ADVANCED ENGLISH 8 SUMMER READING
This summer’s English task previews general questions about prose and poetry that
students are likely to encounter in eighth grade as well as some of the grammar
skills explored throughout the school year. The expectation is that the tasks be
completed and available by the second day of the 2014-2015 school year for full
credit so that students can participate actively and knowledgably during the
opening weeks. Students are encouraged to have an English journal, and the four
components of this summer reading assignment can be recorded in it. Allow the
journal’s first page as a table of contents with:
Entry #1: “The Dinner Party”
Entry #2: “The Mending Wall”
Entry #3: Reader’s Choice
Entry #4: Grammar Preview
ADVANCED ENGLISH 8 SUMMER READING
The first piece is by the writer Mona Gardner. Read the short story and answer the
questions that follow. Students will be expected to have a journal or notebook for English;
this assignment can serve as the first entry.
“The Dinner Party” by Mona Gardner
The country is India. A colonial official and his wife are giving a large dinner party. They
are seated with their guests—army officers and government attachés and their wives, and
a visiting American naturalist—in their spacious dining room, which has a bare marble floor,
open rafters and wide glass doors opening onto a veranda.*
A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who insists that women have outgrown
the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a colonel who says that they
haven’t. “A woman’s unfailing reaction in any crisis,” the colonel says, “is to scream. And
while a man may feel like it, he has that ounce more of nerve control than a woman has.
And that last ounce is what counts.”
The American does not join in the argument but watches the other guests. As he looks, he
sees a strange expression come over the face of the hostess. She is staring straight
ahead, her muscles contracting slightly. With a slight gesture she summons the native boy
standing behind her chair and whispers to him. The boy’s eyes widen: he quickly leaves the
room. Of the guests, none except the American notices this or sees the boy place a bowl
of milk on the veranda just outside the open doors.
The American comes to with a start. In India, milk in a bowl means only one thing—bait for
a snake. He realizes there must be a cobra in the room. He looks up at the rafters—the
likeliest place—but they are bare. Three corners of the room are empty, and in the fourth
the servants are waiting to serve the next course. There is only one place left—under the
table. His first impulse is to jump back and warn the others, but he knows the commotion
would frighten the cobra into striking. He speaks quickly, the tone of his voice so arresting
that it sobers everyone.
“I want to know just what control everyone at this table has. I will count to three
hundred—that’s five minutes—and not one of you is to move a muscle. Those who move will
forfeit fifty rupees. Ready!”
The twenty people sit like stone images while he counts. He is saying “. . . two hundred and
eighty. . .” when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the cobra emerge and make for the
bowl of milk. Screams ring out as he jumps to slam the veranda doors safely shut.
“You were right, Colonel!” the host exclaims. “A man has just shown us an example of
perfect control.”
“Just a minute,” the American says, turning to his hostess. “Mrs. Wynnes, how did you
know that cobra was in the room?”
A faint smile lights up the woman’s face as she replies: “Because it was crawling across my
foot.”
http://my.hrw.com/support/hos/hostpdf/host_text_103.pdf
ADVANCED ENGLISH 8 SUMMER READING
Entry #1: “The Dinner Party”
On a separate paper or in the journal you plan to use for 8th grade Advanced English,
respond to the following questions about the story:
1. Suppose the American had said nothing at all to the guests. How do you think the
story would have ended and why?
2. In the story, a colonel and a young girl have a difference of opinion. With whom do
you think the author agrees? Explain your position by identifying the difference of
opinion between the two characters and then stating your view of the character the
author would likely agree with and why.
3. What do you think the young girl might have said to the colonel after it was
revealed that the cobra had been crawling across Mrs. Wynnes’ foot? What might
the colonel have responded?
4. Which of the following themes is most appropriate to “The Dinner Party” and
support your choice?
~A calm reaction in crisis is the best choice.
~Control is not determined by gender.
~Stereotypes obscure the truth about people.
ADVANCED ENGLISH 8 SUMMER READING
MENDING WALL
~Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
ADVANCED ENGLISH 8 SUMMER READING
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Entry #2: “The Mending Wall”
Consider the poem and its theme and respond to the following questions either on a
separate paper or in the journal you plan to use for Advanced English 8:
1. Who is the speaker in the poem? If you had to live in this poem, would you be the
speaker or the neighbor? Why?
2. Why do you think the speaker in the poem rebels against the wall? What does
he/she want?
3. What examples of nature are there in the poem and what role does nature play in
this work?
4. What examples of tradition and custom exist in the poem?
5. What message is the poem trying to communicate to the reader in “The Mending
Wall”?
6. Consider a time when you needed to set boundaries for someone or something.
Describe the experience, why it was necessary, and identify whether the task was
easy or difficult.
Entry #3: Reader’s Choice (title of book selected)
ADVANCED ENGLISH 8 SUMMER READING
1. Identify the title and author of your self-selected summer reading book.
2. What attracted you to the book?
3. What is a message/idea the author wishes to communicate to the reader through
the characters and/or plot?
4. Often the ending of a book is disappointing. Evaluate how well the author draws
this book to a close.
5. It is thought that people do not read enough anymore. Share whether or not this
book would motivate one to read more. What qualities does it have/lack that
support your response? What literary elements do you seek in a book? (suspense,
interesting characters, sophisticated themes…)
Entry #4: Grammar~ What Do You Know?
Define the 15 grammar terms in the word bank in your journal and provide an example for
each (the first one has been done for you). This site will help:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
Example: Infinitive: To sneeze, to smash, to cry, to shriek, to jump, to dunk, to read, to
eat, to slurp—all of these are infinitives. An infinitive will almost always begin with to
followed by the simple form of the verb, like this:
TO
+ V E R B = infinitive
Student example: To sleep was the only thing I wanted to do this summer, but now I have
this summer reading packet to finish. Too bad! (not an infinitive)
Infinitive
Participle
Compound/complex Gerund
sentence
Clause
Phrase
Simple
sentence
Prepositional
phrase
Comma splice
Compound
sentence
Appositive
Complex
sentence
Parallel form
Run-on
ellipsis