vs. freedom. Repression vs. expression? Women vs. men? The machine vs. nature? War vs.
humanity?
15. Why does Bromden narrate rather than McMurphy?
16. Ultimately, how does Ken Kensey challenge societal notions of sanity and insanity? Who is sick, according to Kensey?
17. Who is the book's hero?
18. What is the title's significance?