Commack Middle School
Summer Supplemental Reading Program
We are pleased that your child will be taking honors English and honors social studies next year. As you know, the honors program is a fast-paced, enrichment program designed for students who, like your child, are innately interested in English and social studies, who have outstanding reading, writing, and conceptual skills, and who are eager to work hard to learn much.
To prepare for the rigors of the next school year, our honors students in grade 8 are required to read at least two books during the summer. The required reading includes any one of the novels from this selection:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer
The Glory Field by Walter Dean Meyers
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by John Krakauer
National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball by Stefan Szymanski & Andre Zimbalist
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
and one of the novels from this selection:
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring) by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Perilous Road by William O. Steele
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E. Hinton
The selected novel from the first list will be provided by the school and loaned to the students for the summer. The selected novel from the second list may be purchased or borrowed from the library by the student him/herself. If you have any difficulty finding a novel from the second list, you may be able to find one at school; a number of copies of each book will be available in the main office of the Middle School on a first-come-first-served basis, after June 30.
In addition to their selected summer-reading book from the first list, students will also receive a note-taking assignment for both of the selected books, and a manila envelope containing their individual personal narratives written this past year. All of these materials must be returned to their new English teacher by Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
In our continuing efforts to encourage our students to become life-long readers, we encourage your child to read an additional book chosen from the other titles on his/her grade level or from a supplementary list of books found on the Commack School District website. We also suggest visiting the website www.readwritethink.org/beyondtheclassroom/summer for booklists, book review podcasts, and videos to help make the most of summer reading. As in the past, our local libraries and bookstores are other options for books for our summer reading program.
As always, we appreciate your support of our program, and we thank you for encouraging your child to excel.
Sincerely yours,
Pamela J. Travis-Moore
Principal