Summer Reading Information
Below is a copy of the Summer Reading Assignment and Study Guide for the summer of 2023.
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Summer Reading Rationale
The English II Honors teachers have worked to ensure that students' summer reading is relevant to the most widely used allusions in Western Literature. Below is our rationale for assigning English II H summer work.
English II Honors is a foundational class, designed to set students up for success in advanced language arts courses such as honors and AP English. Most of the texts students will read this year and in years to come will make reference to mythological and biblical characters, stories, and themes. The summer reading list has been carefully selected to provide them with an invaluable body of reference for understanding Western Culture and its literature, as they continue their education here at OPHS, in college, and beyond.
Classical influences are impossible to ignore. There are more than a thousand biblical references in the works of Shakespeare alone. Influential authors such as John Milton, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway all drew on mythology and the Bible as well in their works. Any serious student of literature must be exposed to these texts, or they risk missing important references essential for a deep understand of Western literature.
Additionally, while some of these stories could be found in encyclopedias and in online sources, it is more educationally sound to read the whole, primary source when possible. Just as readers gain a more thorough understanding from reading a whole article versus an abstract, it is important that students read the biblical and mythological stories in whole and in context rather than in piecemeal during class.
One of the most essential elements of English II Honors is that students begin to learn how to find allusions and other literary elements themselves, in context of the literary works, rather than to have them pointed out by the teachers. Therefore, it is vital students read these foundational texts during the summer so that they can then apply what they read and find connections on their own, and with guidance of the teachers, during the school year. Students find great satisfaction in applying, independently, what they have learned and read over the summer to the works we read as a class during the year. This ability is also a California Common Core Reading State Standard.
According to the California Common Core State Standards, a “key feature” of the reading standards is an increasing ability ”to discern more from and make fuller use of text, including making an increasing number of connections among ideas and between texts.” Additionally, the reading standards ask that students "analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare)."
The English II Summer Reading assignment has been approved by the OPHS School Board.