Cleveland Heights High School Library
Summer Reading

Eleventh Grade English 3
Summer 2009

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Directions: Students enrolling in 11th grade English 3 for the 2009-2010 school year. NOTE: Assignments are due Wednesday, September 2, 2009.

I.	Select TWO of the following books to read. Click here for descriptions of each book.
		Fiction	Non-Fiction
		Audrey, Wait!	Ain’t Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry
		Black Box	American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
		The Brothers Torres	Becoming Billie Holiday
		Caramelo	Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life
		A Curse Dark as Gold	Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design
		Debbie Harry Sings in French	Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska
		The Fortunes of Indigo Skye	Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America
		Graceling	Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art
		Keeping Corner	John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth
		Kendra	I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee
		Little Brother	It’s Complicated: The American Teenager
		Mexican WhiteBoy	Our Movie Heritage
		Shift	Photography: An Illustrated History
		Waiting for Norm	The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
		What I Saw and How I Lie	She’s Got Next: A Story of Getting In, Staying Open, and Taking a Shot
			Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer
			War Is . . . Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk about War
			What It Is

II.	Complete all of the assignments
	A.	Read with purpose. Read for detail. Read for meaning. Read for clarity. Be able to describe the characters. Be able to relate the specific sequence of events that transpire in both works. Be ready to share your attitudes, opinions, and input surrounding issues that are discussed in the books.

