Summer Reading

Updated 6/19/2023

Structure

Each year, students will be required to read 1 text selected by the English Department, and 2-4 additional texts (depending on level) from a provided book list.

  • College Prep: 1 required text, 2 student-selected texts
  • Honors: 1 required text, 3 student-selected texts
  • AP: 1 required text, 4 student-selected texts 

 

Grading

Near the end of September, students will be assessed on their summer reading through a traditional exam on the required text AND collecting notes/reading check questions the students wrote about their student-selected books. The rubric for the freshmen notes and the upperclassmen reading check questions are attached below.

College Prep

  • Exam on required text (60 points)
  • Upperclassmen: 15 Questions on 1st selected text (20 points) OR Freshmen: notes
  • Upperclassmen: 15 Questions on 2nd selected text (20 points) OR Freshmen: notes

Honors

  • Exam on required text (70 points)
  • Upperclassmen: 10 Questions on 1st selected text (10 points) OR Freshmen: notes
  • Upperclassmen: 10 Questions on 2nd selected text (10 points) OR Freshmen: notes
  • Upperclassmen: 10 Questions on 3rd selected text (10 points) OR Freshmen: notes

AP

  • Exam on required text (60 points)
  • 5 starred (*) Questions on 1st selected text (10 points)
  • 5 starred (*) Questions on 2nd selected text (10 points)
  • 5 starred (*) Questions on 3rd selected text (10 points)
  • 5 starred (*) Questions on 4th selected text (10 points)

 

Note-taking Rubrics

See document below

Reading List

Freshmen

  1. Night by Elie Wiesel (Required)
  2. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  3. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston (non-fiction)
  4. The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  5. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
  6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  7. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  8. Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg (non-fiction)

Sophomores

  1. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Required)
  2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
  3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  4. Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  5. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
  6. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  7. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  8. The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff (non-fiction)

Juniors

  1. The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (Required for CP)
  2. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (Required for Honors)
  3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  4. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
  5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
  6. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
  7. Dracula by Bram Stoker
  8. Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs (non-fiction)

Seniors

  1. The Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) by Sophocles (Required)
  2. The Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus
  3. Medea by Euripides
  4. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
  5. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
  6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
  7. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  8. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster (non-fiction)
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