Summer reading (08)
ENG3UI Summer Reading Summer 2008
Ms Rice Entering Grade 11 AP
The required summer reading for Grade 11 AP includes three books and several selections from newspapers/magazines. You are also strongly encouraged to read the course texts for the year, and to read more than the minimum required selections from the lists below.
First book assignment – Literary Memoirs
The year will begin with an assignment on this selection of books (read at least two):
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
On Writing by Stephen King
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
As you read, use a highlighter and/or post-it notes to annotate the text, paying particular attention to passages you feel illustrate the authors’ increasing awareness of the importance of identity and voice.
Second book assignment – Ideas and Issues
The focus of the Grade 11 AP course is understanding, analyzing, and writing non-fiction prose, and engaging with ideas to develop and support your own arguments.
Choose one of the following books to suit your own interests and/or complement another course you are taking next year. Note: I don’t expect you to finish reading this book before school starts in September. However, I do expect you to finish it shortly thereafter! You will be working with it during the year.
28: Stories of AIDS in Africa (Stephanie Nolen)
Fat Land (Greg Critser)
Freakonomics (Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner)
Everything Bad Is Good For You (Steven Johnson)
Nickel and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreich)
Banker to the Poor (Muhammad Yunus)
The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman)
The Trouble with Islam (Irshad Manji)
The World Without Us (Alan Weisman)
The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan)
The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)
Fifteen Days (Christie Blatchford)
The Logic of Life (Tim Harford)
Generation Rx (Greg Critser)
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (James Loewen)
The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Lewis Hyde)
Newspaper / magazine editorial reading assignment
This assignment gives you practice in reading and responding to essays and arguments.
Choose a journal (approx 5”x7” to 8”x11” in size) to keep this assignment in. You will be submitting this journal in the first week of school and continuing to work in it throughout the year.
Over the summer, read, clip and paste into your journal at least four editorials or commentaries / essays (not news articles or informational features) from reputable newspapers or issues-based magazines (you should mix-and-match, using at least two-three different sources). Try to find at least one item that connects in some way to the book you are reading for Ideas and Issues.
Examples of suggested newspapers/magazines:
The Globe and Mail (Canadian newspaper)
The National Post (Canadian newspaper)
The New York Times (US newspaper)
The Washington Post (US newspaper)
The Times of London (UK newspaper)
The Daily Telegraph (UK newspaper)
Maclean’s (Canadian news magazine)
The Economist (UK news magazine)
Time (US news magazine)
Newsweek (US news magazine)
The New Republic (US political magazine)
National Review (US political magazine)
The New Yorker (US ideas magazine)
Atlantic Monthly (US ideas magazine)
Harper’s (US ideas magazine)
Mother Jones (US ideas magazine)
The Walrus (Canadian ideas magazine)
This (Canadian ideas magazine)
Salon.com (online ideas magazine)
Slate.com (online ideas magazine)
Arts and Letters Daily (an online compilation of items from around the English-speaking world)
Examples of newspapers/magazines that are not recommended:
The Toronto Sun (newspaper)
The Toronto Star (newspaper)
USA Today (newspaper)
fashion, lifestyle, or popular culture/entertainment magazines
Then, handwriting your responses in your journal, comment on the aspects of each of the editorials that made you think, and your thoughts about the editorial or the issues – one response per editorial. There is no guideline as to length, but your responses should be thoughtful and detailed.
Some questions you might want to think about/comment on:
Do you agree or disagree with the editorial’s viewpoints? Why?
Did the editorial make you want to know more about the issue?
What are some of the author’s best arguments? What makes them good?
Which arguments or points made by the author do not make sense to you and why?
How does this editorial connect with other knowledge that you have from other sources?
Anything else this editorial makes you think about…
And finally…
The following will be studied during the year. It is highly recommended that you begin reading the plays and novels over the summer – you will be expected to have read them before we use them in class.
Plays:
Antigone by Sophocles (required edition: Penguin, trans. R. Fagles)
Othello by Shakespeare (recommended edition: Oxford School Shakespeare)
Novels:
Animal Farm by George Orwell (borrow, do not buy this book – we will not be studying it, but you are expected to know it as background)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Essay Anthology:
50 Essays – available through the online bookstore. Essays will be assigned as we go
through the year; you do not need to read them in advance.
Want more? Go to http://tinyurl.com/53to6l for a SUGGESTED READING LIST for books of literary merit that you may also like. These books are NOT required reading! Enjoy!