I have no idea what I'm teaching next year and probably shouldn't spend much time thinking about it; it's really totally out of my hands. However, I'm really excited about the prospect of teaching World Literature IB 3 again, and went so far as to make a summer reading assignment for my hypothetical new students today. I just was walking around Barnes & Noble yesterday and got so excited about it that I jotted stuff down and came up with this. I think this is what I'd do.
I really like the idea of incorporating some student choice into this assignment, as well as giving me an option as a teacher not to read the same essay 80 times. Summer reading is supposed to be able to be handled by the student without a teacher, so why not use the opportunity to let them choose something on their own? That option is much more limited during the school year.
I'm curious as to which option most kids would choose. Option B is the shortest option, but also contains Joyce - albeit accessible Joyce. Option A contain two page turners but both are long. Option F are both modern but both are very long works, especially The Corner. The mix modern works with older works. It would be interesting, and I think each kid could find at least something. This is for incoming smart Juniors:
Summer Reading English 3 IB
All incoming students must read How to Read Literature Like Professor by Thomas J. Foster and complete the activity on the back of this handout. For your other two texts, you may choose from several options below. Choose the option that interests you most, and feel free to change as often as necessary, as long as you have completed the two texts and the assignments by the time the school year begins.
For each book that you read, complete the following and be prepared to turn in for a grade during the first week of school:
1) Text-mark your books for author’s style, structure, and other authorial choices that strike you as intriguing.
2) Keep a spiral notebook where you record and clearly label the following for each text:
a. Five “Striking Elements” from each chapter (or 30 pages) or story that you read. These can be any five things that draw your interest – a certain style the author uses, an intriguing image, a line that you like, an authorial choice that strikes you, etc. Include page numbers.
b. A list of characters and their role in the story.
c. A list of several ideas that link the two texts together. The more concrete your link – the author’s use of food, for example – the stronger your eventual essay will be.
You will take a multiple choice test over both books during the first week of school, and writing a practice Link Essay on your two texts will be a major component of your first quarter grade.
Option A: Study of the Modern American Epic
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
and
The Namesake by Jumpha Lahiri
Option B: Study of Short Story Collections
Runaway by Alice Munro
and
Dubliners by James Joyce
Option C: Study of Dystopian Novels
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
and
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Option D: Study of Grim Fantasies
Kindred by Octavia Butler
and
1984 by George Orwell
Option E: Study of the Autobiography
Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama
and
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X with Alex Haley
Option F: Study of Non-Fiction
The Corner by Edward Burns and David Simon
and
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larsen
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8 comments:
What a great reading list. It makes me want to attend your potential possibly upcoming class.
How about this as a summer reading assignment: Read whatever you want this summer, or don't read anything. I don't care if you're an IB student, or AP, or college prep, or whatever. You're 15, or 16, or 17, and you'll only be that age once in your life. Why should you waste it away with your nose in a book half the summer when you could be out running the streets, going to an amusement park, swimming in a pool, goofing around with your friends, maybe even getting romantic with your summer love. You'll have the rest of your life for filling your brain with the thoughts and experiences, real and imaginary, of others. So why don't you go out and have some experiences of your own? And since it's summer, thinking is optional. And if you want to read, fine, go ahead, that's your choice, but if it were me, I'd spend every flipping minute of free time in the summer doing something other than reading if I had a choice, especially if I'm a teenager and I'll have the rest of my life to live by everyone else's rules. You know, there's a reason they call it summer VACATION!
And if they REALLY have any brains, that's what they'll do anyway, and look the books up on the internet the week before school and fake it the best they can. They just spent the school year working their butts off - OH YAY! You mean we can keep on working through the whole summer! We don't have to take a break at all! That would be like you taking papers to grade to Costa Rica.
Is that how you spent your teenage summers? I hope not, Charlie Brown.
Somebody may be missing the point of the IB program, methinks.
I like your pairings; most people would have linked the Orwell and the Huxley.
I'm not familiar with the structure of the class, but you could also consider a "Star-Crossed Lovers" option: Troilus and Cressida vs. Romeo and Juliet. Use the Chaucer version of T&C and now they're both in verse. Or either one could be compared to, say, Tristan and Isolde.
Wanna get really crazy? Compare any of the above to Anakin and Padme Skywalker. Or, see if anyone recognizes the direct parallels between Romeo & Juliet and Tony & Maria of West Side Story.
Yeah, it's late.
Anon #1: Thanks!
Anon #2: I'm wondering if I know you, since the message had the ring of a personal attack. If so, you suck for leaving an anonymous comment. (Actually, if you did know me, you'd probably know that, of course, I'll be bringing papers to grade to Costa Rica!) Anyhow, it's not up to me to have summer reading; it's a requirement istituted by both the city and the school, and most schools in the area institute it. With that in mind, I want to make it something useful and something that involves some choice for students. Secondly, I don't think there's anything wrong with kids reading a couple of great, accessible books over the summer. However, I wouldn't expect someone who thinks that reading is a "waste of time" to agree, nor anyone who thinks that cheating is the best way to go, would agree. An educated populace is a reading populace. Believe it or not, the vast majority of these kids like to read. There's nothing wrong with asking them to read a little in the summer, and thinking that it prevents them from doing other summer activities is just plain silly.
Claude: Thanks, I like the star-crossed bit, although most of the kids have read "Romeo and Juliet" already.
Much like Anon#1, I'm kinda wishing I could take your class. I'm certainly adding those modern books to my to-read list, as I've never heard of them! :)
I'm wondering though: b. A list of characters and their role in the story.
Is that for multiple choice exam purposes? Speaking as a former smart Junior who went on to become an English Lit major, I would have thought that part of the assignment to be a waste of my time. Admittedly, of course, you're more familiar with the learning styles of your kids than I am, but I would have felt patronized if I were forced to make a list of characters. Especially when sandwiched between the other, much more thought-provoking, tasks. (Unless it were for something like the Bible or The Silmarillion, where such a list is almost necessary for comprehension, that is.) Anyway, just a thought!
Although I realize you're concentrating mainly on novels here, another one you might consider would be a comparison of fairy tales - either a more Americanized version versus an older non-western telling or an older version (Grimm Brothers?) vs. a modernized re-telling (see Beauty by Robin McKinley, just as an example).
Oh, and for the record? I'd have avoided the Joyce like the plague, even back then! ;)
Last anon: Yes, you got it. The multiple choice tests tend to test characters, so, yeah, that's why. That being said, that's what I naturally do when I read a book - I write a list of characters on the front cover, so I can refer back to them if I forget who everyone is. This is true for long epic novels with lots of characters (re: The Known World and The Namesake) or characters with exotic sounding names (like these translated books I end up readin ga lot - one book I just read had characters named Kien, Can, Kin, and Quin).
Thanks for your feedback!
Kindred is wonderful! I read it for an American diversity class my sophomore year in college, and I loved it. It surprised me because the combination of science fiction and American slavery didn't seem as though it would work at first; but I was won-over. The book and its author were unknown to me--with all the focus on Black history and authors I'd had throughout my high school English classes, I can't imagine why Octavia Butler wasn't included with all my traditional studies of Ellison, Hurston, Hughes, Morrison, etc. Kudos to you for bringing out a unique and underrated novel and author for your students!PS: Another great novel by a Black (Hatian) author is The Farming of Bones, by Edwidge Danticat. It's a wonderful story of the background of racial and political unrest between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I loved that one, too!
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