Passaic County Technical Institute ​
Summer 2015 Reading Assignment ​
All students entering the Grade 12 Honors program should engage students in the careful reading and critical
analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their
understanding of the way a writer uses language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As
they read, students consider a work’s structure, style, and theme as well as such smaller-scale elements as the
use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone... Reading in an honors course should be both wide
and deep.
All incoming 12​Grade English Honors students must complete the following assignments by the 1​day of
school, NO EXCEPTIONS. Late work will not be accepted. Summer Reading Selections:​
You are required to read ​
5​
b
​ooks and ​
4​
poems​
t​
his summer. The required texts
are:
● How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
by Thomas C. Foster (this text will be used in class throughout the year)
● Macbeth
William Shakespeare
● Oedipus Re​
x
Sophocles ● King Lear
William Shakespeare th​
st​
Your choice of one of the following:
● Pride and Prejudice
● Jayne Eyre
● Doll’s House
Jane Austen
Charlotte Brontë
Henrik Ibsen
Before the start of the 2015-2016 school year, read the selected texts. Upon your return to school you will be
evaluated on all works. You must be able to engage in active discussion about the texts, and therefore should
take notes throughout your reading. Be sure to bring both notes and texts to class.
*It is the responsibility of the students to obtain the books from the public library, local bookstore, or online
source.
** Students will be asked to make connections between summer reading selections and various other works
covered throughout the school year.
Poetry ​
– ​
You will read ​
4​
poems (2 are required) from the list below and complete the reflection assignment:
Required poems: She Walks in Beauty
Ode to a Nightingale
Choose 2 of the following:
Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women
The Truth the Dead Know
Kubla Kahn
My Last Duchess
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
The Rape of the Lock
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Tyger
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Ulysses
When I Consider How My light is Spent
When You Are Old
The World is Too Much With Us
Blackberry Picking
Amelia Lanier
Anne Sexton
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Robert Browning
Thomas Gray
Alexander Pope
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Blake Robert Herrick
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
John Milton
William Butler Yeats
William Wordsworth Seamus Heaney George Gordon, Lord Byron John Keats POETRY READINGS AND REFLECTIONS
In some ways reading poetry is much like reading fiction or drama: we observe details of action and language, make connections and inferences, and draw conclusions. We also bring to poetry the same intellectual and emotional dispositions, the same general experience with life and literature that we draw on in reading drama and fiction. And yet there is something different about reading poems. The difference, admittedly more one of degree than of kind, involves our being more attentive to the connotations of words, more receptive to the expressive qualities of sound and rhythm in line and stanza, more discerning about details of syntax and punctuation. This increased attention to linguistic detail is necessary because of the density and compression characteristic of poetry. More than fiction and drama, poetry is an art of condensation and implication: poems concentrate meaning and distill feeling. GUIDELINES FOR READING POETRY
(1) Read the poem a few times slowly and deliberately. If possible, read it aloud. Identify the speaker, subject, situation, and tone. (2) Make sure you understand the grammar of each sentence so that you can follow what each sentence literally says. Note any deviations from normal syntax and consider the reasons for them.
(3) Test the poem against your own experience. Consider how your experience with life and language can be related to the poem.
(4) Attend to the words of the poem, both their denotations and their connotations. Use a dictionary to acquaint yourself with unfamiliar words and to enrich your sense of those you already know. Look for connections among the words and images. Think about the implication of any metaphors, similes, images, or symbols you discover. (5) Listen to the poem’s sound and rhythm. Identify places where music and rhythm are the most expressive and try to explain why. Notice where the tempo of the poem changes or where its language is heightened or otherwise altered. Listen for changes of rhythm and rhyme and relate the poem’s sound to its meaning.
(6) Consider the poem’s form and how its structure shapes its thought and its emotion.
(7) Identify the social, cultural, and moral values that emerge in the poem. Consider how your own values influence your interpretation and evaluation of its worth.
(8) Consider the poem’s aesthetic merit. GUIDELINES FOR INTERPRETATION Learning to read poetry well and to savor its pleasures involves learning to ask questions about how we experience poems, how we interpret them, and how we evaluate them. Such questions include the following: (1) What feelings does the poem evoke? What sensations, associations, and memories does it give rise to?
(2) What ideas does the poem express, either directly or indirectly? What sense does it make? What do we understand it to say and suggest?
(3) What view of the world does the poet present? Does it agree with your view? What do you think of the poet’s view? What value does the poem hold for you as a work of art and as an influence on your way of understanding yourself and others? GUIDELINES FOR REFLECTIONS
Write a one-page reflection on the work. In this reflection, you need to respond to the poem. Think about the guidelines for reading poetry and interpretation (above), and use those ideas as inspiration for what you write. I want this to be an open-ended response, but I’d like for you to include these four things: (1) A brief summary of the poem. Explain what’s going on, who’s speaking, the setting, and any conflicts, etc.
(2) An analysis of the poem’s structure, syntax, diction, alliteration, figurative language, tone, mood, atmosphere, rhythm, and/or meter. Make sure you explain the author’s use of these devices and their effect on the poem as a whole. Here is also a good place to think about the social and cultural implications of the poem. (3) The poem’s universal theme. What lesson about life is the author trying to convey? (4) A response to the poem. What does this poem make you think about? Can you relate to it? Does it reflect its time period or contradict it? Try to avoid statements such as “I liked it,” “I didn’t like it,” and “It made no sense to me.” I want educated, ​
academic ​
responses that include your thoughtful opinions. Your reflections need to be at least ​
one full page​
(no more), typed and follow the guidelines for MLA format. You may use outside sources in your reflections, but you must cite these sources. Use common sense and realize that I appreciate ​
quality​
over ​
quantity​
. Writing in an “Honors” setting means being able to write in brevity - short, clear and concise - expressing much in few words. Poetry Reflections are due via PCTI email no later than August 26th, 2015. Please email them to your instructors ​
[email protected]​
or ​
[email protected]​
. * YOU MUST TYPE “​
HONORS POETRY REFLECTION​
” INTO THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EMAIL.