• Classical High School Summer Reading 2022

    Each student must complete the summer reading assignments for all English, social studies, and world language courses listed that they will be attending in the fall. 

     

    Click on the book title to find books at the Rhode Island Public Libraries and Classical High School Library. You can use your RI Library Card at all Public Libraries and to access ebooks and audiobooks online. Apply for a Public library card here. Summer Reading books checked out in June at the Classical High School Library have an extended checkout time and are not due until Friday, September 9, 2022.

    PDF Copy Available HERE

  • English I: Grade 9

    Read one book.  Book test given by English teacher during first two weeks of school, counted in first quarter average.

  • Catcher in the Rye by  J. D. Salinger

    Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

    1951 classic novel follows 2 days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school. Confused and disillusioned, Holden searches for truth and rails against the “phoniness” of the adult world.

    Comments (-1)
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

    Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog.

    Comments (-1)
  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

    Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

    Talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, are united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

    Comments (-1)
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

    Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

    A novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator.

    Comments (-1)
  • English II & English II Honors: Grade 10

    Read one book. Book test given by English teacher during first two weeks of school, counted in first quarter average.

  • The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

    The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

    The "dew breaker" is a quiet man, a good father and husband. As the book switches between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City present day, the reader learns that the dew breaker has kept a vital, dangerous secret.

    Comments (-1)
  • In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

    In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

    Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, 3 young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.

    Comments (-1)
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

    Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

    A novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator.

    Comments (-1)
  • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

    Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

    On his journey to seek spiritual fulfillment and wisdom, Siddhartha experiences life’s vital passages–love, work, friendship, and fatherhood-- and discovers that true knowledge is guided from within.

    Comments (-1)
  • English III: Grade 11 

    Read one book. Book test given by English teacher during first two weeks of school, counted in first quarter average.

  • Black Boy by Richard Wright

    Black Boy by Richard Wright

    Richard Wright's powerful account of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South.

    Comments (-1)
  • Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

    Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

    Bethia is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha’s vineyard in the 1660s when she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain. The two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other.

    Comments (-1)
  • I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez.

    I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez.

    Part mystery, part love story, part inner quest. In I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, the vibrant teen protagonist struggles to prove who she is not, and in that journey, discovers who she is: stronger, braver, more worthy of loving and living than she ever imagined.

    Comments (-1)
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

    Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

    A novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator.

    Comments (-1)
  • AP Language and Composition Grade 11

    Read one book.  Book test given by English teacher during first two weeks of school, counted in first quarter average.

  • English IV: Grade 12

    Read one book. Book test given by English teacher during first two weeks of school, counted in first quarter average.

  • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    "A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected

    Comments (-1)
  • Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

    Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

    Memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages.

    Comments (-1)
  • Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

    Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

    Author Jacqueline Woodson, tells the story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.

    Comments (-1)
  • Sooley by John Grisham

    Sooley by John Grisham

    After seventeen-year-old Samuel "Sooley" Sooleymon receives a college scholarship to play basketball for North Carolina Central, he moves to Durham from his native, war-torn South Sudan, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season, but Sooley has a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America, working tirelessly on his game until he dominates everyone in practice, and when Sooley is called off the bench, the legend begins.

    Comments (-1)
  • AP Literature and Composition: Grade 12

    Read one book.  Book test given by English teacher during first two weeks of school, counted in first quarter average.

  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

    All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

    A blind French girl and a German boy paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

    Comments (-1)
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison

    Beloved by Toni Morrison

    After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved." Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things begin to happen. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, Beloved is a profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath.

    Comments (-1)
  • Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

    Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

    With wit and dark humor, Atwood projects a conceivable future of the world, an outlandish yet wholly believable place left devastated in the wake of ecological and scientific disaster

    Comments (-1)
  • AP U.S. Government

    Read book. Social studies teacher gives test or essay assessment within the first month of school. Grade is counted in first quarter average.

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding

    At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of boys. At first, their freedom is something to celebrate. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued

    Comments (-1)
  • AP European History

    Students can select from multiple titles posted on the CHS website. Read one of the titles posted. Social Studies teacher gives an analysis essay test in the first week of school. Grade counted in the first quarter average.

     

  • Psychology and AP Psychology

    Read book. Social studies teacher gives test or essay assessment within the first month of school. Grade is counted in first quarter average.

  • AP U.S. History

    Primary Source Document Analysis and Text Reading

    Follow Assignment and documents here. Assignments to be completed prior to the start of school and will count towards first quarter average.

     

    Law and Society

    Read book. Social studies teacher gives test or essay assessment within the first month of school. Grade is counted in first quarter average.

  • The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

    The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

    Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws, the system that once forced African Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts America, the US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and an entire segment of the population is deprived of their basic rights. Outside of prisons, a web of laws and regulations discriminates against these wrongly convicted ex-offenders in voting, housing, employment and education. Alexander here offers an urgent call for justice.

    Comments (-1)
  • Spanish IV AP Spanish Language

    “Continuidad de los parques” by Julio Cortázar (Not available at local Libraries)

    Packets will be distributed in June, but all works can be found on Google in Spanish and English. An assessment will follow in mid-September.

     

    Spanish V AP Culture and Literature

    Packets will be distributed in June, but all works can be found on Google in Spanish and English. An assessment will follow in mid-September.

  • La Casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca

    La Casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca

    Completed only two months before the playwright's murder in 1936, this play was first performed in 1945. It focuses on a household in Andalusia in a period of mourning. The title character, Bernarda Alba, is in control of both the household and her five daughters.

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