Berlin High School English Department
Accelerated/Honors Program
Required Summer Reading Titles for 2008 

One important component of the accelerated/honors program is required summer reading.  All accelerated/honors students will read three or four (depending on grade level) teacher-selected summer reading books per year and take a test on the three or four books at the start of the school year. Students who achieve success (85% or above, average of all tests) on the summer reading tests will be welcomed into the accelerated/honors section; it is suggested strongly that students who score below 85 on the summer reading tests reconsider their decision to take the accelerated/honors course.

Going into English 9 Accelerated:
1.       The Time Machine – H. G. Wells
2.       Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
3.       I am the Cheese – Robert Cormier       

Going into English 10 Accelerated:
1.       Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2.       The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
3.       Nickel and Dimed – Barbara Ehrenreich 

Going into American Studies Accelerated:

Students must read:
1.       The Kentucky Cycle, Robert Schenkkan
2.       My Antonia, Willa Cather
3.       How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez 

American Studies students must also choose one of the following:         
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou         
Growing Up, Russell Baker         
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston         
Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez         
On Gold Mountain, Lisa See 

Going into Junior Honors English:
1.       Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
2.       Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson
3.       The Glass Menagerie – Tennessee Williams
4.       The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 

Going into Accelerated Humanities:
1.       Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (Required Reading, subject to summer reading test)2.       The City of Joy - Dominique Lapierre (Suggested, Optional Reading)  

Going into Advanced Placement Senior English:
1.       The Stranger – Albert Camus
2.       Othello – William Shakespeare
3.       Three Tall Women – Edward Albee
4.       Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse

Four Objectives of Grade Nine Accelerated English

• To recognize the characteristics of literary genres
• To define and use literary terminology correctly
• To evaluate, interpret, and analyze literary works
• To develop an increased enjoyment of reading 

Wells.  The Time Machine 
Thematic connections to course curriculum: include individual integrity, love/dependency, and a cautionary perspective on science’s role in human development.

Rationale for book’s selection: This is a Nineteenth Century science fiction novel.  As such, it represents an early version of a genre very popular with our students.  Its bleak Darwinian future includes important cross curricular connections to science. This novel is set in late Victorian England, so its context can be a problem for young readers.  Also, Wells’ vision includes disturbing parallels to our own society and what it may become.

Cormier. I Am the Cheese 
Thematic connections to course curriculum: include family relationships and responsibilities, internal vs. objective reality, self invention, and the quest for factual truth.

Rationale for book’s selection: This novel explores, through narrative and hyperbole, the same essential concerns important to our students.  The protagonist’s quest for truth leads him through encounters with personifications of each of his greatest anxieties. This novel questions the sincerity of basic human relationships, including parental love, friendship, sexuality, and trustworthiness of supposedly benevolent authority.   

Dickens. Oliver Twist 
Thematic connections to course curriculum: include family relationships and responsibilities, friendship/ loyalty, self invention. 

Rationale for book’s selection: An important emphasis of Nine Accelerated English is the study of genres. Oliver Twist is a densely plotted novel with vivid characterizations.  It explores important themes relevant to our students’ own lives.  It coordinates well with A Separate Peace, which we will read in the school year.  The class may read Dickens’ Great Expectations, as well.  This novel includes some archaic social attitudes, especially concerning race, women, and children. There is significant verbal and physical violence in this novel. An abusive extra-marital relationship culminating in a brutal murder is central to the plot.