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The Fenn School Statement on Summer Reading
Summer 2008
The Fenn School assigns summer reading for a variety of reasons. It has been our experience that every summer a number of boys discover recreational reading by becoming intrigued by some of the selections from our summer reading lists. That alone makes summer reading worth it. And, of course, many adults in the Fenn community can recall with great pleasure and vivid detail lazy summer days and favorite or hallowed places where we fell in love with certain books during our childhood. Most of all, we want to engender opportunities for boys to have those kinds of wonderful memories about their summer reading.
While each boy uses a reading and/or literacy log that the English Department and the Fenn School librarians believe reflects the appropriate developmental approach for Lower, Middle, and Upper School boys to record summer reading, we want to remind parents that the emphasis is first and foremost on leisurely reading and the pleasures to be accrued from it. The reading/literacy log will simply act as a memory prompt for sharing their reading during the first month of school with their classmates and teachers.
Parents can be most helpful in the summer reading process by encouraging their sons to read, by helping them to choose and assess books that they might enjoy or be challenged by, and by establishing a routine – a time and a place – for reading over the summer. Parents should encourage their sons not to see summer reading as one more assignment, but rather as a way to pursue their own passions. The best thing parents can do is to model a love of reading during vacation and leisure times.
There is no doubt that boys approach the new school year prepared better for academic work when their minds have been kept intellectually active through reading over the summer. As well, recreational reading is one of the most effective ways for young people to develop a love of language and an appreciation for fine literature. At Fenn we require boys to read five books over the summer vacation. (The selection that a boy reads for another course will not count as one of the five.) The reading log each boy completes is due in early September, usually at the beginning of the first full week of classes. As mentioned above, it will serve primarily as a way to share summer reading with classmates.
Our summer reading lists are intended to be a resource, not a limitation on boys’ reading choices; book ideas may come from other sources. Questions about appropriate selections can be directed to English teachers, librarians, and other parents. We hope that reading this summer will provide an opportunity for a shared family activity, and we encourage several members of the family to read the same book and discuss it. Don’t miss the opportunity to read aloud your favorite passages to each other. Families planning long car trips might consider the wonderful experience of listening to books on tape.
We have listed below most of the books that will be taught in English classes during the next academic year by grade level. While we do not want to discourage any boy from reading a book more than once, we have found that when some boys read summer books that will be taught in class the following year, especially those with surprise endings or that build on suspense, they tend to lose the pleasure of sharing with their classmates the thrill and excitement of discovering the surprise together. So, we encourage your son to read books outside of the English curriculum.
So enjoy the pleasures of reading this summer with your sons and encourage them to try new genres and new challenges. One of life’s special gifts and a treasured human freedom is to be able to read freely and passionately. We are convinced that such reading becomes an extraordinary, healthy, lifelong habit of sheer pleasure and reward.
--Lorraine Ward, Head of the English Department and Laurie O’Neill, 9th grade English
Books Taught in the English Curriculum by Grade Level:
Grade Four: Bud Not Buddy, Bridge to Terabithia, The Castle in the Attic, The Friendship, The Gold Cadillac, Gooseberry Park, Hatchet, Journey to Jo’burg, Knee Knock Rise, Mississippi Bridge, Number the Stars, Seedfolks, Song of the Trees, The Well, Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls, or Does It?, Newfangled Fairy Tales, The BFG, Love That Dog, The Warriors
Grade Five: Time Cat, Homer Price, Heart of a Chief, The Cay, Dominic, The Dragon’s Boy, A Long Way from Chicago, Maniac Magee, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Tuck Everlasting, Walk Two Moons, Where the Red Fern Grows, A Wrinkle in Time, A Single Shard
Grade Six: The Misfits, The Outsiders, Following Fakeman, The City of Ember, The Place of Lions, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, Tangerine, The City of Ember, My Brother Sam is Dead
Grade Seven: Carver: A Life in Poems, The Giver, Monster, The People Could Fly, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Soldier’s Heart, To Be a Slave, The King of Mulberry Street
Grade Eight: All Quiet on the Western Front, Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men
Ninth Grade Summer Reading Only
Grade Nine: In ninth grade we will be reading complete texts and excerpts representing a variety of genres, from novel and short story to drama, memoir, and poetry. Readings may include A Separate Peace, The Kite Runner, The Things They Carried, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill A Mockingbird, Old School, The Fall of Rome: A Novel, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
The books on the summer reading list are compelling, well-written, and enjoyable stories. For discussion and responsive writing when we return, students are asked to read the following two titles and choose at least three others from the ninth grade reading list. Those titles that are highly recommended for incoming ninth graders are in blue (an additional list of high school titles are included with this letter, and available online). Students should plan to have their copies of the books they have read and their reading logs with them when we resume classes in the fall.
- This Boy’s Life Tobias Wolff
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon
SUMMER READING FOR NINTH GRADE MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY
The
These are the five different reading choices for your history course next fall.
The Breadwinner Trilogy:
The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, and Mud City by Deborah Ellis
Exodus by Leon Uris.
This is a story about the creation of
My Father’s Rifle by Hiner Saleem.
This is a story about a childhood in
A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird
During the Israeli occupation of Ramallah in the West Bank of
The Road From Home by David Kherdian.
This story is about what happened to the Armenians in the
These books will have to be purchased at a book store or, perhaps, ordered through an online book vendor. They may not be in stock so you will need to order them soon.
Your last choice is to read a collection of short stories by a number of different Arab authors which I will provide for you. You must let me know before graduation if you want me to prepare a copy of these stories for you. I will not be around for the majority of the summer so will not be able to get them to you after graduation.
Whichever one of these options you choose I hope you will enjoy reading it. Each one will give you a small insight into a very complicated part of the world.
I look forward to an interesting year as we all learn more about this fascinating area.
--Mr. Carter
