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| We believe that reading can be a pleasurable experience for all students, and that it is a skill that can and must be developed through practice. As such, we value summer reading as a vehicle to exercise young minds, to increase literacy, and to cultivate a love of reading. The primary goal of summer reading is to maintain essential skills and to motivate students to read books that are both challenging and appealing.
All students must read Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Additionally, each student must choose one of the books from the list corresponding to the grade level he or she enters for the 2006-2007 school year. |
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For
additional help, and tips for success, go to R.E.A.L Tips for Better Summer Reading |
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| All R.E.A.L. students are expected to read: | ||
| Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey | ||
| Based on his
father's best-selling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Sean
Covey applies the same principles to teens, using
a vivacious, entertaining style. To keep it fun, Covey writes, he "stuffed
it full of cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories
about real teens from all over the world... along with a few other surprises." Did
he ever! Flip open to any page and become instantly absorbed in real-life
stories of teens who have overcome obstacles to succeed, and step-by-step
guides to shifting paradigms, building equity in "relationship bank
accounts," creating action plans, and much more. As a self-acknowledged guinea pig for many of his dad's theories, Sean Covey is a living example of someone who has taken each of the seven habits to heart: be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergize; and sharpen the saw. He includes a comical section titled "The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Teens," which includes some, shall we say, counterproductive practices: put first things last; don't cooperate; seek first to talk, then pretend to listen; wear yourself out... Covey's humorous and up-front style is just light enough to be acceptable to wary teenagers, and down-and-dirty enough to really make a difference. |
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| Each R.E.A.L. students must choose one of the books from the list corresponding to the grade level he or she enters for the 2006-2007 school year. | ||
| 9th and 10th graders: Please choose from the following list. | ||
| Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson | ||
| In the summer before her freshman year of high school, Melinda Sordino is raped at a party by a popular senior, Andy Evans. Melinda calls the police and they bust the party, but she does not report the rape. Melinda's friends refuse to speak to her because she ruined the party and she is left an outcast. | ||
| Color of Water- J. McBride | ||
| This is the autobiography of James McBride; it is also a memoir for his mother. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life, and first-person accounts of his mother's childhood. The novel depicts the conflicting emotions that James endures as he struggles to discover who he is truly is, as his mother narrates the hardships that she had to overcome to educate her children. | ||
| Montana 1948 – Larry Watson | ||
| David Hayden, a history teacher who grew up in a small Montana town, recounts the events of his 13th summer that divided his family and ended his innocence. David’s father, Wes, is the sheriff of Bentrock, a position he inherited from his own father, who was temperamentally better suited to it. His Uncle Frank is a physician, a war hero, a womanizer, and their father’s favorite son. Maria, a young Native American woman, serves as the Haydens’ housekeeper and takes care of David when his parents are at work. When Maria develops pneumonia, she becomes hysterical at the prospect of Frank’s attending to her. Thus the family discovers that Frank has been molesting women and girls from the reservation. As sheriff, Wes feels duty-bound to arrest his own brother. The conflict between family loyalties and the demands of conscience come into high relief as this story plays out. | ||
| Fallen Angels - Walter Dean Myers | ||
| Fallen Angels is a novel that was written by Walter Dean Myers about a group of young Americans in the Vietnam War. The characters of Richie Perry, Lobel, Johnson, Brunner, and Peewee are all in Vietnam. They came there for different reasons, but now they share a single dream - getting out alive. The novel deals with issues of race relations in the army during the Vietnam War. Fallen Angels won the 1989 Coretta Scott King Award | ||
| 11th and 12th graders: Please choose from the following list. | ||
| All Over but the Shoutin’ – Rick Bragg | ||
| All Over but the Shoutin' is the moving account of one man's determination to rewrite his family history and to carve out a life for himself based on the strength of his mother's encouragement and belief. Written with refreshing honesty and marvelous humor, it paints an unforgettable picture of the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. It is a haunting memoir about growing up dirt-poor in the deep South, and about struggling to leave the past behind while still deeply tied to it through bonds of love and responsibility. | ||
| A Lesson Before Dying – Earnest J. Gaines | ||
| Jefferson, a black plantation boy of 21, living in 1940's Louisiana, is accused of murdering the white general store owner. In his defense, Jefferson's defense lawyer attempts to appeal to the racism of the jurors by calling Jefferson a hog. The attorney says, "Why I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this," (8). This is heard by his godmother, Miss Emma, and her friend, Tante Lou, who are sitting in the courtroom. Jefferson is, of course, sentenced to death. This causes Jefferson to believe himself to be an animal rather than a man, so Miss Emma and Miss Louise ask Grant, the narrator and teacher of the plantation school, to teach Jefferson that he is a man, and to walk to his death as such--the lesson before dying. | ||
| Nickel and Dimed – Barbara Ehreich | ||
| Nickel and Dimed is a book authored by Barbara Ehrenreich. Written from the perspective of the undercover journalist, it sets out to investigate the impact of the 1996 welfare reform on the "working poor" in the United States. Securing funds for unexpected expenses, approximately $1000, she leaves her home and her middle-class existence, with a few personal items and her car, for a few months of minimum wage work. | ||
| Kindred – Octavia Butler | ||
| The novel tells the story of an African-American woman living in 1976 who is repeatedly thrown back in time to the ante-bellum South, apparently summoned (through means that are never explained) to rescue a young white person, the son of a slaveowner, who turns out to be the woman's ancestor. She is forced to deal with a time and place where her choices are almost completely circumscribed by the color of her skin. | ||
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