McKinney ISD Incoming PreAP 9th & 10th Grade Recommended Summer Reading April 2016 Dear Incoming PreAP 9th & 10th Grade English Student and Parent or Guardian, Statistics prove that continued reading improves test scores and increases student success by preparing students for the challenges of a college curriculum and the demands of a knowledge based workforce. With this in mind, and in an effort to promote and develop a passion for and culture of independent reading, McKinney ISD has a list of recommended reading books for the summer months. For our PreAP English classes, we want our students to build a repertoire of fiction and nonfiction while continuing to think deeply, critically, and analytically while reading. A list of recommended fiction and nonfiction reads are attached to this letter. Of course we want students to read as many books as they want/can over the summer, and recommend reading at least 4 5 books that they are interested in and excited about reading, with two of those books coming from the recommended lists (ideally, one from each list). Reading these AP calibur texts will not only help students develop the repertoire of texts to pull from when preparing for the AP tests junior and senior year, but will also prepare students for the academic rigor of PreAP English texts and enable students to see how long it will take them to read a book, and will prepare them for the independent reading that takes place in a PreAP English course. Students have 24/7 access to Overdrive, the McKinney ISD digital library, which they can access through the McKinney ISD website: mckinneyisd.net : Home > Student Resources > Digital Library. To access the resources, students will use an s plus their ID number as their username, and their 8 digit birthdate as their password. Over the summer you can also check out books at the MISD High School Summer School Campus, McKinney High School, during regular operating hours. If you or your child have any questions, please contact the following English Department Chairs on your child s campus: McKinney Boyd High School: Karen Scanlan ( kscanlan@mckinneyisd.net ) McKinney High School: Kelly Armbruster ( karmbruster@mckinneyisd.net ) McKinney North School: Jessica Carrier ( jcarrier@mckinneyisd.net ) As a district, McKinney ISD embraces the life long love of reading; it is our goal to instill this love in our students. We also recommend that as a parent/guardian, you read along with your child, so you can discuss the books they read. Thank you for your continued support. Sincerely, The Secondary English Team of McKinney ISD
MISD Summer Reading Recommendations Fiction The following represent some of the most commonly referenced texts on the AP English Literature and Composition Exam (1971 2015). The titles are arranged by relevance to theme for the course as well as with consideration to age appropriate content. While no titles are required, these texts represent the level of texts students enrolled in PreAP and AP courses should add to their literary canon throughout their high school career. English 1 PreAP/GT: Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (94, 96, 97, 99, 04, 05, 06, 08) The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (01, 08, 11, 13) Cat s Eye by Margaret Atwood (94, 08, 09, 13, 15) Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (94, 96, 97, 99, 01, 03, 05, 06, 07, 09, 12) The Chosen by Chaim Potok (08, 13) *Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (79, 80, 88, 89, 92, 95, 96, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 10, 12, 13, 15) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (78, 79, 80, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 00, 05, 07, 08, 10, 13) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (97, 03, 13) *Medea by Euripides (82, 92, 95, 01, 03, 15) My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (03) The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (13) A Separate Peace by John Knowles (82, 07, 13) *The Tempest by William Shakespeare (71, 78, 96, 03, 05, 07, 10) English 2 PreAP/GT: A Doll s House by Henrik Ibsen (71, 83, 87, 88, 95, 05, 09) The Bonesetter s Daughter by Amy Tan (06, 07, 11) The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (71, 77, 06, 07, 09, 10) *Othello by William Shakespeare (79, 85, 88, 92, 95, 03, 04, 07, 11, 14, 15) *Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (80, 91, 99, 03, 04, 06, 08, 09) Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (85, 87, 91, 95, 96, 07, 09) *Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (79, 86, 99, 04, 11) *Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (01, 04, 06, 08) An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen (76, 80, 87, 99, 01, 07) Gulliver s Travels by Jonathan Swift (87, 89, 01, 04, 06, 09) Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (79, 92, 00, 02, 03, 05) Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw (79, 96, 04, 07, 09, 11) Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (94, 97, 04, 05, 07, 11) Mrs. Warren s Profession by George Bernard Shaw (87, 90, 95, 02, 09) Obasan by Joy Kogawa (94, 95, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (89, 04, 12) *Othello by William Shakespeare (79, 85, 88, 92, 95, 03, 04, 07, 11, 14, 15) Out of Africa by Isaak Dinesen (06) A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (71, 77, 78, 88, 91, 92, 07, 09, 12) *Paradise Lost by John Milton (85, 86, 10) Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (76, 77, 80, 86, 88, 96, 99, 04, 05, 08, 09, 10, 11, 13) *The Stranger by Albert Camus (79, 82, 86, 04) Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (91, 97, 03, 09, 10, 11, 14) AP Language and Composition: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (80, 82, 85, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 05, 06, 07, 08, 11, 13)
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (97, 02, 03, 08, 12, 14) All the King s Men by Robert Penn Warren (00, 02, 04, 07, 08, 09, 11) All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (95, 96, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 13) Black Boy by Richard Wright (06, 08, 13, 15) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (89, 05, 09, 10) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (82, 85, 87, 89, 94, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 11, 15) Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (06, 08) The Color Purple by Alice Walker (92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 05, 08, 09, 12, 13) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (86, 88, 94, 03, 04, 05, 07, 12, 14) Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (80, 85, 03, 05, 06, 07, 14) A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (99, 04, 09) Fences by August Wilson (02, 03, 05, 09, 10) For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (03, 06) A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines (00, 11) The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (71, 90, 94, 97, 99, 02, 08, 09, 10, 12) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (95, 03, 06, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13) Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (83, 88, 90, 05, 09) House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (95, 06, 09) The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (08, 10, 13) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96, 09) A Lesson before Dying by Ernest Gaines (99, 11) Light in August by William Faulkner (71, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 95, 99, 03, 06, 11) The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman (85, 90, 10) Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (87, 