Eastern Regional High School’s
Summer Reading/Independent Reading Program
FOR COLLEGE PREP, ACCELERATED, AND HONORS LEVELS
Eastern Camden County Regional School District is committed to helping its students develop
a lifelong love of reading and learning in order to prepare them for an increasingly
competitive workforce. Research shows that students from schools worldwide that foster freechoice, independent reading programs as part of their established curricula perform better on
standardized testing and enjoy more success in degree programs and in careers. A free-choice,
independent summer reading program is an integral part of a school's instructional
repertoire. In an effort to remain at the cutting edge of scholarship in this arena, Eastern
proudly publishes its Summer Reading Program.
Note: The completed assignment (word-processed or neatly handwritten) as well as the book (if
available) is to be brought to English class on the first Monday after the first day of classes:
Monday, September 8, 2014. No late work will be accepted.
1.
Graded Component (required for all levels except AP/AH English): At least one book
(fiction or non-fiction) MUST be read over the summer. The reading level of the book may be Young
Adult Literature or higher. Your school and public librarians can help you identify the reading level of
books; Amazon.com is another resource that indexes books by reading level. The student MUST
complete one 30-point assignment, available in Appendix A and B: “Required Fiction Reading
Assignment” or “Required Non Fiction Reading Assignment” on the “Summer Reading Requirements.”
2.
Suggested Summer Reading/Independent Reading Titles for all students (see the
links on the Eastern website): Families are in partnership with schools in the decision-making
about what their children should read. The lists and links in Appendix C provide suggestions that
families may peruse together along with visiting libraries, bookstores and newsstands to guide the
students in the evaluation and selection of books and other reading material. Reading selections may
include but are not limited to suggested material.
3.
Reading Log (optional non-graded component of the summer reading program):
Students are encouraged to read for at least a half-hour per day (more for advanced levels) in as many
genres as possible. The reading log gives the student an opportunity to record and track his or her
reading over the summer, and throughout the school year. This reading log will help the student
incorporate his or her summer reading choices into the classroom curriculum as the year progresses;
therefore, though optional, completion is highly recommended.
FOR ADVANCED HONORS AND ADVANCED PLACEMENT
NOTE: All Advanced Placement/Advanced Honors students will be required to complete written
assignments and/or a test during the first week of school. Students are to complete the
summer reading for the first day of classes: Tuesday, September 2, 2014. Grades on
this assignment will comprise a grade for the first marking period.
1. Advanced Honors and AP English Requirements by Grade Level: see next page.
Questions: Mrs. Yashanta Holloway-Taluy, Vice Principal, Supervisor of English
(856)784-4441 (ext. 1168)
AH/AP English Reading List
Summer 2014
Please read and understand the following:
Please complete the reading before the first day of the school year. Area libraries and bookstores have
copies of the books available for borrowing or purchase.
English 1, Advanced Honors (One Book)
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
English 2, Advanced Honors (Read Both)
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer (any translation)
English 3, AP Language and Composition (Read Four Books: One
Required, Three Choice)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (unabridged, unedited, original)
Select ONE COLLECTION from list American masters of the short story (APPENDIX D)
Select ONE from list of fiction titles (APPENDIX E)
Select ONE from list of nonfiction titles (APPENDIX F)
English 4, AP Literature and Composition (Read Five Books from Below)
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Tess of the D’Urbervilles or The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Atonement by Ian McEwan
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Appendix A
FICTION: Graded Assignment
(Required for fiction book choice-Answer on separate paper. Answer thoughtfully and to the best
of your ability.)
Your name:_________________________________________
Directions: Read the book and respond on separate paper to the questions listed below.
Book title _________________________________________
Author’s name _____________________________________
Introduction Your chosen book presents important issues. Your job is to reflect on those issues in terms of
connections you make to the reading. These connections are to self, family, peers, community, country, and
humankind. The questions listed below will help you formulate your responses.
Questions
1. What does this book mean to you? One way to answer this question might be to think about why you
enjoyed this book. (If you are not enjoying a book and you have given it a fair chance, stop reading
it and try another book!) Use specific details from the book and from your life to discuss this topic.
Include at least one meaningful direct quote from the book in your response. In parenthesis after the
quote, write down the page number on which you found this quote using MLA documentation format.
(Look this up on “OWL at Purdue” if you don’t know what it means. Follow the MLA links.)
2. What does this book mean in terms of your family, community, country, and/or people in general? One
way to answer this question might be to start by thinking about other books or stories this book reminds
you of, and/or stories or incidents in your real life that this book brings to mind. Include at least one
meaningful direct quote from the book in your response, properly documented in MLA format.
