11th Grade English
Summer Reading
Essay Assignment
“The best strategy is not to deny your personal response but to find some other perspective by which to analyze
your response in relation to the text.”-X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry,
and Drama
**Prompt:
Summer Reading Essay Assignment: 100 points
Please write a persuasive essay recommending one of your summer reading books to an incoming student
next year. In your effort to persuade an incoming student to read your selection, please refer to the qualities of
both of your summer reading titles, explaining why one book was preferable to the other. Don’t forget the
structure of a good essay (develop a central idea and a thesis statement, create fully-developed body
paragraphs with specific examples from the books, and include an introduction and conclusion). To aid you in
completing your essay, you may use any original, handwritten notes you collected over the summer. Your
essay will be evaluated using the PSSA Writing Rubric.
th
Incoming 11 Grade Summer Reading List
All eleventh grade college prep and general prep students must read two books from the list, one fiction, one
non-fiction. The list is divided into two themes—both books should come from the same theme group.
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Anderson, M. T. Feed.
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake.
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. Mists of Avalon.
Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go.
James, P. D. Children of Men.
Lightman, Alan. Einstein’s Dreams.
Science—Non-fiction
Bodanis, David. E=mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.
Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Carroll, Sean B. Endless Forms Most Beautiful.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring.
Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone.
Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
Adventure Fiction
Barry, Max. Jennifer Government.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road.
Mosher, Howard Frank. The True Account.
Adventure Non-fiction
Jans, Nick. The Grizzly Maze.
Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm.
Nuwere, Ejovi and David Chanoff. Hacker Cracker: A Journey from the Mean Streets of Brooklyn to the Frontiers of
Cyberspace.
Using the PSSA Writing Rubric, the content of your essay will be assessed based upon the following
criteria:
I. Literary Analysis: Last year, I received too many vague essays with little or no literary analysis. Remember,
you must show me that you’ve read and can analyze your novels.
Here are some acceptable topics to write about in your persuasive essay. Remember to discuss the qualities in
BOTH novels THOROUGHLY.
A. Conflict
a. Conflict is "The mental or moral struggle caused by incompatible desires and aims. That is the kind of
conflict that makes stories vitally alive." - Ben Bova in The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells.
b. Is there emotional conflict WITHIN the main character? Between the main characters? Emotional conflict
is part of what gets readers interested. For example: love vs. loyalty; greed vs. duty; fear vs. desire;
revenge vs. self-doubt.
c. Are there too many or not enough conflicts?
d. Is there enough conflict between the characters? Is it expressed through action, dialogue, attitudes, or
values? Were the characters sufficiently contrasted? Or did they seem to be totally satisfied with their
roles? Did they have the potential to transform each other?
B. Plot
a. Was the main plot clear and believable?
b. Were you able to determine the time and place of the story quickly enough?
c. Did the story start at the right place? Did it end at the right place in the plot?
d. Are there scenes which do not seem to further the plot?
e. Were there too many flashbacks that broke your attention?
f. If the piece was a novel, could it be improved by more attention to the subplots or have more subplots?
Conversely, does it have too many subplots and you got confused about what was happening?
g. Was every subplot useful? Did it add to the overall story or did the author seem to stick it in just for
complexity?
h. Pacing: Did the plot/subplots move fast enough to keep the reader's attention?
i. Resolution of conflict: Did the conflict and tension in the plots and subplots come to some reasonable
ending? Or did the author leave us hanging, wondering what happened? When you finished, were there
things that you still felt needed to be explained? If the author did leave some conflict unresolved, did they
indicate somewhere that future stories are pending?
C. Setting
a. Is there enough description of the background in the story to paint a picture that seems real enough for
the reader? Did you feel that you were transported to 'that time or place'?
b. Was there too much description so modern readers might tend to become bored? Was the description
written with clichés?
c. Did the author use good enough names for people, places, and things? Names help set the tone for a
story. Were some names of people hard to keep track of? Did some names seem inconsistent with the
character? Were the names too stereotypical?
d. Did the author convince you that people in that time or place would behave that way?
