2015 Required Summer Reading List
Grades 11-12
ALL ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.
NEW STUDENTS NEED TO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS WITH THEIR ENGLISH TEACHER THE
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL FOR THE DUE DATE OF THEIR ASSIGNMENT.
11th and 12th Grade:
The real purpose behind the summer reading list assignment is to encourage more reading and to familiarize
you with books which you might not otherwise read. Towards this end, rather than assigning a lot of extra
work which turns this project into a burden, we are only requiring you to read. There is an option, outlined
below, for those who would prefer to write a paper and do less reading.
Option 1: Read three novels. Choose two books from list 1 and one book from list 2 then sign the attached
forms signifying that you have completed the assignment. We are dependent upon your honesty in order to
determine whether or not you have actually done the work and, therefore, it is between you and your
conscience. We ask that you do not read something which you have previously read unless there is a good
reason to do so, in which case it should be cleared with your English teacher.
Option 2: Read one novel from list 1 and write a three page report on the book. Your paper should be double
spaced, twelve point font and include a brief synopsis of the book, an analysis of the plot and characters, and
a personal reflection on what you liked and did not like.
Regardless of which option you choose, additionally please select either a play or list of poems to read. If
you go with the play option, write a brief synopsis of the play. If you go to see a live performance of any
listed play or any play by Shakespeare, you do not need to read a play. Simply bring in the program or
playbill as proof that you attended and attach the brief synopsis. If you go with the poetry option, choose one
of the lists and write a brief reflection (one to two paragraphs) on the poet or poems which you read. Choose
one you liked in particular and say why you liked it.
List 1
Adams, Richard - Watership Down
Angelou, Maya - I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane - Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Cather, Willa - My Antonia
Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens, Charles - Great Expectations
Dickens, Charles - Oliver Twist
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Eliot, George - Middlemarch
Eliot, George - Silas Marner
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Falkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway, Ernest - For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hugo, Victor - Les Miserables
Kafka, Franz - Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - Woman Warrior
Machiavelli, Niccolò - The Prince
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Steinbeck, John - Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Tolkien, JRR - Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn
Weisel, Elie - Night
List 2
Alcorn, Randy - Heaven
Asimov, Isaac - I. Robot
Bonhoffer, Dietrich - The Cost of Discipleship
Bunyan, John - The Pilgrim’s Progress
Carroll, Lewis - Alice in Wonderland
Colson, Charles and Nancy Pearcey – How
Now Shall WeLive
Dumas, Alexander - The Three Musketeers
Elliott, Elizabeth - Through Gates of Splendor
Gaines, Ernest - The Autobiography of Miss Jane
Pittman
Gillman, C. P. - The Yellow Wallpaper and
Jackson, Shirley - The Lottery
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hemingway, Ernest - Snows of Kilimanjaro
Hurston, Zora Neal - Their Eyes Were
Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, C.S. - Mere Christianity
Lewis, C.S. - Out of the Silent Planet
Lewis, C.S. - The Screwtape Letters
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Luther, Martin - 95 Thesis
Orwell, George - 1984
Packer, J.I. - Knowing God
Paton, Alan - Cry, the Beloved Country
Remarque, Erich - All Quiet on the Western
Front
Robinson, Marilynn - Gilead
Schaeffer, Francis - The God Who Is There
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksander - One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Tolkien, JRR - The Hobbit
Tolkien, JRR - The Silmarillion
Wells, H.G. - The Time Machine
Play List
Anouilh, Jean - Antigone
Anouilh, Jean - Becket
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Chekhov, Anton - Cherry Orchard
Euripides - Medea
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Hansberry, Lorraine - A Raisin in the Sun
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll’s House
Miller, Arthur - Death of a Salesman
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Moliere - Tartuffe
Moliere - The Misanthrope
O’Neill, Eugene - A Long Day’s Journey into
Night
O’Neill, Eugene – Ah, Wilderness!
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - King Lear
Shakespeare, William - Midsummer Night’s
Dream
Shakespeare, William - Othello
Shakespeare, William - The Tempest
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Stoppard, Tom - Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead
Wilde, Oscar - The Importance of Being
Ernest
William, Tennessee - Glass Menagerie
Wilson, August - Fences
Poetry List
Choose either one of the selections below or one of the lists which follows.
Beowulf
Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales
Dante – Divine Comedy
Dickinson, Emily – any 30 poems
Homer – Iliad/Odyssey, either/or
Masters, Edgar Lee – Spoon River Anthology
Milton, John – Paradise Lost
The Romantics
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Consolation
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. How Do I Love Thee?
Burns, Robert. A Red, Red Rose
Byron, Lord. All For Love
Byron, Lord. Elegy
Byron, Lord. She Walks in Beauty
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Kubla Khan
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Cowper, William. Contentment
Cowper, William. God Moves in a Mysterious Way
Keats, John. When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Children’s Hour
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Tide Rises the Tide Falls
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Village Blacksmith
Moore, Thomas. Believe Me, If All Those Enduring Young Charms
Moore, Thomas. Remember Thee!