3. What can you learn about humanity from reading this book? What are some universal truths it contains?
One way to answer this question is to begin by thinking about what “big idea or ideas” you think the
author is trying to convey. Include at least one meaningful direct quote from the book in your response,
properly documented.
4. What do you notice about the style and writing techniques used by the author? One way to think about
this is to try to apply literary terms you already know such as character types, plot, tone, figurative
language, symbols, imagery, etc. Include specific details from the book to support your response.
Scoring Rubric:
• On separate paper, answer each question neatly and completely using at least one paragraph per
question. (5 points)
• Your response should be clear and have enough detail so that your teacher and your classmates
understand your reaction to this book. In other words, your responses should be clear and complete
enough that you can use them as notes to speak intelligently about your book during a class discussion
session. (10 points)
• You must integrate at least 3 favorite, meaningful direct quotes from the book, properly documented.
(15 points)
___________________/30 points total
Bring to English class on Monday, September 8, 2014, the first Monday after school opens.
NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED.
Adapted from Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12 by Kelly Gallagher, pgs. 156-157.
Appendix B
NONFICTION: Graded Assignment
(Required for nonfiction book choice)
Your name:_______________________________________
Directions: Read your chosen book and respond on separate paper to the questions listed
below.
Book title__________________________________________
Author’s name _____________________________________
Topic _____________________________________________
Questions
1. Before you read...
a. What do you know about the topic before getting started on your reading?
b. What do you want to learn?
c. Why did you choose this book?
2. After you read…
a. What information surprised you?
b. How can you use this information in your life?
c. How can you determine if the information is valid and verifiable? (How do you know that you can
trust the authors/editors of your book?)
d. Integrate at least one direct quote from the book in this paragraph, properly documented using MLA
documentation format.
3. Analyzing what you have read...
a. What is the most interesting or important thing you have learned? Why?
b. What is the most interesting thing you read? Why?
c. What techniques does the author use to make this information easy to understand?
d. Integrate at least one direct quote from the book in this paragraph, properly documented using MLA
documentation format.
Scoring Rubric:
•
On separate paper, answer each question neatly and completely using at least one paragraph per
question.
•
Your response should be clear and have enough detail so that your teacher and your classmates
understand your reaction to this book. In other words, your responses should be clear and complete
enough that you can use them as notes to speak intelligently about your book during a class
discussion session.
•
You must include at least two meaningful direct quotes from the book. 3 points per response: ___________________/30 points total
Bring to English class on Monday, September 8, 2014 – the first Monday after school begins.
NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED. Adapted from: “Nonfiction Journal Prompts” (http://hom.att.net/~teaching/litcircl/nonfictprompts.pdf)
Appendix C
Hyperlinks to Online Booklists
1.
The Young Adult Library Services Association, or YALSA, is a division of the
American Library Association. Each year, YALSA members, who are all teenserving librarians in public and school libraries, select the best books
published for teenagers in a variety of categories, a few of which are listed
below. You can access more lists from the link to the List of Booklists which
appears as the first entry in the list below:
http://www.ala.org/yalsa/bookawards/booklists/members
2.
Link to a Boston Globe article identifying several book finder websites:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/blogs/thenextgreatgeneration/2012/02/7_book
_recommendation_websites.html
3.
Barnes and Noble book recommendation site:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/teens-teen-books/379003056/
4.
Goodreads.com website for best books for teenagers:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/teen
5.
Search using terms: “best books for college bound students College Board” to
access a PDF list of 101 recommended books.
Appendix D ENGLISH 3, AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION Short Story Form Select one author and read ten stories, or entire collection as noted. You will be required to write a synthesis paper and present author to class. 1. Ernest Hemingway
Read: Hills Like White Elephants, The Killers, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, The Snows of
Kilimanjaro, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, A Day's Wait, The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio, and Fathers
and Sons
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Read: Bernice Bobs Her Hair, Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Babylon Revisited, Winter Dreams, Rich Boy, The
Curious Case of Benjamin Button, May Day, The Ice Palace
3. Flannery O’Connor
Read entire collection A Good Man is Hard to Find
4. Edgar Allan Poe
Read: The Fall of the House of Usher, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and The
Pendulum, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, William Wilson, Hop-Frog, The Oval Portrait, The Purloined
Letter, Masque of the Red Death
5. John Cheever: The Stories of John Cheever
Read: The Swimmer, Goodbye, My Brother, The Enormous Radio, The Five-Forty-Eight, Chimera, Reunion,
The Country Husband, and four other stories
6. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth. Entire collection
7. Alice Walker’s You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down or In Love and In Trouble: Stories of Black
Women: the entire collection
8. Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House (entire)
9. James Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man: Stories
10. Jack London’s To Build A Fire and Other Stories (read ten stories)
11. Eudora Welty: The Collected Stories (read ten)
12. Raymond Carver: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories
13. Edith Wharton: The Collected Stories of Edith Wharton
Read: “Roman Fever,” “The Descent of Man,” “The Fulness of LIfe,” “The Dilettante,” “The Pelican” and five
other stories of your choice
14. Kate Chopin: The Awakening and Selected Short Stories
Read: The Awakening (a noevlla), A Point at Issue, Desiree's Baby, A Pair of Silk Stockings, The Story of an
Hour.
