Winsor Upper School Summer Reading Requirements

Winsor requires summer reading to encourage you to become avid, lifelong readers. Reading helps you broaden your knowledge, deepen your imaginative experience, and develop your language and writing skills. Summer reading requirements for each class are listed below. You'll notice that, other than the required book, you will be able to choose your books. Rather than having to choose books from a specific list, you may choose any books that interest you. We simply ask that you choose books that fall into these three categories:

1. a book recommended to you by someone else--a friend, a parent, a teacher, or an online source like the ones listed in the recommendation tabs above.

2. a book that challenges you in some way (for instance, a non-fiction book if you always read fiction or an older novel if you always read contemporary fiction)

3. free choice!

In the fall, you will be asked to fill out a brief summer reading follow-up survey in English class about your summer reading, including questions about the required books and questions about how you chose your other books.

If you would like some reading suggestions, you will find a variety of recommendations from different sources, including teacher recommendations and prize-winning books at the top of this page.

REQUIRED SUMMER READING FOR EACH GRADE LEVEL

Required summer books will be handed out in class in May or at the new student event on May 7. If you miss the new student event, we will mail your books to you. New students will also receive a copy of Ms. Stringfellow's new book A Comb of Wishes. Ms. Stringfellow is a Class I and II English teacher at Winsor. This is not required reading, but simply a gift from Winsor to you to honor Ms. Stringfellow's exciting achievement. Plus, it's a fun read!

Class V: Actively read Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. (Reading actively means making notes in the margins as you read.) You will be asked to discuss and write about this novel during the first weeks of school, so you may want to read it late in the summer. Also read four other books following the guidelines above. You do not need to read these other four books actively.

If you are new to Winsor and have no experience with grammar, we recommend that you look at a grammar textbook or website over the summer. We will review all Winsor Lower School grammar material in the fall, but new students often find that previewing the material in the summer helps. The concepts covered at Winsor in eighth grade include parts of speech, noun functions, dependent clauses, and punctuation. Our eighth grade textbook is Rules of the Game Level 3. You can also find websites that offer self-correcting grammar exercises and explanations. Here are some useful sites: https://www.englishgrammar101.com/ and https://clausesandsentences.weebly.com/.

*******

Class VI: Actively read Power by Linda Hogan. Also read four other books following the guidelines above. You do not need to read these other four books actively.

*******

Class VII: You will be informed of your Global Studies course in late July. Once you know what course you have been placed in, please actively read the text assigned to it. You will be able to pick up a copy of the book at school in the summer if you wish. Or you may buy it yourselves. Please try to order the correct ISBN number.

Africa: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (ISBN 978-1101971062)

India: To Be Announced

Middle East: Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell (ISBN 978-0743261692)

Russia: The Girl from the Metropol Hotel by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (ISBN 978-0143129974)

Latin America: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (ISBN: 978-1400034710)

You may want to read this text at the end of the summer so that you can discuss it in class more readily. Also read four other books following the guidelines above. You do not need to read these other four books actively.

*******

Class VIII: Read five books following the guidelines above.

ONE LAST REQUEST!

IMPORTANT: Please do NOT read a book that is part of the Winsor English curriculum until you have passed the grade level that reads that book. In other words, since a Class VII elective reads Things Fall Apart, please don't choose that text for summer reading until after Class VII. Discovering a text for the first time together with your classmates provides a better class experience. Here are the books read at each grade level during the school year:

Class V: Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Persepolis

Class VI: The Great Gatsby, The Color Purple, The Things They Carried, American Born Chinese, Donald Duk

Class VII: The White Tiger, Gilgamesh, Things Fall Apart, Nervous Conditions, All the Pretty Horses, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, This Bridge Called My Back, Maus, Sweat, The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, Klara and the Sun.

Class VIII: White Teeth; Girl, Women, Other; Atonement; Heart of Darkness; Wuthering Heights; Never Let Me Go; Frankenstein; Mayor of Casterbridge; Wild Seed; The Power; Beowulf; Grendel; Pride and Prejudice

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER AND HAPPY READING!