The New World

Independent Reading Program 12th Grade English

Diane Tehrani

Program Theme

Dvorak New World Symphony in four ten-minute movements is presented. Students will be asked to suggest music to fit with their quarterly reading of mystery, nonfiction, fiction, and books made into movies.

• The first, that includes melodies of “Deep River”, “Yankee Doodle”, and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” serves as introduction to reading that sounds like traveling along a river, observing the natural environmental landscape, a journey of thinking of the unknown with feelings of sadness, fear, suspense, and a ray of hope and of getting to know people but at the same time remembering where one has come from with the theme of suspense, mystery, or private eye.

• The second movement, all the friends met seeking to find a new home and continuing to explore more adventurously with nonfiction in which students read material that moves into the real world. This is accompanied by the Song of Hiawatha on which Dvorak based the second movement.

• In the third movement that is based on the liveliness of dance from Hiawatha and students would move into creative imaginative literature to choose fiction books .

• The final movement is a culmination of all previous themes with variation on theme, a series of contrasts with connecting rhythmic patterns and progressions, bringing ideas together so that all are easily related and similarities brought out. All melodies reappear transformed by newfound urgency setting up nobility and majesty of main melody. Students choose books that have been turned into movies.

Program Specifications

500 pages to be read per quarter would put the yearly output to around 2000 pages that correlates with the million words per year that Jim Burke recommends seniors read. The time allotted would be half hour reading two times a week. Students would be expected to read about 62.5 pages per week for an eight-week quarter with a presentation every hundred pages. Like Indy 500, independent reading would be 30% of a student’s grade. For this grade level, I have tried to find books with mature themes, multiple levels of meaning, flashbacks, flash-forwards, and manipulation of time and sequence, informational texts with implicit purpose, ambiguous or academic domain-specific vocabulary, references to other texts, cultural or content knowledge assumptions, differing and multiple perspectives. In compiling this list, I made use of a list of independent reading choices from Tigard senior English class and have incorporated these into my list below.

Recommended Books

Nonfiction FictionAngelou, Maya, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Alexie, Sherman, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time

IndianBryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue, Walk in the Woods, Down Under Alvarez, Julia, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents,

ButterfliesDawkins, Richard, The God Delusion Amirrezvani, Anita, The Blood of FlowersFederspiel, Michael R. Picturing Hemingway's Michigan Burns, Olive Ann, Cold Sassy Tree Frankl, Viktor, Man’s Search for Meaning Butler, Octavia, KincaidGray, Theodore, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe Chute, Margaret Gaylord, Stories from ShakespeareHeiligman, Deborah, Charles and Emma: the Darwin’s Leap of Faith Collins, Suzanne, The Hunger GamesHeyerdahl, Thor, Kon-Tiki (also a movie) Cormier, Jack, In the Middle of the NightMortenson, Greg, Two Cups of Tea Dessen, Sarah, Along for the Ride, Just Listen, ForeverTruth Plato, Dialogues Fontes, Justine and Ron, Atlanta: The Race Against DestinyRobinson, Dave, Introducing Philosophy Hurston, Zora Neale, Their Eyes Were Watching GodSmall, David, Stitches: A Memoir Kennedy, Duncan, The River WhyPoetry Hosseini, Khaled, The Kite Runner, Thousand Splendid SunsPerrine, Laurence, Sound and Sense in Poetry Kingsolver, Barbara, Bean Trees, Poisonwood BibleSmith, Philip (Ed.) Earth-Shattering Poems McEwan, Ian, The AtonementWood, Nancy, Spirit Walker O’Brien, Tim, The Things They CarriedMysteries Paolini, Christopher, EragonBrown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code (also a movie) Sparks, Nicholas, Dear John, Message in a Bottle, Safe HavenCormier, Robert, I am the Cheese, The Rag and Bone Soup Vonnegut Jr., Kurt, Slaughterhouse FiveEco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose (also a movie)McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds (also a movie)Palahniuk, Chuck, SurvivorPamyuk, Orhan. My Name is Red

Activities and Assessment

Students relate their reading to peers through making bookmarks, telling 3-2-1 in which they tell three points learned, two interesting points, and one question, giving insight into character motivation, theme, mood, dialogue, reason for conflict whether against nature, society, other characters, or self, preparing self-assessment through observational checklist, graphic organizers such as story maps, posters or illustrations of action, “open mind” to show characteristics, answering text and dense questions and a final two-minute presentation to answer one of five questions. Students at the senior level will have learned and experienced the importance of independent reading and do not need external motivators such as friendly competition, completion or gift certificates.

Strategies for Differentiation

TAG Book club that students would organize and administer themselves according to a set of agreed-upon guidelines

Classical literatureNovels with complex story lines Novels filled with rich language

Themes that deal with social issuesNovels whose main characters are older adolescents or young adults.

ELLAlteration of the number of pagesRead books in native languages

Assurance of reading books at own reading levels.

SPEDAlteration of number of pages

Books on tape Appropriate reading level

Read alouds Group graphic organizers

Tiered assignments in which students choose various activities of varied difficulties would give choice for assessment to these groups

Struggling readers need strategies forEnhancing motivation,

Reading and writing practiceBooks of high interest yet low readability.

Going along with independent reading program would be explicit teaching of word building, comprehension strategies, and explicit teaching of the elements of literature such as plot, setting, and characters.

SSR Reading Books for 12th Grade English at Tigard High School

Anderson, Laurie Halse, SpeakBeech, Rick, The Origami Handbook

Chute, Jennifer, User IDCormier, Jack, In the Middle of the Night

Dawkins, Richard, The God DelusionDenham, Allen, Pioneers

Evan, Tom, PartyFrazier, Charles, Cold Mountain

Frey, James, A Million Tiny PiecesHaley, Alex, Malcolm X

Hansen, Mykle, A Bear is Eating MeHarris, Thomas, Hannibal

Kadoheta, Cynthia, Outside BeautyKerouac, Jack, On the Road

Ludlum, Robert, The Bourne IdentityNeffenegger, Audrey, Her Fearful Symmetry

O’brien, Tom, Things They Carried (2 students)Palahniuk, Chuck, Survivor (2 students)

Salinger, J.D., Catcher in the RyeSparks, Nicholas, The Guardian

Traig, Jennifer, Devil in the Details

SSR Debrief and Assessment at Tigard High School

• Sharing of pages read may follow a format in which students answer questions such as – “If you were a guest on the Oprah Show, talking about what you read today, what would be the free

gift under the audience’s seats?” – “If you were a politician, how would what you read today gain votes?” – “If what you read today was an ice cream flavor, what would it be and why?” – “If you were to design a reality TV show based on what you read today, what would it be about?” – “If what you read today was a NASCAR race, in what place would you finish and why?” – “If what you read today was a song, what genre of music would it be and why?” – “What color would you associate with what you read today? Why?”

• The final presentation of the book is a two-to-three minute mini-speech before the whole class answering ONE of the following questions. – Summarize the plot. – Read a passage showing the climax of the book and explain it. – Describe the main character. What kind of person is he/she? Read a passage which shows this. – Identify the major conflict of the book and explain it. Explain how the conflict was resolved. – Discuss three specific reasons you would recommend/not recommend this book to someone else.