Incoming 12th Grade Summer Reading

and Required Assignment for

ISM IB A English Language and Literature Students,
Year 2
ISM English teachers have collaborated on a master book list for incoming seniors.
Here you will find a variety of contemporary and classic novels, as well as a range
of compelling nonfiction. Please see recommendations below. Be sure to pack your
books this summer and surround yourself with great literature as you travel the
world or chill in Manila!

Expectations:
Regardless of course selection, students are expected to read quality
and enjoyable literature this summer
Be prepared!
o Teachers will assess your knowledge and understandings
of the texts by asking you to write an in-class paper 2 essay (prompt is
below).
o You will be expected to be involved in summer reading
discussions and activities.
o In the first weeks of school you will be required to present
on how knowledge of the cultural contexts of texts enriches your ability
to understand and make meaning out of your summer reading.

Specific Course Reading and Writing Requirements:

TASK #1
You are required to bring in three non-literary texts, each related to
the cultural context of your chosen novel. THIS MEANS YOU NEED TO RESEARCH
THE CULTURAL CONTEXT OF YOUR NOVEL.
Step 1 - Choose from the list below the literary text you will read.
Step 2 -Research THE TIME PERIOD of when the literary text takes place or WHEN it
was written (you need to decide which time period is more relevant to your
understanding of the literary text).
Step 3 - Find at least three non-literary texts that are related to the cultural context
For example: The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien was about the
Vietnam war so you could find an article covering the Vietnam war, a letter
from a soldier to home, and a speech or poster about the war or protesting
or in support of the war.

Possible text types:

(texts for a wide audience such as a magazine

advertisement, newspaper article, opinion column, speeches, interviews,
blog post, youtube video, political cartoon, photograph, pamphlet, brochure,
website advertisement, biography, diary, editorial, letter to the editor,
manifesto, parody, photographs, screenplay, song lyric, etc) ONLY ONE OF
THE THREE TEXTS CAN BE A VISUAL OR VIDEO. The other two must be
paper transcripts or copies of the text.
Step 3 - Read and annotate the non-fiction texts
Step 4 - Print off the non-fiction texts and cite according to MLA citation.

TASK #2 - Read the literary text and take notes

Incoming seniors enrolled in the IB A Language and Literature course:
Must read at least one title or author from the list below. It cannot be a book
that you have read or studied already.
Upon return to classes in August, all students will be required to write a Paper 2
response to the prompt below based on the literature text you read
Prompt: Explain ways in which your knowledge of the cultural contexts of
literature you read enriched your understanding of the text.

Recommendations for Great Summer Reading

If You Loved the Twisted Murder Novel, READ:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Jazz, Toni Morrison
Native Son, Richard Wright
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If You Loved the War Novel:

All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque, 1928, WWI
Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway, 1929, World War 1
Johnny Got His Gun, 1938, World War I
Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels, 1997, World War II
Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernires, 1994, World War II
Gone to Soldiers, Marge Piercy, 1988, World War II
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Mary Ann Schaffer &
Annie Barrows, World War II, 2008
Going After Cacciato, 1978, or The Things They Carried, 1990, Tim
OBrien, Vietnam
In the Shadow of the Banyan, 2012 Vaddey Ratner, Khmer Rouge
Incendiary, Chris Cleave, 2011, War on Terror
The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers, 2012, Iraq War
Catch 22, Joseph Heller

If You Loved the Post-Modern, Non-Linear, General Weirdness,

READ:

Anything Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

If You Loved the Poetry, Dramas, & Short Stories, READ:

Nadine Gordimer Short Stories: Jump or Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth

Black

Junot Diaz Short Stories: Drown and This is How You Lose Her
Emma Donoghue Short Stories: Astray
Ernest Hemingway Short Stories: In Our Time
Flannery O'Connor Short Stories
Antov Chekhov Short Stories/Novellas
Leo Tolstoy Short Stories: Hadji Murat
Fyodor Dostoevsky Short Stories: Notes from the Underground
Wislava Szymborska, Polish Poet
Robert Frost, American Poet
Mary Oliver, American Poet
Langston Hughes, African-American Poet

 Pablo Neruda, Chilean Poet Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
or Canto General or The Captains Verses
Elizabeth Bishop, American Poet
W.B Yeats, Irish Poet
Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet
William Carlos Williams, American Poet
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (novel in verse)
Death and the Maiden, A Play by Ariel Dorfman
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Art, play by Yasmina Reza and Christopher Hampton.
Dancing at Lughnasa or Translations, plays by BrianFriel
Any Plays by Samuel Beckett
Any Plays by Anton Chekhov, Russian
Any Plays Pablo Garcia Lorca, Spanish
Any Plays by Strindberg, Swedish
Any Plays by Ibsen, Norwegian
Any Plays by Bertolt Brecht

Top Book Recommendations from teachers (right now):

The Butcher Boy, Patrick McCabe
Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Broken April, Ismail Kadare
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Natural, Bernard Malamud
1984, George Orwell
No Exit, Jean Paul Sartre
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
Isabel Allende: The House of the Spirits or Stories of Eva Luna
Salman Rushdie: The Ground Beneath Her Feet or Midnights Children
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy