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English 10 Honors Summer Reading
Summer Reading Assignment 2023
The summer reading assignment for English 10 Honors involves reading To Kill a Mockingbird and one of the novels listed below or one of your choosing that has a coming of age theme. You will also take dialectical notes for each novel read using at least 5 quotes of your choosing that address the coming of age theme.
To effectively take notes on specific passages that address this theme, you must keep in mind that theme is the author’s insight about life or human nature and that an author builds his or her themes over the course of a book. For this reason, your notes should include analysis of text from throughout your book.
REQUIRED READING AND NOTES:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
From Goodreads:
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior -- to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.
*If you have any concerns or questions regarding this novel, please email Mrs. Mutuski or Mrs. Izzo or choose a second book from the list below.
CHOICE BOOK AND NOTES:
You can choose one of the texts listed below or make your own selection of a Young Adult (YA) novel with a Coming of Age theme. Follow the same note-taking directions and format described above. See the examples given.
*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (* please see below for Common Sense Media’s note to parents)
From Goodreads:
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age -- and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
From Common Sense Media:
Parents need to know that the first volume in poet Maya Angelou's autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a poignant and poetic account of the author's life up until age 17. Named for the caged-bird image that Lawrence Dunbar used in his poem "Sympathy," the book honestly reveals the cruelty, indignity, and injustice that confined African Americans in the 1930s and '40s -- the cage -- but also celebrates black people's spirit, humor, and courage. Reading Dunbar's poem may offer further insight into this book. Nominated for a National Book Award, this autobiographical work is strong, honest, and beautifully written, but it details some very upsetting personal incidents, including the rape of a very young girl, shocking racial prejudice, and gritty urban life, so it may be too disturbing for preteens. Angelou also wrote the screenplay for a 1999 movie adaptation of the book.
*Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
From Goodreads:
In what may be Dickens's best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman -- and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of "great expectations." In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride.
*How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent by Julia Alvarez
From Goodreads:
Uprooted from their family home in the Dominican Republic, the four Garcia sisters -- Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia -- arrive in New York City in 1960 to find a life far different from the genteel existence of maids, manicures, and extended family they left behind. What they have lost -- and what they find -- is revealed in the fifteen interconnected stories that make up this exquisite novel from one of the premier novelists of our time.
*The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
From Goodreads:
1970s Afghanistan: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what would happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realizes that one day he must return to an Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.
Possible choice book reading ideas:
Use the following suggestions to guide your note taking:
As you begin your book, take notice of “seeds” or ideas that your author seems to be planting. What ideas feel important?
Throughout your reading, keep an eye out for places where your author develops the “seeds” that he or she planted in the early pages of your book. How has that seed or idea taken shape? What does your author specifically do or include to influence how that seed develops?
Carefully consider your book’s final pages. How does the author wrap up the story? In these final, culminating scenes the themes should feel stronger than ever. What does the author want the reader to walk away with? The author’s seed has developed into what message/theme?
Avoid summarizing the plot of the novel. Your goal is to choose passages of text that you believe introduce, develop, and summarize the novel’s themes.
Use dialectical notes to record your thinking about themes that emerge and develop over the course of your book. Dialectical notes feature an important quote alongside the reader’s thinking about that quote. Dialectical notes should sound like you’re having a conversation with the text. Please see below for an example of dialectical notes focused on tracing the coming of age theme in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
Text with citation | Your thinking about this quote in terms of how the passage addresses the coming of age theme | What are the experiences that the characters are having that you can relate to? |
|---|---|---|
Example using Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare | Your thinking about this quote in terms of how the passage addresses the coming of age theme | What are the experiences that the characters are having that you can relate to? |
Romeo: Well, in that hit you miss. | Romeo is explaining to his friend Benvolio that he is heartbroken that Rosaline will not be struck with Cupid’s arrow, that she doesn't love him. The first heartbreak that we experience can be devastating and feel like life has no meaning and this is exactly how Romeo feels at this moment. | When I was in high school, I thought that I was in love with my boyfriend and was devastated when we broke up. It was a time of sadness for me, a time for me to make the decision to be strong and move on or let the sadness consume me and make me miserable. This is a common experience that all humans go through, whether your first love is in high school, like mine, or later on in life. I can now look back on how this experience helped me to become a more confident person and a bit more careful to trust someone before I gave them my heart. |
Juliet: Dost thou love me? I know Romeo:Lady, by yonder blessed | After Romeo and Juliet meet, he climbs over the wall to her house and is in the yard while she stands on the balcony, speaking aloud to herself about falling for Romeo. They eventually speak to each other and Romeo professes his love for Juliet, having only just met her at her father’s party. Romeo, being heartbroken only hours before, quickly falls for Juliet and professes his love. This is an example of how one might be able to soothe heartache by falling for another but is this a wise choice? Could this just be happening because Romeo is a teenager and falling in and out of love is one experience of growing up? The fact that Romeo falls in love with Juliet merely hours after saying he is heartbroken is another aspect of growing up where our emotions can change 100 times a day. These ideas connect with the identified theme of coming of age in that the emotions of teens are variable and can change quickly and are also very strong. | I believe that this is a common feeling that my friends and I all had in regards to having feelings for another person. You might be heartbroken one minute and then fall for someone the next minute. I remember spending more time thinking about a love interest than thinking about school. These experiences are integral to the experience of growing up. |
Nurse: Have you leave to go to Juliet: I have. Nurse: Then hie you hence to Friar Juliet: Hie to high fortune! Honest | Here Juliet finally gets her Nurse to tell her that Romeo has secured Friar Laurence to wed them that evening. This decision, one made after knowing each other for only a few days, is one made without much thought, especially knowing that their families hate one another and in order for them to stay married they will have to leave their hometown and move away. This decision, one that ultimately ends their lives, is made in haste, without thought for how they would deal with their decision. This supports the coming of age theme in that teens often make rash decisions without thinking about the consequences. | This makes me think about some of the foolish decisions that I made when I was a teenager. The consequences were not as dire as the ones that Romeo and Juliet faced but there were some decisions that I made that impacted my friendships and disappointed my parents. Now that I think of them, I am sorry for my actions and wish that I had made more logical decisions. |
Lord Capulet: For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Nurse: She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s Lady Capulet: Alack the day, she’s Lord Capulet: …Death lies on her Nurse: O lamentable day! Lady Capulet: O woeful time! Lord Capulet: Death, that hat ta’en | Upon the death of Juliet, one that we as the readers know is caused by a potion that has made her fall into a state that is similar to death but will revive her in time to reunite with Romeo, her parents and her Nurse are distraught. Their misery is clear when they all exclaim their sorrow and sadness, which all parents must feel upon the death of their child. Juliet had aggravated her parents with her headstrong opinions and wishes to make her own decisions, but one can infer that they would not have wanted her to die, even though her father said he would cast her out of their house if she did not marry Paris. Sometimes parents give ultimatums for the rebellious or bad behavior of their children but they would much rather their child live a good long life rather than die at such a young age. Parents, having been teens themselves at one time, want what is best for their children and when teens become more independent and go through the “coming of age” process, the transition is just as hard on parents as it is on the teens. | I vividly remember having arguments with my mom when I wanted to do things that she might have thought were not safe or that I was not old enough to do. One thing she did that really bothered me was she would call the parents of my friends to check that they would be home or to see if I was truly going where I said I was going. I hated that she did that but now, as a mother, I completely understand that she was looking out for my safety and well being by anticipating some of the bad things that could have happened, things that as a teen I would never have even considered and now I appreciate her more. |