Dear Parents and Students:

     Summer reading is designed to expose young people to the joys of reading.  Minus the time constraints that are unavoidable during the school year, students have the opportunity to soak in the rays of the sun and quench their thirst while drinking deeply from a carefully chosen reservoir of good books.

     We are hopeful that our young people will enjoy the selections that follow.  We also hope that many will be turned on to reading.  Rather than a short summer romance, we are hopeful that this summer’s assignment will be the beginning of a life-long love affair with good books. 

     So whether your preference is “up on the roof” or “under the boardwalk,” let’s get ready to sit back and relax while you read the classic words of the world’s greatest authors.

Enjoy, 

Gene Mosley
Principal

*The assessment for the summer reading program will be as follows:

     English teachers at each grade level will give an in-class essay assignment on a topic of that teacher’s choice in which students, by their responses, will demonstrate that they have both read and understood the required novel or novels.  The essay will be written during the English class period during the first week of school and students will have the entire period to respond to the topic question.

     For the extra credit assignment, students may write an essay as a home assignment on any facet of one of the novels from the recommended list.  This essay may focus on character development, theme, identification and resolution of the conflict, or the like.  No extra credit will be given for simply writing a synopsis of the novel read.  The extra credit essay must be two typed pages and adhere to all standard conventions of good writing.   

Freshmen:

     Mandatory Reading: Everyone will read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Honors students are required to also read a second book of their choice.  This book MUST BE APPROVED BY MS. STANLEY BY JUNE 9.  If students opt not to choose their own book, they will be required to read Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, as their second mandatory reading selection.

Extra Credit Choices:
Great Expectations - Dickens
Death Be Not Proud - Gunther
Secret Life of Bees – Kidd
Stargirl – Spinelli
Red Pony – Steinbeck
Contender – Lipsyte
The Chosen – Potok
Treasure Island – Stevenson
Sunrise Over Fallujah – Myers
Game - Myers

Sophomores:

Mandatory Reading:  Everyone will read Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
Honors students will also read Native Son by Richard Wright.

Extra Credit Choices:
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Solzhenitsyn 
Lesson Before Dying – Gaines
Timeline – Chrichton
Martian Chronicles – Bradbury
Red Sky at Morning – Bradford
Out of Africa – Dinesen
On the Beach – Shute
Stranger in a Strange Land – Heinlein
The March – Doctorow 

Juniors:

Mandatory Reading:  Everyone will read Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth.
Honors students will also read Awakening by Kate Chopin.

Extra Credit Choices:
Autobiography of Malcolm X – Haley
Going After Cacciato – O’Brien
Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck
Once and Future King – White
One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest – Kesey
Things They Carried – O’Brien
Farewell To Arms – Hemingway
Sun Also Rises – Hemingway
Summer – Wherton

Seniors:

Mandatory Reading:  All students not taking advanced placement will read two books: On the Road by Jack Kerouac and 1984 by George Orwell.

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