Dear Parents and Students,
To encourage the students at St. Pius X High School to become life long readers, the English department has come up with the notion of summer reading. The idea behind summer reading is for students to find time away from television and video games to sit down with a book they enjoy.
Sophomores will be required to read one of the following books this summer. They can choose from any of those listed below. The only have to read one
The Circus Fire by Stewart O’Nan (384 pages) – A non-fiction account about a tragic fire that happened in 1940 at a circus in Hartford, CT.
Or
The Blue Light of African Dreams by Paul Watkins (288 pages) – A fiction work about World War I pilots living in Northern Africa
Or
God Bless You Mister Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr (288 pages) - A fiction work about the silliness of the class system
Or
The Magic of Recluse by LE Modesitt Jr. – (512 pages) – A fantasy novel about the fight between good and evil.
Or
Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein – (290 pages) – A science-fiction novel about war.
The students will keep a log as they read. If they choose to read The Magic of Recluse, after every 35 pages they will type half a page explaining what they just read. If they read The Circus Fire, after every 25 pages they will type half a page explaining what they just read. If they choose to read The Blue Light of African Dreams, God Bless You Mister Rosewater or Starship Troopers, they will do the same thing but after every 20 pages.
If a student is out of town, at camp or on vacation where there is no computer, they may write the log by hand and then type it up at the end of the summer.
The final grade of the journal will be one hundred points.
If a student fails to turn in a completed summer reading journal at all (for whatever reason – such as they did not plan on attending Pius until the last minute) they will receive a zero until the work can be made up. At the beginning of the year this will be a large part of their grade; however, as the semester progresses, it will ultimately shrink to probably about 5%.
To make up summer reading, a student will be assigned another novel by Mr. Hopper. They will be required to read and journal the novel the same as they would have during the summer, however they will do so in the homework center after school. Please be warned this may interfere with other extra-curricular activities. Therefore I would strongly suggest that all students do the reading over the summer.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me,
Chris Hopper
chopper@stpiusxhs-kc.com
(816) 453-3450 (Ext. 105)
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