	B.	Complete Reader's Response Journals for each of the two books that you have read this summer. For each of the two books you read this summer, you will select two of the following prompts. Each response should be at least one page long. This assignment will be collected Wednesday, September 2, 2009. Click here for a Word document of these instructions.
		Choice One - Make connections to your own experience. Describe an event or a character from the book that reminds you of a situation from your personal life. Explain the similarities between the event or person from the novel and your personal example. Choice Two - Identify the author’s tone, his or her attitude toward what he or she is saying. Copy the passage and explain how the words written indicate a specific attitude. Choice Three - Make connections with other texts or concepts or events. Do you see any similarities between this material and other books that you have read? Does it bring to mind other issues or incidents or people or descriptions that are somehow related? Choice Four - Identify at least two possible themes the book addresses. What issues does the book raise? Are there struggles the characters grapple with that can be viewed as universal? Choice Five - Can you identify a specific message the author seems to convey through any of the characters or through the story itself? Can you make any links between the author himself and his choices he has made as a writer writing the book you read?
C.		Complete the vocabulary assignment. One paragraph for each word is to be written.
			1.	For each book you read, select five words that you believe to be essential to the understanding of the book. Some of these words might be unfamiliar to you. However, some of these words may not be completely unfamiliar, but may have larger, symbolic value that is vital to understanding a central metaphor or may have specific/special meaning in the context of the story.
			2.	Describe your understanding of each word’s role in the story. Why is this word vital to understanding the story? Be prepared to share these responses in small groups when school resumes. You will write a total of ten paragraphs.
D.		Prepare for the culminating activities.
			1.	Be prepared to use your reader response writings to become involved in a panel discussion, to conduct a small group meeting, and/or to present to the class.
			2.	Be prepared for an individual or small group presentation that highlights the most insightful aspects of your reader response journals.
III.	Understand the importance of completing the summer reading assignments according to the instructions.
A.		Evaluation
		1.	Summer reading will be averaged into the first marking period grade.
		2.	Teachers will be provided with the following rubric with which they may choose to evaluate the summer reading work:
		3.	Each facet of the written work may be assigned point valued based upon the following criteria:
			a.	Accuracy
				(1)	Does the writing adhere to the rules of Standard English?
				(2)	Is the writing free from repetitive grammatical or syntactical errors that impede comprehension?
				(3)	Is the work written using MLA guidelines if sources are cited?
				(4)	Does the work correctly address the questions raised in the prompt?
			b.	Completeness
				(1)	Does each response meet the minimum length requirement?
				(2)	Does each response fully answer questions raised in the prompt? Do they go beyond mechanical “yes” “no” answers? In other words, did the writer create commentary?
				(3)	Have all the prompts been attempted?
				(4)	Are the paragraphs fully developed? Do they each contain a specific topic sentence and adequate support?
				(5)	Do any concluding paragraphs exhibit an appropriate sense of closure?
			c.	Imagery
				(1)	Does the writing include sensory imagery?
				(2)	Has the writer used enough proper nouns, and proper adjectives to convey a clear image in the mind of the reader?
				(3)	Has the writer used specific quoted material taken directly from the novel to support his or her opinions about what he or she has read?
				(4)	Does the writing avoid using clichéd expressions and informal or ambiguous language that prevents the reader from forming a specific impression?
	B.	General Directions (Use the Modern Language Association format - MLA.) Click the link for an instruction sheet on How to Set Up Your Paper in MLA format. This document is in MS Word format. If your word processor has difficulty handling that format, click here to use a different format.
		If you handwrite your assignments, skip lines. Use dark blue or black ink only. Use loose-leaf paper. If you word process your assignment, use 12-point type and Arial or Times New Roman font type only. Double space. Leave margins of one inch at the top, the bottom and on both sides of the text. Write or type your assignments on one side of the paper only. Write your last name one inch from the top and one inch from the right margin. The page number appears one space after your last name. Title each section of the assignment. Center the title near the top of the page where each section begins. Write the page on which each detail and each quotation is found. Use the Modern Language Association format. Use the literary present to discuss the events of a novel. Proofread and edit for grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation. Use staples to fasten the pages.
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English 3 Summer 2009 Summer Reading Lists
Fiction Non-Fiction
Click this link for a Print Version of the English 3 2009 Summer Reading List
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Fiction Selections - Descriptions
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Benway, Robin. Audrey, Wait! Audrey's ex-boyfriend records a hit song about their breakup, and suddenly all eyes (and cameras) are on Audrey. Fans, Facebook, and tabloids - it's all too much for Audrey.
Blundell, Judy. What I Saw and How I Lied. When Evie’s father returns from the war, she expects life to return to normal but a mysterious trip to Florida, secrets, deceptions, and a first forbidden love complicates things.
Booth, Coe. Kendra. Kendra is thrilled her mom, Renee, has completed her Ph.D. program—now they can finally be a real family. But is Renee excited for their future together, too?
Bradbury, Jennifer. Shift. Chris and Win take a bicycle trip across America after graduation, but only one returns and that person is pressured to reveal what happened.
Brothers, Meagan. Debbie Harry Sings in French. After Johnny’s dad dies in a car accident and an unintentional drug overdose lands him in the hospital, he moves in with an uncle, gets a girlfriend, and starts to explore his interest in cross-dressing.
Bunce, Elizabeth. A Curse Dark as Gold. When young Charlotte Miller takes over the family's woolen mill after her father's death, she is faced with unexpected debts, catastrophes, and a hidden curse that threatens her family's future.
Caletti, Deb. The Fortunes of Indigo Skye. At eighteen, Indigo wants no more out of life than to be a waitress and give people food, until a customer gives her $2,500,000. Can she stand the changes?
Cashore, Kristin. Graceling. Katsa was born with the ability to kill men with her bare hands, but can she find moral courage to stand up to evil rulers and fight for what is right?
Cisneros, Sandra. Caramelo. LaLa learns the stories of her awful grandmother and weaves them into a colorful family history. The “caramelo,” a striped shawl begun by her great-grandmother, symbolizes their traditions
Conner, Leslie. Waiting for Normal. Left to live in an old trailer under the overhead train track with Mommers, Addie is the child that has to learn to take care of herself. She almost succeeds.
de la Pena, Matt. Mexican WhiteBoy. Half white, half Mexican and 100% confused, Danny struggles with baseball, his absent father and first love while spending the summer with his familia in San Diego.
Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. There's been another major terrorist attack and the Department of Homeland Security has clamped down big time. It's up to Marcus, computer geek, to save everyone from this police state.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. Searching for the truth about her mother’s life and death, a grieving Lily finds the answers, love, and acceptance where she least expects it.
Schumacher, Julie. Black Box. Fourteen-year-old Elena struggles to hold steady ground and help her sister Dora, who has been admitted to a psychiatric ward after swallowing an entire bottle of antidepressants.
Sheth, Kashmira. Keeping Corner. In India during World War I, twelve-year-old Leela's husband dies, and she is forced to shave her head and keep corner, staying inside her family's house for a year.
Saenz, Benjamin Alire. Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood. This Hollywood is a barrio in 1968 New Mexico, where the students at Las Cruces High School struggle through heartbreak, loss, and an entrenched racial divide to find their place in the world.
Tyukiyama, Gail. Dreaming Water: A Novel. Racial prejudice and the value of life are two major topics in the story. Hana Maruyama is born like any normal healthy child, but her parents, Max and Cate, notice that her growth patterns are not normal. After much testing, Hana’s diagnosis is Werner’s disease, a disease that ages a person at twice the normal speed.
Voorhees, Coert. The Brothers Torres. Frankie Torres (or Towers depending which side his heritage is viewed) narrates his coming-of-age story of falling for a girl as his idolized brother runs with a group of cholos.

