Summer Reading Assignment
Incoming Junior Honors English
Summer reading books:
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass)
The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
Copies of the books will be made available to students through the San Leandro High
School Library on a first-come, first-served basis. Additional copies of the books are
available at the San Leandro Public Library, local bookstores, or at Amazon.com,
Powells.com, and other on-line sources. It is recommended that students buy their own
copies of the books to allow for in-text note-taking. The work you do on the books will
be collected and graded.
There will be tests on all three books in September. Scores from the tests will be a
significant part of your semester grade—approximately 10%.
IF you have YOUR OWN TEXT, MARK IT UP. Note significant passages, important
words or phrases, confusing parts, places where you have questions, events that stand out.
The Catcher in the Rye
Use the form of note-taking that works best for you. Some students like to write
summaries, some like to keep character charts or event charts, and some like to develop
timelines. SUGGESTED: Take notes on the situations that Holden Caulfield gets
involved in. Also note the situations when he uses the word “phony”: list the people and
things he applies that word to.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Use the form of note-taking that works best for you. SUGGESTED: Note the names of
the main masters and mistresses he has and how he is treated by each one. Also note the
situations where he gains support on his path to freedom.
The Joy Luck Club
Use the form of note-taking that works best for you. SUGGESTED: Pay special
attention to the list of the mothers and daughters on the page that directly follows the
Table of Contents. Make a chart that lists the mother-daughter pairs. As you read, note
the significant events of each character, and the stories associated with them. You might
want to read the novel through once, then go back and look for the events associated with
each character. There is a template below.
The Joy Luck Club
Mothers and Daughters
Suyuan Woo
(Mother)
Lindo Jong
(Mother)
Jing-mai (June) Woo
(Daughter)
Waverly Jong
(Daughter)
An-mei Hsu
(Mother)
Ying-ying St. Clair
(Mother)
Rose Hsu Jordan
(Daughter)
Lena St. Clair
(Daughter)