Students entering 8th grade are required to read at least two books, one specific novel, Milkweed  by Jerry Spinelli (click the title for the Amazon link), and one book of your choice from the lists below. There are two separate assignments to complete for Milkweed - both are detailed below! 

For the book of your choice, choose one of the response options listed on the tab at the top of the page.  You can request permission to read a book not on these lists by sending your request to Mr. Van Ness at svanness@timothychristian.org. Where possible, submit your work through the Summer Reading Team.

NOTE: Submitting work written by any type of artificial intelligence software is considered plagiarism, and will result in a 0 for the assignment.

If you are brand new to TCS for this fall, please print out your assignments and bring them to school by the due date! 

Assignment 2: Milkweed - Thinking Through Text

For each of the questions below, answer in at least one coherent and complete paragraph. Each paragraph needs to be constructed from complete sentences. This assignment should be typed and at least 600 words total, without including any text from this document. Each question needs to have at least one quote from the story (unless otherwise specified), properly cited. Your quote should not be longer than three sentences. When you are finished, you should have at least one paragraph for each question. This assignment will be graded as a major assessment.

1. Milkweed is a presentation of life in the Jewish ghettos from the perspective of a boy who is not a part of the culture by which he is surrounded. In fact, we never learn what Misha’s heritage truly is. Why do you think the author chooses to leave out such a crucial detail, particularly because the events in the novel tend to be tied to race and ethnicity? How do you think this story would be different if told from the perspective of one of the Jewish occupants of the ghetto? Explain with examples from the text.

2. One of the most crucial discussions in this book comes from the concept of identity. How does Misha determine his identity? How does his identity change and grow over the course of the novel? What do you think are the messages of the story about identity? Explain.

3. The novel itself takes place over a small period of time, until the very end of the book, when we leap forward. What are the persistent effects of Misha’s time in the ghettos? How do they affect his life after leaving? Why do you think the author chose to include this part of the novel, rather then ending the book after Warsaw returned to normalcy?