D. Characterization
a. Did the people seem real? Or were the main characters stereotypes or one-dimensional cardboard
characters?
b. Were the facts about the characters accurate and consistent?
c. Did you get a good picture of the culture, historical period, location, and occupation of the main
character?
d. Back-story: Were you distracted by too much background information of a character at one time? Did the
author seem to dump a lot of information on the background of a character in one or two long speeches,
or did we learn about that character here and there in smaller pieces?
e. Did the protagonist undergo some change in the story?
f. Could the story have been improved by adding more details of the protagonist's or another character's
reputation; stereotyped beliefs; their network of relations to other people; habits and patterns; talents and
abilities; tastes and preferences; or physical description of their body?
g.
Does each chapter/page have enough sensory description? Can the reader easily sense what is
happening physically to the main character?
h. If the story used a person as the antagonist (villain), did he or she seem real too? Or so evil or one-sided
that he or she was more like an ideal villain? Did he or she have some redeeming qualities too? Did the
villain seem to be a hero in his or her own mind?
i. Every reader has his or her own taste in how much characterization is appropriate. Did this story have
too little or too much characterization for you?
E. Dialogue
a. Did the words from the mouths of the people in the story seem consistent with their personalities?
b. Was there too much or not enough dialogue, in your opinion? Usually writers err on the side of not
enough dialogue.
c. Did any character tend to talk in long monologues?
d. Were you able to sense the conflict, attitudes, and intentions of each character in their dialogue without
the author telling you of these directly?
e. Did the dialogue seem easy to speak? Can you 'hear' it? If it sounds unusual, you might suggest that the
writer try reading it aloud.
f. Does the dialogue seem TOO MUCH like normal speech, with too many incomplete sentences, pauses,
restarts, profanity, clichés, etc. that it was distracting?
g. Did the author use dialect that was too heavy, making it difficult to read?
h. In an exchange of conversation, can you easily tell who is speaking if you didn't have their names or
genders attached to their sentences?
F. Point of View
a. Was a given chapter or section written from one person's point of view? Are there too many points of
view in the story?
b. Did the story skip around between the first person or third person point of view (POV)? Were the
changes in POV signaled clearly? There is nothing inherently wrong in changing POV, as long as it is not
done too often.
c. If the story was written in the third person POV, as most stories are, did the story stick with the
omniscient (all knowing) POV, use a limited POV (where we don't know everyone's motives except by
clues from their words or actions), or did the author mix the two? Did the author's choice seem right to
you?
d. When the POV changed, were you able to quickly sense the new viewpoint?
G. Show versus tell
a. When in the POV of a character, did the author describe what his/her senses showed, e.g., sight, sound,
smell, touch, taste? Or did the author just tell you the dinner was very good?
b. Did the author describe exactly how the people acted?
c. Were there many instances of words like "very", "much", "really", "great", or "nice" when a more detailed
description would have been more colorful?
d. Did we get the chance to interpret what the characters were feeling or did the author just tell us directly?
H. Style/ technique of writing
a. Style involves an author’s choice and arrangement of words, as well as tone, mood, imagery, sound
effects, and other literary devices. You may wish to comment on the style in which the story was written,
e.g., humorous, wordy, sparse, literary, technical, etc. If you choose this topic, you must be very specific
in your examples!
**The following are points to avoid in your thesis:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
“I liked novel A better because it was shorter. Novel B was too long.”
“I didn’t get novel A; it was too confusing. Novel B was easier to understand.”
“Novel A was better because I like fiction better. I didn’t like novel B because it was nonfiction.”
“Novel A was more entertaining. It kept me on the edge of my seat. Novel B was boring.”
“I didn’t read novel B, so I liked novel A better.”
II. Structure of the Essay: Please refer to this brief overview of the five-paragraph essay components as you
plan your writing:
I.
Introduction
A. Attention-getting first sentence
B. Background information (3-5 sentences)
C. Central idea (A creative form of: “Novel A is superior to Novel B.”)
D. 3-Prong Thesis (A creative form of: “Novel A is superior to Novel B in terms of _(#1)_, _(#2)__,
and _(#3)__.”)
II.
Body Paragraph #1: First point of comparison (7-10 sentences)
A. Topic sentence restating your first thesis point
B. Supporting detail 1
C. Supporting detail 2
D. Supporting detail 3
E. Concluding sentence summarizing the main points of the paragraph
III.
Body Paragraph #2: Second point of comparison (7-10 sentences)
A. Topic sentence restating your second thesis point
B. Supporting detail 1
C. Supporting detail 2
D. Supporting detail 3
E. Concluding sentence summarizing the main points of the paragraph
IV.
