Summer Reading Assignment for IB English 11
If you have questions about the assignment below, please contact Mr. Lochamy rlochamy@hoover.k12.al.us
In a nutshell, you’re going to do two things:
1. Familiarize your self with these literary terms so that you’ll be ready to pass a simple quiz based on their definitions (as highlighted in the document) in the opening days of the new school year.
2. Read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and write an essay in which you analyze Orwell’s use of language, structure, style, and/or technique, gathering your analysis around a cohesive thesis that points to the ways in which the author’s choices contribute to deep meaning within the work.
For more information about your Orwell essay, refer to the guiding points below.
Does it matter which specific copy of the book I read? No, it doesn’t. You’ll need to purchase your own copy somewhere (so that you can annotate it as you read), but so long as it’s not adapted or abridged in any way, any edition will work just fine.
Is there a prompt for this essay? Yes. Here it is:
As Marjane Satrapi once noted, “Everybody has something to say, of course, but the art is not about having something to say. The art is about how you say this thing." How has George Orwell chosen to write Nineteen Eighty-Four in a manner that artfully illuminates a key theme within the work?
When is this essay due? You will submit this essay (electronically) during the first few days of the new school year. It is expected that students will have completed work on the essay before reporting to school on the first day back after the summer vacation.
How long should the essay be? Your essay should be between 750 and 1000 words in length.
What guidance can you give me about how best to write an essay like this? Good question. Let me suggest that you refer to this rubric (complete with my guiding notes) that should help guide you when it comes to how best to write for my class. And perhaps you’ll find this short set of guidelines helpful when it comes to how best to organize a literary analysis essay.
Is it okay for me to read analysis of this work as I gather my own thoughts and decide what to write about? No. The only thing you should read in preparation for writing this essay is Orwell’s novel itself. Our IB English 11 class is intended to test (and develop) your ability to generate your own analysis, so at no point during the year should you read outside analysis of the works we study (unless specifically directed by Mr. Lochamy to do so for some reason).
Is it OK for me to use outside resources of any sort to help me with this assignment? No, it’s not. You are expected to do all of your own work for this assignment without the help of any outside resources of any sort. As mentioned in the bullet point above, the only reading you should do for this assignment is Orwell’s novel itself. And when it comes to the writing of the essay, your work should be your own, completely (i.e., you shouldn’t be receiving help from anyone else or making use of artificial intelligence or anything of the sort either to compose or to edit/revise your essay).
What format should I use? Your essay must a) be drafted in a Google doc in your official school-account Google Drive and b) use standard MLA formatting. And be sure to provide both a title and a word count for the paper as well.
What if I try my hardest on this essay but it turns out not to be very good? Is that going to ruin my grade in this class right from the start? Great question. Let me assure you, though, that it will not. I’m hoping to see with these initial essays of the year where each of my students is on day one when it comes to the type of writing we’ll be doing all year long in the 11th grade. So that I can get an accurate assessment of who you are as a writer (and what sort of improvement we’ll need to focus on throughout the year), it’s very important that you give your best effort on this assignment (i.e., read through the rubric I’ve provided above and take its guidance into consideration before you begin to read and write; read the book carefully, annotating while you go; draft and revise your essay carefully, following a writing process; etc.), but this essay will not be assessed as a major grade in my class based on the shape it’s in upon first submission.
Any last words of advice? Yes. Don’t wait until the last week of summer to get started. Trying to rush the study of literature and the writing of literary analysis is a bad idea. If you’re serious about doing a good job of it all, you must work hard to make your reading thoughtful and your writing process deliberate. And lastly, you might want to check out this brief video I made about this assignment back in the spring of 2020 (during the pandemic, which explains the line about how I wish were at school to be able to chat about the assignment in person).
One last thing: Very near the beginning of the new school year, we’ll begin our study of our first work: Maya Angelou’s memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It’s a good idea to go ahead and purchase your copy of that book before we return to school. And as is the case with all of the books we study this year, it’s very important that you make sure to purchase the specific edition indicated on our Required Texts page. (For Angelou’s book, the ISBN number is as follows: ISBN-13: 9780345514400, and so long as you’re careful to buy the right copy, you can buy your book wherever you’d like–e.g., online, at a local bookstore, etc.)
I’m excited about the time we’ll spend together analyzing interesting works and honing our skills as writers in IB English 11 next year, and I very much look forward to a) seeing how much you know about some of the most important literary terms and b) reading your thoughts on Orwell’s novel when we return to school.
Have a great summer!