Dear future 10th graders (and parent/guardians),

My name is Ms. Larson-Long and I will be your 10th grade English teacher for the 2014-2015 school year.

I am ecstatic to welcome you to my classroom and would like to start off by including a few introductory notes about myself. I am originally from Columbus, OH and resided there until I graduated from The Ohio State University with a BA in English. During my undergraduate experience I decided to pursue teaching and upon my culmination, I applied and was accepted to Columbia University (NYC) where I earned my MAT in English Education. I then moved across the country to Los Angeles where I have taught at ESAT since the 2012/2013 school year. I cannot wait to see what the next school year will reveal about my future students as I’ve heard only the best from the 9th grade teachers!

SUMMER READING

In preparation for the first day of school, I have assigned summer reading homework that was passed out during advisory during the final week of the 2013/2014 school year. If you did not receive this packet from your Advisor, please reference the website below. A PDF copy is attached on the homepage.


Here is a brief outline:

ELA 10 / HONORS ELA 10
Required Novel:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz)
ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW:
  1. Read the novel
  2. Answer the questions attached to the Summer Reading Assignment
  3. Be prepared to complete a timed writing during the first week of school (create a flashcard to prepare for this)
*** There are more DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS on the actual assignment document! / Required Novel:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz)
ASSIGNMENT 1 OVERVIEW: SAME AS ELA 10
AND
1 Choice Novel:
Three Cups of Tea (Mortenson)
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (Angelou)
Rocket Boys (Hickam)
The Namesake (Lahiri)
ASSIGNMENT 2 OVERVIEW:
  1. Read the novel
  2. Pick a quote for each designated section for your specific book
  3. Answer one of the 2 question options for each quote selected
*** There are more DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS on the actual assignment document!

[More information included on the back]

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR PARENTS/GUARDIANS

You will notice that for both ELA 10 and Honors ELA 10 I have assigned the same mandatory novel. In order to be transparent and honest with parents and students, I feel as though I should include my justification for assigning this particular work of fiction. After much deliberation and consultation with colleagues, I have selected The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor atMassachusetts Institute of Technology, and fiction editor atBoston Review).

NOVEL DESCRIPTION:
The book chronicles both the life of Oscar Wao, an overweightDominicanboy growing up inPaterson, New Jerseywho is obsessed with science fiction and fantasy novels and with falling in love, as well as the curse (fukú) that has plagued his family for generations.
The middle sections of the novel center on the lives of Oscar's runaway sister, Lola; his mother, Hypatia Belicia Cabral; and his grandfather, Abelard. Full of footnotes, science fiction and fantasy references, comic book analogies, and various Spanish dialects, the novel is also a meditation on story-telling, the Dominican diaspora and identity, masculinity, and oppression.

This book not only won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction[1] in 2008, is has also accumulated the following accolades:

  • Appeared in over thirty-five best-of-the-year book list
  • New Yorkmagazine named it the Best Novel of the Year
  • Timemagazine's Lev Grossman named it #1 of the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, praising it as "a massive, heaving, sparking tragicomedy"
  • Won the National Book Circles Aware
  • Won the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize
  • Won the Dayton Peace Prizein Fiction

While I believe that this story is an important one for your students to read as they prepare for rigorous curriculum in the future, I need you to know that this book deals with issues of poverty, domestic violence, and sex in a frank and often brutal manner, with language that should only be used in an academic classroom setting (any deviance from this will be addressed by the school's administrative team).

If you have reservations about your student reading this novel, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will provide an alternative summer reading assignment for them. I would prefer to have all students reading the same novel together; however, I understand that this may be uncomfortable for some.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please reach out to me at my email address:

Thank you for your continued support as an amazing part of the ESAT community!

Ms. Larson-Long

[1]Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: An award that recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year. Past winners have included such famous authors as, John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath), Ernest Hemmingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea), William Faulkner (The Reivers and A Fable)