By Jennifer Marino
There was always such a gap over the summer, said assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum Delia Garrity. Students from each grade in the middle and high schools as well as fifth graders heading into sixth grade, can choose one book to read from a list of six-to-eight books.
The students have to keep a reading log where they comment on the book and summarize text as they read, which is something teachers have been encouraging throughout the school year. When they return to school in September, the students will have a test that will feature generic questions applicable to any of the books the kids read. Plus teachers will have something to discuss with their students right away. In the past, the district only gave out recommended lists. The elementary schools will continue to have recommended lists.
Teachers from the English departments of the middle and high school devised the lists with books about a variety of subjects and for readers at various levels. The middle school list includes The Diary of Anne Frank, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. At the high school, the lists includes Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Tempest by William Shakespeare and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, as well as more contemporary books like How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez and Patriot Games by Tom Clancy.
Garrity hopes that the program can be expanded in coming years, perhaps including books for content areas other then English, citing social studies as a possibility with the extensive choices of historical fiction and nonfiction. The summer reading may also be expanded so that students must read two books from the list. The schools also hope to continue having students interact with their books by buying very inexpensive paperbacks that the children can keep and take notes or highlight in.
The reading lists are available on the middle and high school websites. The schools are also working with the public library to send over any extra copies they might have of the books, so they are available to as many students as possible.
