Independent Reading / Outside Reading
(You can download a MS Word document of this assignment here.)
ASSIGNMENT: Every weekend throughout the year – except during designated Homework-free Weekends and other special circumstances – students will be expected to read at least twenty-five minutes in an independent reading book and also provide page details of their reading. Three things to do after reading: 1) integrate a quotation in a comment about the reading’s critical or personal significance; 2) write a sentence related to a recent grammar lesson and to your reading (if possible); and 3) write one or two sentences that use recently-studied vocabulary words and are related (creatively perhaps) to your reading.
A full-credit homework grade is given if the assignment shows full effort—that is, all components, regardless of their correctness, are earnestly completed. Feel free to read your 25 minutes during the school week also. Feel free to read for more than 25 minutes, too; I hope you will.
Usually, I will ask you to share what you read and wrote with a classmate on the day the assignment is due.
1. 25 minutes (at least) of weekend independent reading
2. WRITTEN RESPONSE
A. HEADING - Please be sure that the following are written down at the top of the entry:
- Name
- Date Entry is Due EXAMPLE HEADING:
- Book title & Author Joel Stembridge
- Page Numbers read since the last entry 9/10/12
(during the week or weekend), with total Divergent by Veronica Roth
number of pages in parentheses Pages read – pp.52-80 (28)
B. CONTENT:
1. Integrated Quotation. Write two or three sentences in which you integrate a meaningful quotation—or a small section from the quotation, or just a phrase—from your reading with a comment about either its significance to your reading or your personal response to it.
2. Grammar/Style Practice. Write one sentence that uses an example of any of the grammar emphasized during recent study period. This doesn’t have to be related to your reading—but try to, if you can. If we haven’t studied grammar or style yet, try out some grammar that gave you trouble in the past.
3. Vocabulary Application. Write two sentences with two vocabulary words that are related to your reading. Any loose connection is fine; the goal is make meaningful use of the recently learned vocabulary words.
You should bring a hard copy to class on the day it is due, and you should also keep a copy of it in your school Google Drive account. (More on this later.)
Need book suggestions?
Here are some resources from the Newton South Library website -
nshslibrary.newton.k12.ma.us
NSHS Book Blog – www.NSHSBookBlog.wordpress.com
Book Seer – www.BookSeer.com
What Should I Read Next – www.WhatShouldIReadNext.com
Books & Authors – bna.galegroup.com/bna/
You are welcome to read a book that a classmate, librarian, counselor, parent, or teacher suggests. If you have any questions, come see Mr. Kaplan.
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (EXAMPLE)
Joel Stembridge
9/10/12
The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore
Pages Read: 85-107 (22 pages)
1. Integrated Quotation. The day after Wes returns to the military school after trying to run away, he notices and appreciates the respect the younger cadets give to their nineteen-year-old Cadet Captain, Ty Hill. Wes writes that he “had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much respect from his people” (96) and continues that this “was real respect, the kind you can’t beat or scare out of people” (96). Here is the moment that Wes seems to decide that he wants to be this kind of person, which reveals the importance of a role model not only in Wes’s life, but in anyone’s.
2. Grammar/Style: Punctuation—Write a sentence that uses commas to separate items in a series (Rule #1). Prisoner Wes fell into the dangerous drug business at a very early age, then became a parent when he was still a teen, and later earned too little money with various jobs after his Job Corps training, which seemed to lead to the circumstances that eventually brought him to jail.
3. Vocabulary: EXORCISE, ARDUOUS
a. Author Wes may have exorcised his fear of heights by jumping out of an airplane at two-thousand feet.
b. Prisoner Wes’s arduous journey growing up ended unfortunately with a life-sentence in prison for his involvement in a robbery and
the killing of a Baltimore police officer.
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (TEMPLATE)
Name:
Due Date:
Book Title & Author:
Pages Read:
1. Quotation Sandwich. (CONTEXT—BACKGROUND INFO)
(QUOTATION—INTEGRATED INTO THE DISCUSSION; CITE THE PAGE NUMBER)
(ANALYSIS / SIGNIFICANCE—WHY THE QUOTATION’S IMPORTANT)
2. Grammar/Style: ASSIGNMENT
SENTENCE(S):
3. Vocabulary: WORDS—
a.
b.
