Community House Middle School Summer Reading 2021
We hope everyone has an enjoyable summer filled with fun and a few good books. To that end, please see the reading
list below for the requirements for your Cavalier. Summer Reading is carefully selected by our talented ELA teachers
for each grade level. Students can expect to engage with Summer Reading in the classroom within the first two weeks
of school.
Please choose an appropriate title based on your reading level (lexile), class placement, and interest from the list below. If you are unsure of your lexile level, please visit www.lexile.com to take a very short assessment to gauge your lexile range.
Lexile Levels are provided to help guide (not dictate a choice). Please know that with works of fiction, lexile levels
often do not seem high
enough; however, lexile level is not the only indicator of a complex text.
PARENTAL WARNING: Some of these titles may have content that families/parents may find inappropriate due to the
nature of the book and who it is about, as well as its level. Please be sure to research your chosen title before purchasing
and reading.
Please scroll to the end for tips on annotating. Happy Reading!
ALL (Honors and Standard) Rising 6th grade Students: Please select ONE of the following titles to read, ANNOTATE, and enjoy!
Fiction: Alexander, Kwame--The Crossover (750L) ISBN: 978-0544935204 Draper, Sharon--Out of My Mind (700L) ISBN: 978-1416971719 Philbrick, Rodman-- Freak the Mighty (1000L) ISBN: 978-0439286060
Nonfiction/Informational Text: Brushac, Joseph--Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two (910L) ISBN: Paulsen, Gary-- Woodsong (1090L) ISBN: 978-1416939399 |
Rising HONORS 7th grade Students: Please select ONE of the following titles to read, ANNOTATE, and enjoy! Fiction: Alexie, Sherman-- War Dances (790L) ISBN: 978-0802144898 Cooper, Susan-- Over Sea, Under Stone: The Dark Is Rising sequence (920L) ISBN: 978-0689840357 Hijuelos, Oscar-- Dark Dude (980L) ISBN: 978-1416949459 Hurston, Zora Neale-- Mules and Men (1020L) ISBN: 978-0061350177 Soto, Gary-- Novio Boy (Lexile n/a) ISBN: 978-0152058630 Whelan, Gloria-- Homeless Bird (800L) ISBN: 978-0064408196
Nonfiction/Informational Text: Dumas, Firoozeh-- Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (1030L) ISBN: 978-0812968378 Hickam, Homer-- Rocket Boys/October Sky (900L) ISBN: 978-0385333214 Jimenez, Francisco-- Breaking Through (750L) ISBN: 978-0618342488 Myers, Walter Dean-- The Greatest: Muhammad Ali (Lexile 1030) ISBN: 978-0590543439 Paulsen, Gary-- Eastern Sun, Winter Moon: An Autobiographical Odyssey (1080L) ISBN: 978-0156002035 Santiago, Esmeralda-- When I Was Puerto Rican (1020L) ISBN: 978-0306814525 |
Rising STANDARD 7th grade Students: Please read, ANNOTATE, and enjoy the following title!
Park, Linda Sue When My Name Was Keoko (610L) ISBN: 978-0547722399 |
Rising HONORS 8th grade Students: Please select ONE of the following titles to read, ANNOTATE, and enjoy!
Fiction Text: Alvarez, Julia-- Before We Were Free (890L) ISBN: 978-0399555497 Anderson, Laurie Halse-- Fever 1793 (580L) ISBN: 978-0689848919 Coelho, Paulo-- The Alchemist (910L) ISBN: 978-0062315007 Crutcher, Chris-- Whale Talk (1000L) ISBN: 978-0062687753 Paulsen, Gary-- Soldier’s Heart (1000L) ISBN: 978-0440228387
Nonfiction/Informational Text: Ayer, Eleanor-- Parallel Journeys (1050L) ISBN: 978-0689832369 Bradley, James-- Flags of our Fathers (950L) ISBN: 978-0553380293 Crutcher, Chris-- King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography (1180L) ISBN: 978-0060502515 Dahl, Roald-- Boy: Tales of Childhood (1090L) ISBN: 978-0142413814 Engle, Margarita-- The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionists (Lexile n/a) ISBN: 978-0544541122 Fey, Tina-- Bossypants (950L) ISBN: 978-0316056878 |
Rising STANDARD 8th grade Students: Please read, ANNOTATE, and enjoy the following title!
Odom Jr., Leslie-- Failing Up (930L) ISBN: 978-1250139962 |
*If you have any questions, please feel free to email kristen.ohaver@cms.k12.nc.us at any time. For RISING 9th
graders: Please check with your new high school about Summer Reading, as no titles were provided at the time of
publication.
Annotations: What does this look like?
ALL Cavaliers students need to annotate their Summer Reading title. For rising 7th and 8th graders, for your title, please
apply strategies that your Language Arts teachers have taught you over the past two years. For rising 6th graders and
other interested students, please use the links and documents below.
When annotating, rising 7th and 8th grade students should follow the NOTICE, NAME, and EXPLAIN format
described below:
Notice | Highlighting, underlining, or other text marking indicating important text. |
Name | Name the annotation. What is it? Is it a signpost? Is it a literary element? |
Explain | Why is this text significant? Answer the signpost question. Connect the literary element to a larger idea from the text. (Ex. Strong language contributes to tone of… Explain the immediate significance and the overall impact on the book as a whole. |
Note: Depending on the length of the chapters in the selected book, students should have about 2-4 annotations
per chapter.
ANNOTATIONS:
An annotation is a note, comment, or concise statement of the key idea(s) in a text or a portion of a text. Annotations are
commonly used in reading instruction and in research. Please see the sample pages of Sharon Draper’s Out of My Mind
for a model on annotating a text. Not every page needs to look like the model.
Annotating is meant to slow readers down and engage them more deeply in reading comprehension and questioning the
text. It is NOT about filling the page for quantity. The parent model linked on the school webpage is meant to showcase
many types of annotations and Signposts. Students do NOT need to annotate every page in a book. Annotating is meant
to be a personal and organic process that will aid in comprehension, not just a completion activity.
Parents: For further reading on annotations, please enjoy Mortimer Adler’s short work “How to Mark a Book” at this link: "How to Mark a Book" text