09) The Memory Keeper s Daughter by Kim Edwards (09, 14) Native Son by Richard Wright (79, 82, 85, 87, 95, 01, 04, 09, 11, 12) 1984 by George Orwell (87, 94, 05, 09) Our Town by Thornton Wilder (86, 97, 09) The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (96, 99, 07, 08, 10, 12) A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (87, 90, 94, 96, 99, 07, 09, 12, 14) Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (88, 92, 96, 03, 05, 07, 11, 14) Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (03, 07) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (08, 15) The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (71, 77, 78, 83, 88, 91, 99, 02, 04, 05, 06, 11, 14, 15) Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (87, 02, 04, 09, 10, 15) Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (91, 04) The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (77, 86, 97, 01, 07, 08, 13) A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (91, 92, 01, 04, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 14) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (85, 91, 95, 96, 04, 05, 12) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston (88, 90, 91, 96, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 13, 14) AP Literature (any from previous lists as well as the following): The Awakening by Kate Chopin (87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 02, 04, 07, 09, 11, 14) Beloved by Toni Morrison (90, 99, 01, 03, 05, 07, 09, 10, 11, 14) Billy Budd by Herman Melville (79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 99, 02, 04, 05, 07, 08) Bleak House by Charles Dickens (94, 00, 04, 09, 10) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (89, 00, 03, 06, 08) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (71, 76, 91, 94, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 06, 09, 10, 11, 12) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (71, 76, 80, 85, 87, 95, 04, 09, 10)
*King Lear by William Shakespeare (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 08, 10, 11, 12, 14) Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (77, 78, 82, 86, 00, 03, 07) Macbeth by William Shakespeare (83, 99, 03, 05, 09) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (80, 85, 04, 05, 06, 09, 10) The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (94, 99, 00, 02, 07, 10, 11) M. Butterfly by David Henry Wang (95, 11, 12) Moby Dick by Herman Melville (76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 89, 94, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 09) Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (76, 77, 86, 87, 95, 09) Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (76, 80, 85, 95, 07, 11) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (83, 88, 92, 97, 08, 11, 12) Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (03, 05, 08) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (81, 94, 00, 04, 05, 06, 10, 11) Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (81, 88, 96, 00, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10, 13) The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (11, 13) A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (91, 92, 01, 04, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 14) Sula by Toni Morrison (92, 97, 02, 04, 07, 08, 10, 12) Tess of the D Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (82, 91, 03, 06, 07, 12, 14, 15) To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (77, 86, 88, 08) Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (90, 00, 06, 08) The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (92, 94, 00, 02, 04, 08) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (77, 85, 86, 89, 94, 01, 09, 12) Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (88, 94, 00, 04, 07, 11, 15) Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (89, 92, 05, 07, 08) Wise Blood by Flannery O Connor (82, 89, 95, 09, 10) Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (91, 08, 13) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (71,77, 78, 79, 83, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 99, 01, 06, 07, 08, 10, 12, 15) Possible AP Literature: Literature Circle Titles for quarter 1 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley *Denotes texts recommended for GT/Humanities Sections
MISD Summer Reading Recommendations Nonfiction The full length works, compiled and recommended by NMSI, represent a range of nonfiction from approximately the last decade. While no texts are required, these texts represent the level of texts students enrolled in PreAP and AP Language courses and should add to their nonfiction knowledge base throughout their high school career. Current Events Detroit City is the Place to Be by Mark Binelli Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel The Long Walk: The Story of War and the Life that Follows by Briar Castner *Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People WHo Make this Country Work by Jeanne Marie Laskas Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer *In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Digital Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell by Phil Lapsley Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World s Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson Sports Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football by Nicholas Dawidoff Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football s Forgotten Town by Bryan Mealer Over Time: My Life as a Sports Writer by Frank Deford *Twelve Mighty Orphans by Jim Dent Popular Culture Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can t Stop Talking by Susan Cain The Know it All by A.J. Jacobs Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grownup by Christopher Noxon Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools,
Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them by Donovan Hohn *Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell History The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of those Who Survived the American Dustbowl by Timothy Egan Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Berlin by Eric Larson *Hiroshima by John Hersey Biography, Autobiography, Memoir Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock by David Margolick A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey From the Inner City to the Ivy League by Ron Suskind *I m Down by Mishna Wolff Blue Nights by Joan Didion Miracle Boy Grows Up: How the Disability Rights Revolution Saved My Sanity by Ben Mattlin *Angela s Ashes by Frank McCourt *My Losing Season by Pat Conroy Science The Forest Unseen: A Year s Watch in Nature by David George Haskell The Girls of Atomic City, The Untold Story of Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan That s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion by Rachel Herz Gulp: Adventures of the Ailmentary Canal by Mary Roach The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us by Joe Palca & Flora Lichtman Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer Food
Birds Eye: The Adventures of Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer B. Lee Tomatoland: HOw Modern Industrial Agriculture Ruined Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer Travel The Geography of Bliss: One Grump s Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who s Been Everywhere by Susan Orlean Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a Lot of Bad Motels, a Moving Van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, My Wife, My Mother in Law, Two Kids, and Enough Coffee to Kill an Elephant by Robert Sullivan *Additions to NMSI list based on teacher recommendation.