15. John Updike
Read: A&P (story), A Trillion Feet of Gas, Who Made Yellow Roses Yellow?, and seven other stories of your
choosing
16. William Faulkner: Selected Short Stories.
Read: “A Rose for Emily,” “Dry September,” “Barn Burning,” “That Evening Sun,” and four other stories
17. Stephen King: Just After Sunset (read ten stories)
18. J.D Salinger: Nine Stories
19. O. Henry: The Best Short Stories of O. Henry (select ten stories)
20. Ray Bradbury: The Vintage Bradbury: The greatest stories by America's most distinguished
practitioner of speculative fiction (read ten short stories)
21. Isaac Asimov: Complete Stories. (read ten short stories)
22. Richard Wright: Eight Men: Short Stories
23. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Short Stories.
Read: “Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “Rappacinin’s Daughter,” “The Birthmark,” and
four other stories
24. Washington Irving: The Complete Tales
Read: “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Devil and Tom Walker, “Rip Van Winkle,” “The Spectre Bridegroom” and
four other stories
25. Mark Twain: The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain (read ten)
Appendix E ENGLISH 3, AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION Select one title from the list of American Fiction. Student Choice Titles: AUTHOR Agee, James.
TITLE
A Death in the Family.
Alcott, Louisa May.
Little Women. (Must be read in tandem with March
by Geraldine Brooks)
Andersen, Sherwood.
Winesburg, Ohio.
Atwood, Margaret.
Cat’s Eye.
Oryx and Crake.
Alias Grace.
Bellow, Saul.
The Adventures of Augie March.
Mr. Sammler’s Planet.
Carey, Peter.
Parrot and Olivier in America.
Cather, Willa.
My Antonia.
Capote, Truman.
In Cold Blood.
Chabon, Michael.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Crane, Stephen.
The Red Badge of Courage.
Diaz, Junot.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Dreiser, Theodore.
An American Tragedy.
Sister Carrie.
Ellison, Ralph.
Invisible Man.
Faulkner, William.
Light in August.
The Sound and the Fury.
Ford, Richard.
The Sportswriter.
Franzen, Jonathan.
Freedom.
The Corrections.
Heller, Joseph.
Catch-22.
Hemingway, Ernest.
The Sun Also Rises.
A Farewell To Arms.
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Hurston, Zora Neale.
Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Irving, John.
A Prayer for Owen Meaney.
The World According to Garp.
The Cider House Rules.
James, Henry.
The Portrait of a Lady.
Washington Square.
Kesey, Ken.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Lahiri, Jhumpa.
The Namesake.
Lee, Chang-Rae.
Native Speaker.
Lewis, Sinclair.
Main Street.
Dodsworth.
London, Jack.
The Sea-Wolf.
Malamud, Bernard.
The Assistant.
The Natural.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Love in the Time of Cholera.
McCann, Colum.
Let the Great World Spin.
McCarthy, Cormac.
The Road.
McCullers, Carson.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Melville, Herman.
Moby-Dick.
Mitchell, Margaret.
Gone With the Wind.
Morrison, Toni.
Beloved.
Oates, Joyce Carol.
We Were the Mulvaneys.
Foxfire.
O’Brien, Tim.
Going After Cacciato.
O’Connor, Flannery.
Three by Flannery O’Connor.
Proulx, E. Annie.
The Shipping News.
Robinson, Marilynne.
Gilead.
Roth, Philip.
American Pastoral.
Russo, Richard.
Empire Falls.
Salinger, J.D.
The Catcher in the Rye.
Smith, Betty.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Steinbeck, John.
The Grapes of Wrath.
East of Eden.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Strout, Elizabeth.
Olive Kitteridge.
Styron, William.
Sophie’s Choice.
Wright, Richard.
Native Son.
