Upper School Summer Reading

UPPER SCHOOL SUMMER READING

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Philosophy

Winsor requires summer reading to encourage you to become avid, lifelong readers. Reading helps you broaden your knowledge, deepen your imaginative experience, and develop your language and writing skills. Summer reading requirements for each class are listed below. You’ll notice that, other than the required book, you will be able to choose your books. Rather than having to choose books from a specific list, you may choose any books that interest you. We simply ask that you choose books that fall into these three categories:

A book recommended to you by someone at Winsor. You may use the faculty/staff and student recommendations lists on this webpage or conversations with friends and teachers at Winsor to find a book for this category. If you are new to Winsor, you can use the recommendation lists or read something recommended by your family, friends, or teachers.
A book that challenges you in some way (for instance, a non-fiction book if you always read fiction or an older novel if you always read contemporary fiction. You can find lots of enjoyable challenge books on “Online Reading Resources” page!)
Free choice
Free choice (except for rising VIs, who have two required books below)

In the fall, you will be asked to fill out a brief summer reading follow-up survey in English class about your summer reading, including questions about the required books and questions about how you chose your other books.

Important Information

Please do NOT read a book that is part of the Winsor English curriculum until you have passed the grade level that reads that book. In other words, since a Class VII elective reads Things Fall Apart, please don’t choose that text for summer reading until after Class VII. Discovering a text for the first time together with your classmates provides a better class experience. Here are the books read at each grade level during the school year:

Class V: Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Class VI: The Great Gatsby, The Things They Carried, Sweat
Class VII: Gilgamesh, Things Fall Apart, Sundiata, A Walk in the Night, Fences, All the Pretty Horses, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, This Bridge Called My Back, Khirbet Khizeh, Men in the Sun, Maus I and II.
Class VIII: White Teeth; Atonement; Never Let Me Go; Frankenstein; Beowulf; Grendel; The Overstory; The 392; The Distance Between Us; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Macbeth; Trust; Translations; A Small Place; Parable of the Sowe

Reading Requirements by Grade Level

Each class has its own required summer reading assignment for English class. This assignment should be completed before school starts in September, preferably in August, because there will be discussion and follow-up during the first few weeks of school.

Required summer books will be handed out in class in May. New students will receive books at the welcome event in May or by mail.

Class V

Actively read Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. (Reading actively means making notes in the margins as you read.) You will be asked to discuss and write about this novel during the first weeks of school, so you may want to read it late in the summer. Also read four other books following the guidelines above. You do not need to read these other four books actively.

Class VII

You will be informed of your Global Studies course in early August. Once you know what course you have been placed in, please order the text assigned to your course and actively read it. Please order the correct ISBN.

Africa: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (ISBN 978-1101971062)
India: The Ramayana by R.K Narayan (ISBN 978-0143039679)
Latin America: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (ISBN 978-1400034710)
Middle East: Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz (ISBN 978-0385264761)
Russia: The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes (ISBN 978-1250796899) Read the first 105 pages before class begins; you will finish reading the book in class.

You may want to read this text at the end of the summer so that you can discuss it in class more readily. Also, read four other books following the guidelines above. You do not need to read these other four books actively.

Class VI

Actively read Gordo by Jaime Cortez and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Also read three other books following the guidelines above. You do not need to read these other three books actively.

Class VIII

Each senior fall elective has a required summer book. Once you receive your schedule in early August and learn which English elective you were placed in, please purchase the corresponding required book below, read it, and bring it to class on the first day. Please also read one book recommended by someone at Winsor (this could be the book recommended for your spring elective), one challenge, and 2 free books (so, 5 books total).

Required summer reading for rising seniors:

Ambition: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (ISBN 978-0141439518)
Literature of the Faustian Bargain: We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry (ISBN 978-0525565437)
Empire: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie (ISBN 978-1400095209)
Women, Power, and Madness: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Truth and Fiction: Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier (ISBN 978-0316575201)

Recommended (but not required) readings for senior spring electives:

Afrofuturism: The Black Fantastic edited by Andre M. Carrington (ISBN 9781598538113)
Creative Writing: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (ISBN 978-0385480017); Also helpful to reread “How to Tell a True War Story” and “Notes” from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
Manifesto: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (ISBN 978-1538732182) and/or Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
Monstrosity: Dracula by Bram Stoker (ISBN 978-0141439846) and/or Sula by Toni Morrison (ISBN 978-1400033430)
Dystopian Lit: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (ISBN 978-0804172448)

Have a great summer!

Kim Ramos, Head of the Upper School
Laura Duncan, Library Director
Courtney Jackson, Head of the English Department