Summer Reading

District Summer Reading List

Attention Dual Enrollment Parents and Students

Attention DE English III and IV Students and Parents:

Slidell High is proud to now offer both Dual Enrollment English III and Dual Enrollment English IV on our campus, and our DE English teachers are already busy planning for a challenging and rewarding academic experience for your SHS Tiger. To help prepare students, an assignment was sent home to be completed during the summer months. Students are required to select and read/annotate a novel (from a provided grade-level appropriate list) to prepare for in-class analysis and assessment upon return to school. Additionally, students are asked to acquire a St. Tammany Parish Public Library card (if they do not already have one) and watch the specified movie (based on a grade-level appropriate novel) for possible bonus points. When your student returns to school in August with summer assignment in hand, he/she will be prepared for a successful start to the school year.

Aligned to state grade-level subject matter, the English III DE assignment addresses American Literature, while the English IV DE assignment addresses British Literature. Please review the assignment. If for any reason you are concerned with or opposed to the content, please contact the Slidell High front office by Thursday, June 8, 2023 or email Sheri.Marks@stpsb.org , Christy.Berggren@stpsb.org, or William.Marcotte@stpsb.org. An alternate assignment/novel can be provided at the parent’s request.

English I Honors

English II Honors

Slidell High School – Summer/Holiday Reading

English II Honors ‘26-‘27

Assignment:

Part 1 – READ and annotate or “mark” the novel you choose. I recommend annotating on character, plot, and theme development.

Reading and annotations are due no later than
*FALL STUDENTS: Friday, August 14th
*SPRING STUDENTS: Friday, January 8th

(Bring your annotated book to class the first full day of school!)

Part 2 – PREPARE for and COMPLETE a project based on your book choice due
*FALL STUDENTS: Friday, August 21st
*SPRING STUDENTS: Friday, January 15th

The Odyssey

(Poetry)

By Homer

translated by Emily Wilson

The Odyssey

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

Episodes: 1, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12,

16, 17, 21, 22, & 23

To Kill a Mockingbird

(Fiction)

By Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird

In To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses memorable characters to explore civil rights and racism in the segregated Southern United States of the 1930s. Told through the eyes of Scout Finch, you learn about her father Atticus Finch, an attorney who hopelessly strives to prove the innocence of a black man unjustly accused of a crime; and about Boo Radley, a mysterious neighbor who saves Scout and her brother Jem from being killed.

A Few Notes About Annotating:

The most common complaint about annotating is that it slows down your reading. Yes, it does. That’s the point. If annotating as you read annoys you, read a chapter, then go back and annotate. Reading a text, a second time is preferable anyway. Bring all your annotated texts to class the first day to be sure you’re on the right track. Approach the work with an open mind. Let them inspire you and stretch your imagination.

Annotation Guidelines:

Annotation is a key component of close reading. Since we will annotate texts all year, you need to develop a system that works for you (within the following guidelines). Effective annotating is both economical and consistent. The techniques are almost limitless. Use any combination of the following:

• Make brief comments in the margins. Use any white space available - inside cover, random blank pages

• Make brief comments between or within lines of the text. Do not be afraid to mark within the text itself. In fact, you must.

• Circle or put boxes, triangles, or clouds around words or phrases.

• Use abbreviations or symbols - brackets, stars, exclamation points, question marks, numbers, etc.

• Connect words, phrases, ideas, circles, boxes, etc. with lines or arrows.

• *Underline – CAUTION: Use this method sparingly. Underline only a few words. Always combine with another method such as comment. Never underline an entire passage. Doing so takes too much time and loses effectiveness. If you wish to mark an entire paragraph or passage, draw a line down the margin or use brackets.

• *Highlight – See underline. You cannot write with a highlighter anyway.

• Create your own code.

• Use post-it notes only if you have exhausted all available space (unlikely).

What should you annotate?

Again, the possibilities are limitless. Keep in mind the reasons we annotate. Your annotations must include comments. I want to see evidence of your thinking.

Have a conversation with the text. Talk to it.
Ask questions (essential to active reading).
Comment on the actions or development of a character. Does the character change? Why? How? The result?
Comment on something that intrigues, impresses, amuses, shocks, puzzles, disturbs, repulses, aggravates, etc.
Comment on lines / quotations you think are especially significant, powerful, or meaningful. Express agreement or disagreement.
Summarize key events. Make predictions.
Connect ideas to each other or to other texts.

Note if you experience an epiphany.
Note anything you would like to discuss or do not understand.
Note how the author uses language: Note the significance if you can. Note effects of word choice (diction) or sentence structure or type (syntax) point of view / effect, reliability of narrator, repetition of words, phrases, actions, events – patterns - motifs or cluster ideas / narrative pace / time / order of sequence of events, tone / mood, irony***, imagery, contrasts / contradictions / juxtapositions / shifts/themes, allusions, setting / historical period, any other figure of speech or literary device, symbols, etc.

How-to-Annotate Bookmark

Before Reading:

During Reading:

After Reading:

Annotation Instructions and Rubric

Print this page and cut out the attached bookmark.

Use it to help you read for important information.

Obviously, annotation is as personal as reading, and there are MANY ways to annotate a book. This system is a suggestion. For example, some people prefer to use colors to differentiate elements, and some prefer to use “Post Its.”

93 – 100 Points

There should be markings and written commentary throughout the book including:

Recognition of plot points
Commentary on character development
Commentary on theme development
Notation of motifs
Notation of literary devices

There will be something significant in every chapter.

85 – 92 Points

There should be markings and commentary throughout most of the book including:

Recognition of plot points
Commentary on character development
Commentary on theme development
Notation of literary devices

There will be something noted in nearly every chapter.

75 – 84 Points

There should be markings and commentary throughout the book though some sections may be marked less than others. Highlights and commentary should still show a basic understanding of the plot and characters.

0 – 74 Points

Annotation reflects that reading was incomplete or there was a lack of understanding. Entire sections may have been skipped or random/insignificant material has been highlighted.

English III (Dual Enrollment) Summer Reading List

Slidell High School – Summer Reading

English III Dual Enrollment ‘25-‘26

Assignment:

Part 1 – READ and annotate or “mark” the novel you choose. I recommend annotating on character, plot, and theme development. Reading and annotations are due no later than

Friday August 15^th. (Bring your annotated book to class the first full day of school!)

Part 2 – PREPARE for and COMPLETE a project based on your book choice due Friday, August 22nd.

This Side of Paradise

(Fiction)

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

This Side Of Paradise

This Side of Paradise follows the life of young Amory Blaine in the tumultuous America of the early twentieth century. Highly sophisticated yet hopelessly romantic, Amory flounders from prep school to Princeton to glittering Jazz Age New York, confident that he is destined for greatness but unsure how to go about it.

Digital version

Twelve Years a Slave

(Memoir)

By Solomon Northup

Twelve Years a Slave is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details his being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South.

Digital version

The Crucible

(Fiction – Tragedy/Drama/Play)

By Arthur Miller

The Crucible is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93.

Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists.

Digital version

A Few Notes About Annotating:

The most common complaint about annotating is that it slows down your reading. Yes, it does. That’s the point. If annotating as you read annoys you, read a chapter, then go back and annotate. Reading a text, a second time is preferable anyway. Bring all your annotated texts to class the first day to be sure you’re on the right track. Approach the work with an open mind. Let them inspire you and stretch your imagination.

Annotation Guidelines: