My task:
To find four high-interest, accessible, international titles age-appropriate for incoming 9th grade students for summer reading.
So far, my list looks like this:
In the Time of Butterflies (Alvarez)
City of Beasts (Allende)
Breath, Eyes, Memory (Dandicat)
The Alchemist (Coehlo)
Wolves of the Crescent Moon (Al-Mohaimeed)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Sijie)
I need to whittle it down to four. I don't really think I have enough to whittle from, though. Any thoughts on any of these?
We need three books total, but Social Studies is picking one of them. I guess there is going to be a required text, then one choice from English and one choice from Social Studies.
An Acclaimed Afterlife
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Robert McCrum pens a tribute to W.G. Sebald, whose practice of mixing
various genres of writing with images outlived him: [H]ere’s the strange,
and hearten...
9 minutes ago
9 comments:
I'm partial to drama, so I'm thinking "Master Harold and the boys" by Athol Fugard. There's also "Anna in the Tropics" by Cruz, who is Cuban-American, but emigrated. Would it still count?
Is Gabriel Garcia Marquez not appropriate for 9th graders? What about "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith?
I personally want to read "Fatherland" by Robert Harris. I borrowed "Jennifer Government" but never read it. Those are by non-Americans, but I'm not sure those are literature worthy of study in schools.
I've thought about teaching "Master Harold" before, but don't you think it's hard to read drama on your own, over the summer?
I think there are certain Marquez novels that would work, but I've only read the two big ones, which I think would be too tough. "White Teeth" I might try someday with Juniors or Seniors.
How about Kite Runner/Thousand Splendid Suns or God of Small Things?
I loved Balzac... and it's not too long. Will the little bit of sex in it be allowed?
Ann: I thought of those, but they're used later on in the 12th grade year. Not "Splendid Suns," though. That's still in hardcover, though.
Anon: It's tame and I don't think it will be an issue.
I've thought about teaching "Master Harold" before, but don't you think it's hard to read drama on your own, over the summer?
Shakespeare, maybe. But then again, I hear middle schools aren't as good as they were when I was in BCPSS. Not that I think Master Harold is a difficult play.
What about "Things Fall Apart"? Somehow, I forgot about that in my earlier post.
Where I teach, we do "Things Fall Apart" in the 9th grade honors class. Our summer reading book for next year is "Fences," which you do during the year, I think, and which we used to do during the year but are switching. Last year our 9th grade summer reading book was "Catcher in the Rye," which is not international, of course. Have you thought about short stories? Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies"?
City of Beasts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought I posted this a few days ago, but must not have gone through?
I second God of Small Things. One of my favorite books ever.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a wonderful approachable (might be too short?) Salman Rushie novel about the power of story-telling. It is full of imagery and word-play...
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