Vista High School
Summer Reading
Assignment
IB/AP Grade 12
Dear Incoming 12th Grade International Baccalaureate/Advanced Placement English Student:
Congratulations on selecting this very rigorous, challenging English class for your senior year. The
path you have chosen is the most advanced English program available at the high school level and is
designed to prepare you for success at the university level.
English 12 IB/AP is a college-level course, and follows the tenets established in the IB mission
statement, which “aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help create
a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.” This course will ask
you to push your personal boundaries; to potentially look at philosophies and cultures that are very
different than your own. While the goal here is not to change your values, it is designed to help you
grow and respect diversity. As Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to
entertain an idea without accepting it,” and it is our goal to help develop you as citizens of the world.
While the IB 12 course will cover a variety of different subject matter and modes of writing, one
common denominator will be a focus on independent learning. Students will have increasingly more
and more responsibility as the year goes by, starting with self-guided discussion questions and essay
prompts, and culminating with several independent research assignments and creative works.
Additionally, all students who enroll in IB/AP English are expected to complete all IB related
assignments, whether or not you personally have a full-IB diploma designation or not.
The summer reading assignment will consist of reading a text from the attached approved reading list,
and creating a 5 minute oral presentation to commence on the first day of class in the fall. Both the
reading list and some guiding questions for the presentation are on the attached sheet.
We are very excited about welcoming you to our classes next year. Do not hesitate to email us with
any questions you may have about the course and/or about summer reading.
Sincerely,
Emily Wilson
English Teacher
emilywilson@vusd.k12.ca.us
Jo Renison
English Chair
jrenison@vusd.k12.ca.us
IB English 12 Summer Reading List:
Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Abu-Jaber, Diana. Origin: A Novel
Alexie, Sherman. Reservation Blues.
Allende, Isabel. Of Love and Shadows.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: The Inferno
Alvarez, Julia. In The Name of Salomé
Anonymous. Woman in Berlin.
Austen, Jane. Persuasion.
Barker, Pat. Regeneration.
Bao Ninh. The Sorrow of War.
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame: a play in one act; followed by, Act without words: a mime for one player.
Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation.*
Burgess, Anthony. Clockwork Orange.
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote.
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep.
Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: the forgotten holocaust of World War II.*
Chevalier, Tracy. Falling Angels.
Clancy, Tom. Rainbow Six.
Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist.
Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim.
DeMille, Nelson. Up Country: a novel
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying
Follett, Ken. Pillars of the Earth.
Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. 100 Years of Solitude
Ha Jin. War Trash.
Haley, Alex. Roots
Hawking, S. W. A Brief History of Time.*
Herr, Michael. Dispatches.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner
Joyce, James. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Joyce, James. Ulysses.
Kelley, Kitty. Oprah: a biography*
Kesey, Ken. One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Koontz, Dean R. Dark Rivers of the Heart: a novel.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz.
Macleish, Archibald. J.B.
Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick.
Morrison, Toni. Sula.
Nabakov, Vladmir. Lolita.
Oates, Joyce Carol. Foxfire : confessions of a girl gang
Palahniuk, Chuck. Survivor : a novel.
Picoult, Jodi. The Tenth Circle.
Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle.
Skinner, B. F. Walden Two
Tan, Amy. Saving Fish from Drowning.
Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Tyler, Anne. The Accidental Tourist.
Valdez, Luis. Zoot Suit
Virgil. The Aeneid.
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Women.*
Wu, Ch'eng-en. Monkey: folk novel of China.
Young, William P. The Shack : a novel.
Zusak, Markus. I Am the Messenger.
*Non-fiction
Guiding Questions for Presentations:
How does the author convey his/her message? As in, what stylistic devices does the author primarily
use, and to what effect?
Consider:
A) How does the structure of the work inform the content (or vice versa)?
B) What kind of syntactical variance do you see? How does the author play with syntax?
C) How would you characterize the author’s style? What evidence do you have to support
this claim?