New Leadership Charter School Summer Reading List: 2011 Incoming 12th Grade Students

This assignment is due on the first day of school. It will be the first graded assignment for your 12 th Grade English Language Arts class.

Reading:

Students are required to read two texts this summer. They must read the required text listed below and must choose one additional text from the suggested reading list.

*See pages 4 and 5 for the mandatory writing assignments.

Dear Seniors,

            Happy summer to you all! You are now on the final leg of your high school career, and you should feel very proud of all the accomplishments you have made thus far.

            Enclosed in this letter you will find a list for your summer reading. All students are required to read two books—one mandated and one of your choosing. You will also be responsible for writing one essay as well as a compilation of chapter abstracts. Further descriptions of these assignments are included at the end of the listing below.

All seniors must read Michael Dorris ' A Yellow Raft on Blue Water —this will be the first novel we cover in English 12 and will be the book on which you will write your essay.

Michael Dorris has crafted a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting in the present day and moving backward, the novel is told in the voices of the three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past.

            Additionally, you will also select one of the novels from the suggested reading list to complete your chapter abstract assignment.

2011 Summer Reading List: Incoming 12th Grade

Required Reading: A Yellow Raft on Blue Water by Michael Dorris

Suggested Reading List

Choose ONE of the following:

Chinua Achebe — Things Fall Apart

A proud village leader is driven to murder and suicide by European changes to his traditional Ibo society.

Rudolfo Anaya — Bless Me Ultima

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.

Mitch Albom— Tuesdays With Morrie

True story of sociologist Morrie Schwartz and his relationship with his students; chronicles the lessons about life that Mitch learns from his professor, who is dying.

Ray Bradbury— Fahrenheit 451

Presents a future American society in which the masses are hedonistic and critical thought through reading is outlawed. The central character, Guy Montag , is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this future, means "book burner").

Anthony Burgess— A Clockwork Orange

A satirical look at a near future where the ever-increasing violence among young people has reached a fever pitch and the debate over punishment versus treatment of criminals rages on; Burgess also creates a new speech that is the teenage slang of the not-too-distant future.

Michael Crichton-- Sphere

Psychologist Norman Johnson joins a team of scientists to examine an enormous spacecraft discovered on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Begins as a science fiction story, but quickly transforms into a psychological thriller, ultimately exploring the nature of the human imagination .

Charles Dickens— Oliver Twist

Poignant but comic story of young boy in Victorian London also starring the unforgettable Fagin and the Artful Dodger.

Jhumpa Lahiri — Interpreter of Maladies

A collection of short stories—in stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner.

David Levithan — The Realm of Possibility

One school. Twenty voices. Endless possibilities. It's the realm of possibility open to us all—where love, joy, and the stories we tell will linger. Five sections introduce four characters at a time, relationships are revealed.

George Orwell— 1984

Classic portrayal of a totalitarian future; protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party's propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct, yet his meager existence disillusions him into rebellion against Big Brother, which leads to his arrest, torture, and conversion.

ZZ Packer — Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

A collection of short stories—delighting with unexpected turns and indelible images, she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong.

Enrich Marie Remarque— All Quiet on the Western Front

Describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.

George Bernard Shaw— Pygmalion

Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech.

Amy Tan — The Joy Luck Club

Explores conflict and affection between four women who were born in China and their California-raised daughters.

Alice Walker — The Color Purple

Triumphant story of Celie, told in vivid letters. A poor black girl so lonely at first that she can think of no one to write to except God, she ends by achieving success, independence and love.

Oscar Wilde— The Importance of Being Earnest

Set in late Victorian England in 1895, the play's humor derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. It is replete with witty dialogue and satirizes some of the foibles and hypocrisy of late Victorian society.

Richard Wright— Native Son

Set in Chicago, this first major novel by the author of Black Boy tells of a young man's victimization by racism and his inevitable lashing out.

Writing Assignment: Part I of II

Essay Topics: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Upon completion of the required summer reading text, you will also need to compose a 2000-2500 word essay on one of the following topics. The objective of this essay is to identify and understand our strengths and weaknesses in the writing process at the start of the academic year. In this way, we will be well under way to becoming truly successful writers and communicators prepared to enter higher education and/or new careers with confidence.

1. Discuss the importance of ethnic identity throughout the novel in relation to the following characters: Rayona, Christine, Aunt Ida and Lee.

2. Choose one of the following characters to discuss the internal struggle between a character's strength and weakness, focusing not only on the character who best exemplifies this struggle, but also has moments of triumph.

3. Discuss in detail two or three scenes that show the clash of cultures and what impact it has on the characters involved.

4. What role do secrets play in the narrative of the three women and who do they affect the most profoundly?

5. Discuss the structure of the novel and the effect of having the story told from three points of view. How does the impact of the novel different if the story is told in the reverse order?

6. Is The Yellow Raft in Blue Water a testament to the strength of family ties, or a cautionary tale about the tangled web of family legacies?

7. Discuss the theme of belonging and abandonment as it is shown through Rayona, Christine, Ida and Dayton.

8. Discuss Dorris' use of humor and irony throughout the novel. How does the humor provide an important counterpoint to the raw emotions of the novel? How do humor and irony add to the poignancy of these women's stories?

9. Discuss the use of imagery and figurative language throughout the novel. What purpose does it serve to strengthen the narrative and add to the emotional impact of the novel?

10. Discuss the use of symbolism throughout the novel. Where is it used, and to what effect? Does the symbolism correspond with any themes?

Writing Assignment: Part II of II

Chapter Abstract Description

For your second book of the cover, you are required to complete abstracts for each of the chapters (poems, short stories) in your selection. The objective of this lesson is to help you to reflect on your reading and to help you identify concepts from the reading through writing and sketching. Secondly, the abstracts will provide a basis for class discussion from your own questions and reactions.

For each chapter of the novel, complete the following activities in a reading journal. Your journal should be the standard paper size (8' x 11 ½ ).

•  Choose a passage from the chapter and write it in your journal.

•  Place the passage in context: Who is involved? Where does it happen? What is happening in the novel immediately before and immediately after the passage you chose? What does it tell you about the characters, the plot, the theme?

•  Write a personal reflection about the passage: Why did you choose it/ What experiences have you had like the one described in your passage? How did you react like the character or not? If the passage is a description, what places in your life does it remind you of?

•  Identify a universal idea from this passage: how does what happened here apply to people in all times? How does it connect to life in the 21 st century?

•  Do a quick-draw of the idea of the passage. This should NOT be a literal illustration of what happened in the passage, but a symbol or an idea. Your quick-draw may be in colored pencil.

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