I recommend that your read these papers sometime before class on 9/7 or 9/8 -- you'll be midway through your model development, and that's a good time to inject some fresh ideas into the process.
I do not recommend reading these the very first weekend of the course, you have enough reading to do that weekend!
You are welcome to cite these in your final paper, if you wish. However, you may not use them for the "Find 3 Papers" assignment.