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Summer Reading Assignment
Summer Reading Assignment
Honors English 9 is a course specifically designed for incoming students who enjoy reading and who seek an academic challenge. Summer reading is an opportunity to embark on that journey of rigor. Since Honors English 9 is a genre based course, students will begin their literary journey with a piece of historical fiction. Students will be reading the novel, Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys. The ONLY required assignment is to read the text AND bring a physical, paper copy of the text to school on the first day. Students are encouraged to take notes about the book and its characters as they read. Students are also encouraged to sticky note passages that seem significant to them. Within the first few weeks, we will analyze this book and use it to introduce high school level discussion, writing, research, and analysis skills. Students can also expect an assessment over the book before the end of the first or second week.
Purchasing the Book
Purchasing the Book
Below, you will find a link to purchase the book. The purchase link is simply provided for your convenience. Books can be purchased anywhere, as long as they are the same edition (ISBN number) as the one on the link. Again, be sure you have a physical paper copy of the book in hand when you arrive on Day One in the fall.
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
While the Titanic and Lusitania are both well-documented disasters, the single greatest tragedy in maritime history is the little-known January 30, 1945 sinking in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet submarine of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that was supposed to ferry wartime personnel and refugees to safety from the advancing Red Army. The ship was overcrowded with more than 10,500 passengers — the intended capacity was approximately 1,800 — and more than 9,000 people, including 5,000 children, lost their lives.
Sepetys (writer of 'Between Shades of Gray') crafts four fictionalized but historically accurate voices to convey the real-life tragedy. Joana, a Lithuanian with nursing experience; Florian, a Prussian soldier fleeing the Nazis with stolen treasure; and Emilia, a Polish girl close to the end of her pregnancy, converge on their escape journeys as Russian troops advance; each will eventually meet Albert, a Nazi peon with delusions of grandeur, assigned to the Gustloff decks.
*Source: Goodreads.com
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