Body Paragraph #3: Third point of comparison (7-10 sentences)
A. Topic sentence restating your third thesis point
B. Supporting detail 1
C. Supporting detail 2
D. Supporting detail 3
E. Concluding sentence summarizing the main points of the paragraph
V.
Conclusion (5-7 sentences)
A. Restate CI and Thesis in DIFFERENT words
B. Expand/ reflect upon the ideas shared in your essay
Central Idea—Explained
To review, a central idea must meet the following criteria:
1. It must be arguable. Someone else could disagree with your idea.
2. It must be a broad enough topic for you to discuss in five paragraphs.
3. It must be more than just an unsupportable opinion.
Identify the problem with each of the following central ideas:
1. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible takes place in the famous town of Salem, Massachusetts.
2. The Scarlet Letter introduces the reader to a number of different characters.
In order to construct a central idea, make a definitive, arguable statement about it.
Examples:
1. If you are writing about a literary movement or philosophy…
Despite the fact that it was written during the earliest years of this literary movement, William
Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” is the quintessential Romantic work.
2. If you are describing a writer’s purpose…
Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in order to promote social change by illustrating the
hardships of working-class America.
3. If you are writing about a change in a character…
Throughout J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caufield learns through his
experiences in New York that it is impossible to hold onto one’s innocence forever.
4. If you are drawing a parallel between the writer and his work…
In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald draws from his own life experiences to
construct the character of Jay Gatsby.
Thesis- Explained
Your thesis should meet the following criteria:
1. Plan- The “map” of your essay. The thesis will outline HOW you will support your CI.
2. Content- it should consist of three points.
3. Length- your thesis should be one sentence in length. This will help guide your reader through
your essay.
Examples:
1. For the central idea on “Thanatopsis”:
Bryant’s use of archaic language and reference to ancient times, his knowledge of the hidden
fears of the individual, and his celebration of the healing and sustaining power of nature
result in a work that clearly demonstrates the key tenets of the Romantic movement.
2. For the central idea on The Catcher in the Rye:
Holden’s experiences in New York cause him to mature through his contact with the adult
world of prostitution, the profanity that appears in even the most sacred of places, and the
disappointment of the figure he trusted in the most, all of which teach him that innocence is
not eternal.
III. The Persuasive Qualities of Your Essay:
Persuasive Writing- Explained
Persuasive writing utilizes logic and reason to show that one idea is more legitimate than another idea. It
attempts to persuade a reader to adopt a certain point of view or to take a particular action. The argument
must always use sound reasoning and solid evidence by stating facts, giving logical reasons, using examples,
and quotes.
Persuasive Writing:



The writer attempts to move the reader to take an action or to form a change of
opinion.
The writer uses skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
The writer may defend, refute, or argue.
When planning a persuasive essay, follow these steps:
1. Choose your position. Which novel are you going to write about, and why is it superior to your
second novel? Know the purpose of your essay.
2. Analyze your audience.
3. Research your topic. A persuasive essay must provide specific and supporting evidence.
4. Structure your essay. Figure out what evidence you will include and in what order you will
present the evidence. Remember to consider your purpose, your audience, and your topic.
The following are essential to produce an effective argument:
1. Be well informed about your topic- come prepared with hand written notes/ specific quotes you
wish to implement in the essay.
2. Support your position with evidence. Remember that your evidence must appeal to emotion or
reason.
The following are different ways to support your argument:
Emotional Appeal:
1. Figurative language and Imagery- Use of metaphors, similes, and imagery to draw a comparison or to
create an image in the mind of the reader can prove to be a compelling means of support.
a. Thesis statement: Through the use of vivid imagery, apt similes, and powerful diction,
Cisneros conveys the true depths of Rachel’s misery in her own inability to stand up for herself.
2. Personal Experiences- Appeals to the reader’s desire to identify with the writer.
a. Central Idea: The characterization in the short story “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros is superior to
the characterization in “Open Boat” by Stephen Crane because Cisneros gives Rachel, the
protagonist, a childish, yet eloquent voice that compels the reader to identify with her traumatic
experience in the classroom.
Logical Appeal:
1. Facts- a powerful means of convincing, facts can come from your reading, observation, or personal
experience.
2. Statistics- these can provide excellent support. Be sure your statistics come from reliable sources.
Always cite your sources.
3. Quotes- Direct quotes from the book that support your position are invaluable.
4. Examples- Examples enhance your meaning and make your ideas concrete. They are the proof.