Rising 9th Grade Summer Reading 23
1 Memoire / Literary Non-Fiction
One of the most important — and rewarding — habits you can develop is to read for interest and leisure. Build frequent, daily reading into your summer plans. Take your time to really engage with and enjoy the novels!
1. Pick 1 novel/non-fiction book + 1 required reading (2 total)
1 Literary Fiction:
Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
OR 1 Memoir / Literary Nonfiction:
Educated by Tara Westover
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by Bryan Mealer and William Kamkwamba (not the Young Reader’s edition)
An Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
*1 Required Reading
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
*We will begin the fall semester of English by exploring this book, so you may want to wait until mid-August to read it, so that it is fresh in your mind when school begins!
2. JOURNAL While You Read!
While you read, you will be using a dialectical journal. A dialectical journal is a written “conversation” between you and the book, through questions and answers you will write down in a notebook. This should be the notebook you plan to use in English class in the fall.
For each book you read (so you’ll do this twice): Explore 2 text examples (page # + text evidence for each) for each of the 5 literary elements listed below. Your journal will have 10 entries total per book read.
Elements:
1. Style and structure (2 entries): Is it told out of order? Are there multiple narrators? Does the story skip around or flash back? Why might the author have chosen to tell the story in this way or through a particular narrator? What might be the purpose behind the style or chronology of the writing? How does the structure or style deepen your understanding as a reader?
2. Rise and fall of a character (2 entries): What strengths and/or weaknesses do you see in the character? What internal/external conflicts is this character working through? How does the character grow or change? How is the character influenced by — or influential on — the plot or other characters?
3. The role and impact of setting (2 entries): How does where the story takes place impact events or decisions characters make? How does the setting reveal new dimensions of who characters are (fears, challenges, discoveries, sense of place, sense of self, etc)? Is there historical significance to the setting? Describe ways in which the setting acts as a “character.”
4. How a role or type of person is represented (2 entries) (young women, teens, soldiers, orphans, parents, etc.): How does the author represent a culture within the book? How does the representation of a person or place in the book expand or challenge your own thinking? How accurate or inaccurate do representations seem and why?
5. How a theme is developed (2 entries): What is/are a big idea(s) being explored in this story (for example: the importance of education, the transformative power of friendship, etc)? How do you know? What dialogue, character choices, or events help you understand this is a theme?
Your dialectical journal will be in the form of T-notes with 2 columns, like the example below. You will have 10 entries for each book read (total of 2 books, 20 entries).
As you come across a sentence or quote in the book that connects to the element you’ve chosen, write down the page number and quote in the left hand column. ⇩
In the right hand column, you will begin your “conversation” with the text, writing down questions, ideas, observations, or connections that relate the book to the element you’ve chosen. You can also write down things you wonder or don’t understand about the story, character motivation, etc. ⇩
| Your dialectical journal will be in the form of T-notes with 2 columns, like the example below. You will have 10 entries for each book read (total of 2 books, 20 entries). Dialectical Journal Example (below): | ||
| Dialectical Journal Example (below): As you come across a sentence or quote in the book that connects to the element you’ve chosen, write down the page number and quote in the left hand column. ⇩ | In the right hand column, you will begin your “conversation” with the text, writing down questions, ideas, observations, or connections that relate the book to the element you’ve chosen. You can also write down things you wonder or don’t understand about the story, character motivation, etc. ⇩ | |
| Book: All the Light We Cannot See | Author: Anthony Doerr | |
| Element | Thoughts, questions, comments, insights: | |
| Story structure 1.) -Pg. 4: Chapter: Bombers – “They cross the channel at midnight…Inside each airplane, a bombardier peers through an aiming window and counts to twenty…” -Pg. 5: Chapter: The Girl – “In a corner of the city, inside a tall, narrow house at Number 4 rue Vauborel, on the sixth and highest floor, a sightless sixteen-year-old named Marie-Laure LeBlance kneels over a low table…” -Pg. 7: Chapter: The Boy – “Five streets to the north, a white-haired eighteen-year-old German private named Werner Pfennig wakes to a faint staccato hum.” 2.) Pg. 16: “An avalanche descends onto the city. A hurricane. Teacups drift off shelves. Paintings slip off nails. In another quarter second, the sirens are inaudible. Everything is inaudible. The roar becomes loud enough to separate membranes in the middle ear. The anti-air guns let fly their final shells. Twelve bombers fold back unharmed into the blue night.” | From the start of the book, chapters are very short (1-2 pages long) and quickly flip between different characters’ stories. I’m also given the location of the characters relative to the bombers and each other. This structure is building my curiosity about how their lives/stories will intersect. It also builds suspense to start with the bombers and then switch to the stories of 2 individuals who are in close proximity– will these two be victims of the bombing? Why does the author open the story with the bombers, who seem to be more minor characters? I wonder if this structure speaks to the idea that sometimes the actions of others “begin” certain chapters in our lives? The sentence structure here builds tension. The use of short, choppy sentences conveys drama and devastation with a bit of understatement. The paragraph opens with figurative language that portrays devastation and utter destruction (an avalanche descending), continues to build through the use of specific detail and imagery (teacups “drifting off shelves”) and then comes to a close with the bombers “folding back unharmed” into the night. The structure of this single paragraph is an emotional rollercoaster. | |
| Please bring your English notebook and both dialectical journals to class with you when school starts in the fall! Happy reading! | ||
