Introduction:

Welcome to Pre-IB 9^th grade English! I am looking forward to getting to know all of you. As you will see, we’re going to be working very hard next year preparing you for the rigors of the IB program. I taught 9^th and 10^th grade English at an IB school for 2 ½ years and am very familiar with what will be required of you, so I have put together a challenging curriculum that will require 100% effort on your part. So we can get an early start, you’ll be reading Lord of the Flies this summer. Below you’ll find a detailed explanation of what’s required of you. I will be collecting 12 responses and 58 vocabulary words from you on the first day of class, so be prepared. If you have any questions about the assignments, please email me at [email protected]. I will be busy this summer, but plan on checking my email on a weekly basis, so feel free to email me at any time. Just be patient with my response :0) Have a great summer!

Assignment Overview:

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, was published in 1954 and is considered a masterpiece for both the quality of writing and the power of its critique of human nature. The characters are young, pre-pubescent kids (12 years old and younger) who are stranded on an island somewhere off the coast of South of America. Golding uses as his backdrop a war. Imagining that WWIII has begun, and that the major players are Europe, The United States, and The Soviet Union (remember that 1954 was the beginning of the cold-war) he uses British school kids who are being flown to safety in South America, but who are shot down by the “Ruskies”—Russians, to establish the setting and situation. With his group of school children conveniently separated from civilization, and the adults who run it, Golding is able to recreate the early development of civilization. Though it is somewhat artificial, these kids are forced to create everything, even a rudimentary government, from scratch, and this allows Golding a platform to critique human nature in its barest essence.

Written Responses:

For each chapter you are expected to type a 1 paragraph response. You may use the chapter titles as subheadings to separate each paragraph and then print them as one continuous document to save paper. Please quote selected passages from the text in your response and be detailed and clear in your writing, highlighting subtleties and fully examining the significance of those subtleties. You may respond to any of the major themes, but remember to discuss other literary elements when appropriate as well. (symbolism, foreshadowing, characterization, vivid imagery, and mood.) Your response needs to be followed by an open-ended question dealing with what you have written. The question needs to be one the class would be interested in discussing, one that is well phrased and, if possible, controversial. Title each response and be prepared to share your questions during class. I will collect the responses on the first day of class.

Major Themes: friendship, good vs. evil, political struggle, death, tribalism, loss of innocence, youth, responsibility, isolation, survival, power, control etc.

Symbolism: A device in literature where an object represents an idea. Ex. 1) The U.S. flag is a symbol for freedom. 2) A Dove is a symbol of peace.

Foreshadowing: Clues in a story about what is going to happen next. Ex. 1) In the story of Cinderella, Cinderella losing her glass slipper foreshadows that the prince will eventually find her.

Characterizaion: The way an author describes a character through 1. Physical descriptions 2. Emotional description 3. Showing what the character does 4. Dialogue: what the character says.

Vivid Imagery: The descriptive language that an author uses to create a picture in the reader’s mind.

Mood: The way the words makes the reader feel when reading a story. Ex. mad, happy, excited, sad, longing, lonely, anxious, foreboding, etc.

Vocabulary:

There are 12 chapters of reading and you will find that the vocabulary can be difficult at times. I expect you to find 40 unknown words (about 4 words per chapter). You will need to do the following for each vocabulary word: Write the word, part of speech (i.e. verb, adjective etc.), definition, a sentence using the word correctly, and a picture that will help you remember the word. In addition to the 40 words you find, I would like you to add the following 18 words for a total of 58:

primal atavistic idyll disillusion ominous dystopian utopian martyr deus ex machina

brigand totemism tribalism talisman treachery coercion terror paranoia allegory

RESPONSE EXAMPLE

In the story “Little Red Riding Hood,” the wolf asks Little Red Riding Hood where her grandmother lives in hopes of eating both of them. If he had eaten Little Red Riding Hood right there in the woods, he wouldn’t have learned where the grandmother lived, and he wouldn’t have been able to get into her house without knowing that Little Red Riding Hood was bringing goodies for her because she was ill. His questions foreshadow the events to come and the reader knows that the wolf is up to no good. When he gets to the cottage he says he is “ ‘Little Red Riding Hood…bringing cake and wine. Open the door’ ” and Granny, who is too sick to come to the door, tells him to come on in (3). The wolf eats her right away, and though the reality of being eaten by a wolf is gruesome, the writing is matter-of-fact and the mood, though slightly sinister, is overall light-hearted. The reader knows, because it’s a fairy tale, the wolf won’t win in the end.

Question: Why is the writer not more descriptive when explaining how the wolf eats Granny and Little Red Riding Hood? Should he have been more vivid?

Note: This is not a summary. I chose to focus on the wolf’s deception, how it foreshadows Granny’s death, and to discuss the strange mood (light-hearted about someone being eaten alive!) and how it is typical of fairy tales. My question goes beyond the text and asks why the story isn’t more detailed. This can generate discussion about the nature of fairy tales vs. horror stories and how the mood determines whether the reader is scared or not. We will use your questions to generate similar discussions about Lord of the Flies.

Also, note that I use quotations to indicate the words I’m taking directly from the story. Because it’s dialogue, I have to put quotes around the quotes: “ ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Want some tea’ ”, and I put the page number in parenthesis at the end of the sentence: “It was a cold, dark night” explains the narrator (24).