Summer Reading 2008

Summer Reading for Rising Sixth Graders

Read two grade-level appropriate novels of your choice from any genre that are 100 pages or longer. Virginia Readers Choice, Newbery, Sibert (awarded for great non-fiction books), or other award-winning books are a great source for this summer reading assignment.
You may also select books from the “Summer Reading” list below which includes non-fiction and fiction selections.

Choose two activities from the “Responses to Literature” list below to apply to your two novels. These assignments will be turned in on the third day of the school year. Be prepared to present one of your selections. The sample-grading checklist will be used for your presentation. Be sure to get an early start on your summer reading!

Summer Reading

Fiction list:

  1. The Barn, by Avi
  2. Eragon, by Christopher Paolini
  3. Time for Andrew, by Mary Downing Hahn
  4. Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt
  5. The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin
  6. Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen
  7. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer
  8. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
  9. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
  10. Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
  11. The Cay, by Theodore Taylor
  12. Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain
  13. The Book of King Arthur, by Howard Pyle
  14. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
  15. Henry, by Nina Bawden
  16. Lyddie, by Katherine Patterson
  17. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

You may choose to read any non-fiction book or a biography.
Suggested biography list:

  1. John James Audubon
  2. Rachel Carson
  3. Annie Dillard
  4. Henry David Thoreau
  5. Theodore Roosevelt
  6. Jacques Yves Cousteau
  7. William O. Douglas
  8. Alan Chadwick
  9. Dian Fossey
  10. John Denver

Responses to Literature – Activity List
All writing assignments have a 10-sentence minimum.

  1. Make a book jacket for the book or story with a synopsis of the story and a short author biography.
  2. Draw a comic strip of your favorite scene. Include 10 sections and captions for your strip.
  3. Make a model of something in the story.
  4. Write a different beginning and ending for your story.
  5. Compare and contrast two characters in the story.
  6. Make a map of where five events in the book take place.
  7. Write a diary that one of the story’s main characters might have kept before, during, or after the book’s events. Remember that the character’s thoughts and feelings are very important in a diary.
  8. Write a feature article (with a headline) that tells the story of the book as it might be found on the front page of a newspaper in the town where the story takes place. Please include a drawing and caption.
  9. Interview a character. Write at least ten questions that give the character the opportunity to discuss his/her thoughts and feelings about his/her role in the story. However you choose to present your interview is up to you.
  10. Tell 5 things you learned while reading the book. Be sure to include your personal connections to these incidences.
  11. Write about one of the character’s life twenty years from now.
  12. Choose five “artifacts” from the book that best illustrate the happenings and meanings of the story. Tell why you chose each one.
  13. Stories are made up – on conflicts and solutions. Choose three conflicts that take place in the story and give the solutions. Is there one that you wish had been handled differently? Why?
  14. Write a letter (10-sentence minimum) to a main character of your book asking questions, protesting a situation, and/or making a complaint or suggestion.
  15. Make a game board (Shoots and Ladders is a good pattern) by using problems from the book as ways to get ahead or to be put back.
  16. Make sketches of five of the scenes in the book and include a caption for each.
  17. Suddenly the book becomes a best seller. Write a letter to a movie producer trying to get that person interested in making your book into a movie. Explain why the story, characters, conflicts, etc., would make a good film. Suggest a filming location and the actors to play the various roles. You may only use books that have not already been made into movies.
  18. Read the same book as one of your friends. The two of you make a video or do a live performance of MASTERPIECE BOOK REVIEW, a program that reviews books and interviews authors. (You can even have audience participation!)
  19. Read two books on the same subject and compare and contrast five of the similarities and differences.
  20. Write and perform an original song that tells the story of the book.
  21. Choose a job for one of the characters in the book and write a letter of application.
  22. Rewrite the story for younger children in picture book form.

Rubric for Oral Presentation
Download in PDF format

Summer Olympics Books