Summer Reading 2008 – Honors English V, 12th grade

Required Book:
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

A practical and amusing guide to literature, which delineates major themes and forms to enhance one’s comprehension of literature

Assignments:

• Students will take notes on the various themes, motifs, and symbols discussed in the book and relate them to their choice text in preparation for a group presentation during the second week of school. You will need to cite the Foster book and your choice book correctly using the MLA format. Notes will be collected for a grade.
• Students will create PowerPoint presentations in small groups upon returning to school that will be organized by common books and/or common themes, motifs, and symbols.
• As a follow-up to the presentations, students will write an in-class essay more formally relating Foster’s ideas to their chosen books.

Choice Text:
Students should choose one of the following titles to read after completing the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Do not choose a book you have read previously.

Selections for Choice Books:

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Two fathers, one white and one black, deal with the death of a son

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
An indictment of the British presence in India during the Raj

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
It didn’t happen, but Orwell felt that political ideologies, such as communism, could destroy individuality and freedom.

Tess of the D’urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
The novel speaks to feminist issues that reverberate from Victorian times to today. The gloomy atmosphere of the English midlands mirrors the heroine’s struggles with the mores of the time.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A family in early 19th century England must deal with the social hierarchy and cultural standards of the time.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
A witty social satire targeting the pretensions and flaws of upper class Victorian society

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
An epitome of gothic fiction, the novel recounts the saga of two Yorkshire families who live in the remote Pennine Hills of England's North Country.

Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
A masterful portrayal of a miserable Irish Catholic childhood during the 1930s

All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot
James Herriot recounts a series of adventures he encountered as a country veterinarian in Yorkshire before and after World War II.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
A sharp and witty comedy of manners played out in early 19th century English society, a world in which men held virtually all the power, and women had to keep social status and respectability in mind when choosing their mate.

Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
A Russian princess, a Hungarian count, a Swedish beauty, and an assortment of American, English, and French people are brought together on the elegant Orient Express. A brutal murder and an unexpected blizzard bring in the vacationing Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective who discovers a murder.

Works to be Read During the Academic Year:
*Shakespeare: Macbeth
*Bronte: Jane Eyre
*Schaffer: Amadeus
*Shelley: Frankenstein
*Lessing: The Fifth Child

* A.S. Byatt: Oxford Book of English Short Stories (selected stories)

* These paperbacks will be purchased from the school in the fall.

If a student uses any sources other than the novels themselves, the information must be correctly cited using the MLA format.

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