Rossetti, Christina. Remember
Scott, Sir Walter. My Native Land
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Love’s Philosophy
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Ozymandias
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. To A Skylark
Smith, Charlotte Turner. Sonnet LVVII – On Passing Over a Dreary Tract
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Winter-Time
Wordsworth, William. Composed upon Westminster Bridge
Wordsworth, William. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Wordsworth, William. Lines Written in Early Spring
Wordsworth, William. The Tables Turned
Modern Poetry
Auden, W. H. Leap Before You Look
Cullen, Countee. Incident
Cummings, E. E. in Just
Dickenson, Emily. A Bird Came Down the Walk
Eliot, T. S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Frost, Robert. Acquainted with the Night
Frost, Robert. The Road Not Taken
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. God’s Grandeur
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Pied Beauty
Hughes, Langston. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Millay, Edna St. Vincent. Love is not all; it is not
meat or drink
Millay, Edna St. Vincent. Time does not bring relief;
you all have lied
Plath, Sylvia. Blackberrying
Robinson, Edwin Arlington. The Sheaves
Roethke, Theodore. The Minimal
Roethke, Theodore. My Papa’s Waltz
Roethke, Theodore. The Waking
Sandburg, Carl. The Fog
Sandburg, Carl. Grass
Spencer, Anne. Lady, Lady
Stevens, Wallace. Of Mere Being
Stevens, Wallace. The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand
Man
Stevens, Wallace. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
Blackbird
Thomas, Dylan. And Death Shall Have No
Dominion
Thomas, Dylan. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good
Night
Williams, William Carlos. The Great Figure
Williams, William Carlos. The Locust Tree in Flower
Williams, William Carlos. The Red Wheelbarrow
Williams, William Carlos. This is Just to Say
Yeats, William Butler. Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of
Heaven
Yeats, William Butler. When You Are Old
Spanish Language Poets
Pablo Neruda
XVII (I do not love you…)
Come with Me I Said and No One Knew (VII)
If You Forget Me
Don’t Go Far Off Not Even For a Day
I Like For You to Be Still
Your Laughter
Ode to the Artichoke
The Queen
And Because Love Battles
I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You
The Light Wraps You
My love, if I die and you don’t--,
Ah Vastness of Pines
Bird
Poetry
Shakespeare
Sonnet 73
Sonnet 109
Sonnet 53
Sonnet 104
Sonnet 65
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 80
Sonnet 33
Sonnet 1
Sonnet 32
Aleixandre, Vicente. The Visitor
Alonso, Damaso. The Star Counters
Argote, Luis de Gongora. Madrigal
Becquer, Gustavo Adolfo. Rhyme I, Rhyme X, and
Rhyme LXVI
Cernuda, Luis. Where Oblivion Dwells
Hernandez, Miguel. The Train of the Wounded
Machado, Antonio. I Go Along Dreaming Roads
Manrique, Jorge. Two Songs
Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de. Stanza
Jimenez, Juan Ramon. Yellow Spring
Prados, Emilio. Faithful Page
Salinas, Pedro. Deaths
Vega, Lope de. Soneto XVIII
Vega, Lope de. Various Effects of Love
Villegas, Francisco de Quevedo. To A Nose
Sonnet 23
Sonnet 30
Sonnet 138
Sonnet 144
Sonnet 129
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 29
Sonnet 57
Sonnet 116
Sonnet 75
e. e. cummings
[somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond]
[maggie and milly and molly and may]
[if there are any heavens my mother,]
[now comes the good rain farmers pray for (and)]
[Chansons Innocentes: I]
[Thy fingers make early flowers]
[the sky was]
[the wind is a Lady with]
[anyone lived in a pretty how town]
[i shall imagine life]
[since feeling is first]
[O sweet spontaneous]
[i carry your heart with me]
[your little voice]
[this is the garden: colors come and go,]
[you shall above all things be glad and young]
[all nearness pauses, while a star can grow]
[Buffalo Bill’s]
[The Eagle]
[I(a]
[a man who had fallen among thieves]
[i was sitting in mcsorley’s]
[All in green went my love riding]
[a connotation of infinity]
[in the rain--]
[it may not always be so; and i say]
[as is the sea marvelous]
[i have found what you are like]
[if]
[i will wade out]
Robert Frost
All of A Boy’sWill
OR:
Mending Wall
After Apple-Picking
The Pasture
The Road Not Taken
“Out, Out—“
The Death of the Hired Man
The Wood-Pile
Fire and Ice
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
A Patch of Old Snow
Birches
An Encounter
In A Disused Graveyard
The Runaway
Misgiving
Devotion
The Figure in the Doorway
Acquainted with the Night
Tree at My Window
The Sound of Trees
A Time to Talk
The Last Word of a Bluebird
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Not To Keep
Fireflies in the Garden
The Armful
Desert Places
Two Tramps in Mud Time
The Oven Bird
Spring Pools
Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven
Annabel Lee
Dreamland
Evening Star
Fairy-Land
The City in the Sea
A Dream within a Dream
Sonnet—To Science
The Conqueror Worm
Israfel
Romance
Spirits of the Dead
The Happiest Day the Happiest Hour
To My Mother
To One Departed
The Valley of Unrest
Eldorado
A Dream
Alone
In the Greenest of Our Valleys
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
To a Locomotive in Winter
Poets to Come
I Hear it was Charged Against Me
America
I Hear America Singing
To a Historian
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
The Ship Starting
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
No Labour-Saving Machine
AFFIDAVIT OF COMPLETION FOR OPTION 1
DUE IN ENGLISH CLASS ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
[Please Print]
I, ________________________________, do hereby swear that I have completed all of the
required
summer reading for 2015. The three novels which I read are:
1.) _____________________________________________
2.) _____________________________________________
3.) _____________________________________________
and the play or poetry option which I chose was
________________________________________________.
Attached is the play or poetry writing component and/or playbill.
Student signature ____________________________________________
Parent (or other credible witness) signature _______________________________________________