Non-fiction Selections Descriptions
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Aronson, Marc and Campbell, Patty. War Is...Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War. A balanced collection of contemporary and historical writings including interviews, stories, memoirs, and a miniblog addresses the experience of enlisting, serving, and surviving war from a variety of perspectives.
Barry, Lynda. What It Is. Questions, images, story, comic illustrations and workbook pages guide and push readers to break down barriers, experiment and grow through writing or drawing.
Bowman, Robin. It's Complicated: The American Teenager. This random collection of black and white photographs of teenagers from across the country includes short testimonials about their lives.
D’Orso, Michael. Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska. This true story explores the tiny village of Fort Yukon, Alaska, its vanishing cultural heritage, and its relationship with mainstream American culture through its high school basketball team.
Greenberg, Jan. Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art. Can a painting speak? This collection of lyrical responses to famous American works of art provides answers.
Howe, Peter. Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer. Ten leading combat photographers share their experiences of horror, humor, bravery, and daring while reporting from war-torn locations such as Vietnam, Haiti, Chechnya, El Salvador, Sarajevo, and Afghanistan.
King, Melissa. She’s Got Next: A Story of Getting In, Staying Open, and Taking a Shot. Through pick-up basketball games and the people she meets on the streets of Chicago, the author learns valuable life lessons.
Landis, Deborah Nadoolman. Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design. Landis showcases 100 years of Hollywood’s most memorable costumes and the characters they helped bring to life as she reveals a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of the costume designer’s art.
Martin, Steve. Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life. In a memoir full of humor and candor, Martin shares his personal itinerary as he negotiates the maze of honing his profession and the pitfalls he avoided.
McGreevey, Tom and Joanne Yeck. Our Movie Heritage. This work provides over one hundred beautiful pictures of top stars, directors, and others in the film industry, but the focus is on film preservation and the race against time to salvage what is left of the large number of films that are currently deteriorating in our nation’s vaults, theaters, and private collections.
Nelson, Scott Reynolds. Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry. Historian Scott Reynolds Nelson chronicles his journeys, both on land and in historical records, to find the truth about the man behind the myth of "John Henry."
Partridge, Elizabeth. John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth. Partridge provides a wide-open view into the work and life of one of the most influential and complicated persons from the world’s musical heritage.
Polly, Matthew. American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China. The author reflects on the childhood dream that led him, as an adult, to take a break from Princeton and travel to China’s famed Shaolin Temple to study martial arts for two years.
Roberts, Gene and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. When Harry Reasoner thrust a microphone at an angry mob, and yelled "I don't care what you're going to do to me, but the whole world is going to know it!" he spoke for all the reporters and photographers, black and white, north and south, who played a critical role in bringing the reality of the Civil Rights movement into the living rooms and consciousness of the American public.
Sandler, Martin. Photography: An Illustrated History. This work looks at photography as it evolved from daguerreotypes in the 1800’s to the respected art form that it is today. Numerous compelling black-and-white and color photographs document technological developments, the contributions of pioneers in the field, as well as the impact photography has had upon all aspects of society.
Shields, Charles J. I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee. Curious about Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird? Finally her story is told. You can learn about her childhood, success, seclusion and rejection of fame.
Weatherford, Carole Boston. Becoming Billie Holiday. In a series of free-verse poems and bluesy lyrics, headed by song titles, Weatherford retraces Holiday’s childhood and early career in the renowned jazz singer’s own voice. Dubbed “Lady Day,” she earned money singing in clubs, was “discovered” by jazz-enthusiast John Hammond, and battled racism on a groundbreaking tour with Artie Shaw’s all-white band. Closing with Holiday’s spectacular headline gig at the Café Society, where she sang “Strange Fruit”—“how could I not claim: / this is my song?”,Weatherford leaves the 25-year-old at a high spot in her career, before later troubles and drug addiction.
Wendel, Tim and Villegas, Jose Luis. Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America. The rich history of Latino baseball players is presented along with a feel of growing up in Latino communities passionate for the game.

Excerpts taken from
• Amazon. 2009. http://www.amazon.com/
• Alex Awards," American Library Association, July 24, 2006.
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/alexawards/alexawards.cfm (Accessed April 17, 2009)Document ID: 115125

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Cleveland Heights High School Library Summer Reading

Eleventh Grade English 3 Summer 2009

Cleveland Heights High School Library
Summer Reading

Eleventh Grade English 3
Summer 2009