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Dear Students and Families,
The English Department sends the following summer reading list in hopes that your months away from Hotchkiss will be enriched by the texts we have suggested.
We ask that students read two books this summer. The first is this year’s All-School Read, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun. You may explore this study guide before, during, or after your reading for supplementary materials, background information, and guiding questions.
Your second summer reading assignment is sorted by grade level (see below). The English Department has chosen a book for each grade level that we think will inform the rich variety of other texts you will encounter in your English courses this coming school year. After reading these texts independently over the summer, you will have an opportunity to discuss your discoveries in your English classrooms and throughout campus.
There will likely be moments of real joy and contemplation as we read, as well as encounters with language that may unsettle or even offend us. Navigating such encounters is essential, and should we find ourselves in such a moment, we (and the works themselves) may be best served by considering the context of the vexing material: Does the author use it disparagingly or gratuitously? How do the language and the events described serve the work as a whole? How might we present these thoughts to classmates during an open discussion? We offer such questions as ways to help us all make the most of our summer reading and to begin what soon becomes a shared communal inquiry in the fall.
At the close of what we hope is a restful and reinvigorating summer, you will be asked to speak and write about the works you have explored and to share your reactions and reflections with others. We aim to establish class atmospheres of respectful rapport and curiosity, and our words about the readings and viewings we each select over the summer are the first steps to that end.
Sincerely,
Michelle Repass
Head of the English Department
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