APPENDIX F ENGLISH 3, AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION Select one title from NONFICTION TITLES.
SCIENCE LOVERS— AUTHOR
Siddhartha Mukherjee
TITLE The Emperor of All Maladies
Jay Gould
The Panda’s Thumb
J.F. Rischard
High Noon
Bruce Barcott
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw
Alan Weisman
The World Without Us
Tim Flannery
The Weather Makers
Oliver Sacks
Various titles (Some of his books are collections of
essays, and a few are very short; please check first)
Norman Doidge
The Brain That Changes Itself
Temple Grandin
Animals in Translation
Richard Dawkins
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for
Evolution
Richard Holmes
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation
Discovered The Beauty and Terror of Science
Rebecca Skloot
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Sam Kean
The Violinist’s Thumb: and Other Lost Tales of
Love, War, and Genius, As Written By Our Genetic
Code
Marie Robin
The World According to Monsanto
Stephen Hawking
The Grand Design
NATURE AND ETHICS—
George Friedman
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast For the 21st
Century
Sam Harris
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine
Human Values
Virginia Morell
Animal Wise: The Thoughts And Emotions of Our
Fellow Creatures
Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air
Jonathan Safran Foer
Eating Animals
Michael Pollan
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Monte Reel
Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer, the
Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure That
Took The Victorian World By Storm
Lauren Hillenbrand
Sea Biscuit
Ray Kurzwell
How To Create a Mind: The Secret of Human
Thought Revealed
POLITICS AND BUSINESS—
Dennis Prager
Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American
Values to Triumph
Liaquat Ahamed
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the
World
James Orbinski MD
An Important Offering: Humanitarian Action for the
Twenty-First Century
Ann Coulter
Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Thomas Frank
What’s the Matter With Kansas?
David Boaz
The Politics of Freedom: Taking on the Left, the
Right, and Threats To Our Liberties
Sam Tanenhaus
The Death of Conservatism
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise
and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
American Dream
HISTORY, WORLD AFFAIRS AND POPULAR CULTURE— Peter Ackroyd
Shakespeare: A Biography
Bill Bryson
One Summer, America, 1927
Simon Winchester
The Professor and the Madman: Murder, Insanity,
and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Stephen Greenblatt
The Swerve
Katherine Boo
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and
Jake Tanner
Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Charles C. Mann
The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor
Daniel Kahneman
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus
Michael Moss
Thinking, Fast and Slow Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the
Food Giants Hooked Us
Mark Kurlansky
Salt
Mary Beth Keane
Fever
Adam Hochschild
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror,
and Heroism in Colonial Africa
Bruce Watson
Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made
Mississippi Burn and America a Democracy
Stacy Schiff
Cleopatra: A Life
Edmund Morris
Colonel Roosevelt
Tom Bissell
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
Sebastian Junger
War
Isabel Wilkerson
The Warmth of Other Suns
George Dohrman
Play Their Hearts Out
Peter Hessler
Country Driving: A Journey Through China\
Andrew Young and Kabir Sehgal
Walk in My Shoes: Conversations Between a Civil
Rights Legend and His Godson on the Journey
Ahead
Mark Kurlansky
The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the
Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris
Tracy Kidder
Strength in What Remains or Mountains Beyond
Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man
Who Would Cure the World
Dexter Filkins
The Forever War
Greg Mortenson
Three Cups of Tea
Sonia Nazario
Enrique’s Journey
Barbara Ehrenreich
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
Azar Nafisi
Reading Lolita In Tehran
Jared Diamond
Guns, Germ, and Steel
Steven Johnson
The Ghost Map: The Story Of London’s Most
Terrifying Epidemic—And How It Changed Science,
Cities, and the Modern World
Nathaniel Philbrick
Mayflower or In the Heart of the Sea
Lauren Hillenbrand
Unbroken
Patti Smith
Just Kids
Paul M. Barrett
Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun
Steve Sheinkin
Bomb: The Race To Build— and Steal—the World’s
Most Dangerous Weapon
Denise Kiernan
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the
Women Who Helped To Win World War II
Manning Marable
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
Ben MacIntyre
Double Cross—the True Story Of the D-Day Spies
Barry Schwartz
The Paradox of Choice
RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND PHILOSOPHY—
Karen Armstrong
Various titles (Everything except for her tiny book
about myths should be okay.)
Steven Waldman
Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth
of Religious Freedom in America
Robert Wright
The Evolution of God
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
AntiFragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
Sonja Lyabomirsky
The Myths of Happiness
Robert Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An
Inquiry into Values
Eben Alexander
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into
the Afterlife