JUNE/JULY VACATION ASSIGNMENTS
Okay, okay, I get it. No one exactly jumps for joy at the idea of summer
reading. But I've chosen a few books that may just make it worth your while. On this page you'll find a little description of the book you'll be reading, linked to your assignment for the summer. Though I'll be something of a nomad over break, I'll still be available via internet. So--- doubts, concerns, questions, confusion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email. Looking forward to a new semester with you all!
IB Literature Year 2 and Grade 12 English Vacation Reading:
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Facebook. Youtube. Tumblr. E-mail. MSN. Blackberry. Iphone. Ipod. Magazines. Movies. Newspapers.
“Wait till you hear—” “You won’t believe—” “So this one time—” “Once upon a time—”
Does a day ever pass when you do not tell, hear, or read a story? Seriously. Think about it. How much of our daily conversations, our daily lives, are dominated by stories?
Dictionary.com defines a story as “a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse.” Benjamin Franklin’s famed explanation echoes that stories “are designed to (a) inform, (b) persuade and/or (c) entertain the hearer or reader.” But this does not explain why. Why so many stories? Why this human dependency we have on plot and narrative?
Author Tim O’Brien remarks, “Stories are for joining the past to the future…Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.”
Poetic, isn’t it? But there is something problematic about O’Brien’s explanation, something that put Vietnam Veterans, not to mention historians ill at ease. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a conglomeration of vignettes published in 1990 to a controversial critical response. Originally marketed as nonfiction, the book had to be pulled off shelves and remarketed as fiction. Why? Well, in short, the man lied. These graphic vignettes describing various soldiers’ experiences of the Vietnam War, were not true. O’Brien embellished. O’Brien invented. But did O’Brien lie? Known for its metafictive play on the blurred boundary between fact and fiction, The Things They Carried is, as O’Brien defends, “for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.” But then, how does the attempt to reconcile the reality of experience (based on fact) with subjective representation (based on perspective) impact truth? How can we reconcile a collective, historical truth with an individualized, subjective one?
Throughout the next unit, we will attempt to articulate our relationships with what it means to tell a story—and ultimately, what it means to read one. What kind of timeless, transitory power does story have over humanity? What kind of power do stories have over you? Can fiction be true? “Literature is the question minus the answer,” says Roland Barthes, so let us embark on a path paved with questions, the path that lines a paper-thin frontier between fact and fiction, reality and representation, story and truth. Click here for the IB assignment! Click here for the grade 12 assignment!
IB Literature Year 1 and Grade 11 English Vacation Reading:
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
"But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult" (The Awakening, Chopin)!
The time is turn of the century. 1899 to be exact. The issue at hand? Women. Women's sexuality to be exact. At the time, Louisiana law still held wives as "property" of their husbands. The woman in question? Edna Pontellier. The question? What right does a married mother of two have to act on her own sexual yearning? What right does humanity have to disregard societal expectations in the face of self-realization?
Banned for decades due to its controversial critical reception, The Awakening is Kate Chopin´s last lyrical saga of feminist consummation, elusive imagery, and startling self-discovery. It is a narrative saturated in sensual diction, with the elaborate syntax of a protagonist plagued by reticence.
Click here for the IB assignment! Click here for the 11 English assignment!
Want to start the year with some extra credit?
Sweet! Here's what you have to do:
1. Read any of the books listed on the "You gotta read this!" page, in the below summer reading flow chart, or email Ms. B. to propose an alternative option (must be of literary merit) that you'd like to read independently.
2. Fill out the extra credit form and write a book review. Click here for instructions.
3. If you follow all instructions, you can gain a full extra point on your quarter average!
1. Read any of the books listed on the "You gotta read this!" page, in the below summer reading flow chart, or email Ms. B. to propose an alternative option (must be of literary merit) that you'd like to read independently.
2. Fill out the extra credit form and write a book review. Click here for instructions.
3. If you follow all instructions, you can gain a full extra point on your quarter average!
Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online