Summer Reading 2015
English III CP
This course focuses on American literature reflecting on essential questions about the American
Dream and the Puritan Ethic. During the course of the school year (2015-2016) you will read, analyze,
and discuss several literary works including, but not limited to works by Captain John Smith, William
Bradford, Edward Taylor, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, as well as The Crucible, The Great
Gatsby, Of Mice and Men and numerous short stories and poems.
In order to enrich your reading experience and enable you to contextualize the more difficult
reading, your summer reading requires you to:
1. Read ONE book from the fiction list and ONE book from the nonfiction list below. Please
BUY the book although it is your choice to purchase a book versus e-book.
2. Complete the character chart or non-fiction guided reading analysis sheet. This must be typed,
with an MLA heading, Times New Roman, 12-point font. This is due on Friday, August 27.
3. Upon your return to school, you will be writing an essay as well as participate in Literature
Circles.
Required Reading: Choose ONE book from each of the lists below. Complete the character sketch
Fiction:
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Out of the Easy by Ruta Septys
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
A Break with Charity by Ann Rinaldi
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
A Step from Heaven by An Na
The Round House by Louis Erdrich
Nonfiction
Biography (Complete the character sketch questions.)
The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams by Derek Jeter
Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby
The Glass Castles by Jeanette Walls
Social Commentary (Complete the specific questions for your chosen book)
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Character Sketch (Use this for Fiction or Biographical Novel)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Where does your character live?
If not in the present, at what time in history does your character live?
How old is your character?
What are the five most important things that have happened to your character in his or her life so
far?
5. Think of three adjectives that describe your character’s personality/frame of mind.
6. What challenges has your character struggled with in life? Has he or she overcome them, or is he
or she still working them out?
7. What does your character look like?
8. What is your character’s social-economic status (rich, poor, middle class, educated, not educated,
etc.)?
9. What is your character’s racial/ethnic identity?
Does your character’s racial/ethnic identity affect
his or her dreams and goals?
10. In what way will your character work toward the American dream?
What obstacles will he or she
face on the journey?
In what one way does your character most want to change his or her life?
Critical Thinking Questions for Outliers
Directions: Answer each of the questions using complete sentences.
1. Malcolm Gladwell is interested in what makes some people more successful than others. Overall,
how would you describe his thesis, or central premise?
2. What does Gladwell mean by the term "outlier"?
3. Why does Gladwell insist that IQ is not the determining factor in one's ability to achieve success?
4. According to Gladwell, what is the reason that Asians excel at mathematics? Discuss the cultural
and educational differences that he points to as explanation.
5. Why does Gladwell feel there is no such thing as a self-made person. Do you agree? Can you name
people who overcame great odds—circumstances not in their favor—to attain success?
6. Is Gladwell suggesting that success is a matter of luck, the roll of the die? If so—if success
depends on timing, birth, and opportunities—then do innate qualities (ambition or raw talent) have
any role to play?
7. What did you find most surprising, humorous or thought-provoking in Gladwell's book? Any "ahha!" moments? Have you come away thinking differently than before? What, if anything, do you
feel you've learned?
Critical Thinking Questions for Nickel and Dimed
1. In the Introduction to Nickel and Dimed, the author writes: “Unlike many low wage workers, I have the
further advantages of being white and a native English speaker.” How and why were these two facets
of Ehrenreich’s identity advantageous over the full duration of her study.
2. Near the beginning of this book, Ehrenreich compares the restaurant-tipping habits of Americans and
Europeans. Near the end, she notes that, while “most civilized nations compensate for inadequacy of
wages by providing relatively generous public services,” the U.S. “leaves its citizens to fend for
themselves.” What, in Ehrenreich’s view, could America learn from other countries about how to
better treat its low-wage workers?
3. The action of Nickel and Dimed unfolds in three American communities, as found in three different
states: Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. What about your own community? How would Nickel and
Dimed be different—or similar—if it included the area you call home?
4. Ehrenreich often speaks of dietary matters, of nutrition, of food as fuel. Why does she keep doing so?
What did reading this book tell you about how we eat and how we work in America? And what about
the correlations that may or may not exist between low-wage American workers and their use of
cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol?
5. Throughout Nickel and Dimed the author makes complaints about “management.” Summarize the
many problems that Ehrenreich has with managers, looking especially at the book’s WalMart passages
and the breakdown of “workplace authoritarianism” in the Evaluation chapter.
6. More than once in these pages, we encounter the severe bodily and psychological harm that hard work
at low pay can cause—the physical damage as well as the threats of “repetitive injury of the spirit.”
True? Why/why not?