ASSIGNMENT: Every weekend throughout the year – except during designated Homework-free Weekends and other special circumstances – students will be expected to read at least twenty-five minutes in an independent reading book and also provide page details of their reading. Three things to do after reading: 1) integrate a quotation in a comment about the reading’s critical or personal significance; 2) write a sentence related to a recent grammar lesson and to your reading (if possible); and 3) write one or two sentences that use recently-studied vocabulary words and are related (creatively perhaps) to your reading.
A full-credit homework grade is given if the assignment shows full effort—that is, all components, regardless of their correctness, are earnestly completed. Feel free to read your 25 minutes during the school week also. Feel free to read for more than 25 minutes, too; I hope you will.
Usually, I will ask you to share what you read and wrote with a classmate on the day the assignment is due.
1. 25 minutes (at least) of weekend independent reading
2. WRITTEN RESPONSE
A. HEADING - Please be sure that the following are written down at the top of the entry:
- Name
- Date Entry is Due EXAMPLE HEADING:
- Book title & Author Joel Stembridge
- Page Numbers read since the last entry 9/10/12
(during the week or weekend), with total Divergent by Veronica Roth
number of pages in parentheses Pages read – pp.52-80 (28)
B. CONTENT:
1. Integrated Quotation. Write two or three sentences in which you integrate a meaningful quotation—or a small section from the quotation, or just a phrase—from your reading with a comment about either its significance to your reading or your personal response to it.
2. Grammar/Style Practice. Write one sentence that uses an example of any of the grammar emphasized during recent study period. This doesn’t have to be related to your reading—but try to, if you can. If we haven’t studied grammar or style yet, try out some grammar that gave you trouble in the past.
3. Vocabulary Application. Write two sentences with two vocabulary words that are related to your reading. Any loose connection is fine; the goal is make meaningful use of the recently learned vocabulary words.
You should bring a hard copy to class on the day it is due, and you should also keep a copy of it in your school Google Drive account. (More on this later.)
Need book suggestions?
Here are some resources from the Newton South Library website -
nshslibrary.newton.k12.ma.us
NSHS Book Blog – www.NSHSBookBlog.wordpress.com
Book Seer – www.BookSeer.com
What Should I Read Next – www.WhatShouldIReadNext.com
Books & Authors – bna.galegroup.com/bna/
You are welcome to read a book that a classmate, librarian, counselor, parent, or teacher suggests. If you have any questions, come see Mr. Kaplan.
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (EXAMPLE)
Joel Stembridge
9/10/12
The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore
Pages Read: 85-107 (22 pages)
1. Integrated Quotation. The day after Wes returns to the military school after trying to run away, he notices and appreciates the respect the younger cadets give to their nineteen-year-old Cadet Captain, Ty Hill. Wes writes that he “had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much respect from his people” (96) and continues that this “was real respect, the kind you can’t beat or scare out of people” (96). Here is the moment that Wes seems to decide that he wants to be this kind of person, which reveals the importance of a role model not only in Wes’s life, but in anyone’s.
2. Grammar/Style: Punctuation—Write a sentence that uses commas to separate items in a series (Rule #1). Prisoner Wes fell into the dangerous drug business at a very early age, then became a parent when he was still a teen, and later earned too little money with various jobs after his Job Corps training, which seemed to lead to the circumstances that eventually brought him to jail.
3. Vocabulary: EXORCISE, ARDUOUS
a. Author Wes may have exorcised his fear of heights by jumping out of an airplane at two-thousand feet.
b. Prisoner Wes’s arduous journey growing up ended unfortunately with a life-sentence in prison for his involvement in a robbery and
the killing of a Baltimore police officer.
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (TEMPLATE)
Name:
Due Date:
Book Title & Author:
Pages Read:
1. Quotation Sandwich. (CONTEXT—BACKGROUND INFO)
(QUOTATION—INTEGRATED INTO THE DISCUSSION; CITE THE PAGE NUMBER)
(ANALYSIS / SIGNIFICANCE—WHY THE QUOTATION’S IMPORTANT)
2. Grammar/Style: ASSIGNMENT
SENTENCE(S):
3. Vocabulary: WORDS—
a.
b.