10th Grade Required Reading List

A week ago, I made my 9th Grade Required Reading List. Here is my 10th grade.

Kate Chopin

 Short Stories Unit 

In my 9th Grade Required Reading List, I mentioned I adore short stories, I especially loved the ones my English teacher had us read! We actually read a few dystopian type short stories (There Will Come Soft Rains, By the Waters of Babylon) and I think I should really read some dystopian YA books because the short stories were awesome!

I think my favorite short story we read was Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Short book, but so emotional and so very good! Here is my review of NIGHT.

The theme for this unit was tolerance and we also had to make a powerpoint

 The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

This wasn't actually a really serious unit. We read the play and took a test over it and then watched the movie.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

I'm really involved in theatre and have seen this play at a theatre convention (although I did fall asleep but it was a really good performance!) and I knew what it was about somewhat.

I really can't remember how I did on this book. I think I did okay. So yeah..

 Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This is definitely one of those books that I would've never picked up on my own. In fact this is one of those books that I thought I was going to have to spark note because I wasn't going to finish in time (I'm horrible with required reading, I know) because it is also rather lengthy. Even though, I only caught up right before the test, I still finished it on time. I loved the ending to this book!

Here is my review. Oh, and I did fantastic on the major test! SCORE!

 Poetry Unit

I didn't like the choices of the poems this time. Like last year, Mrs. C had us each  read about 2 poems each that she had already chose and give the class information about the poet and stuff.

I chose to read Sonnet 18 from Shakespeare and The Waking by Theodore Roethke, both of which I really liked! Also, we had to right a couple of poems like last year but only 5 this year. I wrote about feminism, running, fear of mirrors and two others that I can't exactly remember. Our teacher picked the overall themes.



The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I knew even before I picked this book up that I was going to have trouble with this one.

I mean, I liked the first page, and I actually did like the dialogue (once you start reading it it's not so bad and I did find it kind of funny) but I don't know. We read this in the middle of soccer season. And soccer just happens to have to really far away and long games. Not a good combination if I want to get reading done.

I don't know what is wrong with me. I didn't do so good on the test. I got a freakin' C! I will go back in read this book one day. I hear the ending really makes you think or something.

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

Then, we had our Greek Theatre lesson and read this book. I am really good with theatre, so I knew, pretty much, all of the terms and where to label the things on our stage map we had on our test. Now, the play itself isn't too long. Here's what happened. I was gone for about 4 days (which is pretty much the time we had to read the play) and my teacher told me that I would have no problem with what I had read over the weekend and I only needed to study a couple of other things.

I didn't do too horrible on the test but I definitely would've done better had a read the play. Ah, I think I'll finish it up one day and read Antigone, the next play in the trilogy.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ One thing that we also did that we didn't do freshman year was have weekly test over hard vocabulary words. But it was kinda easy for me. In some ways I feel that this year was easier than freshman year, except for Huck Finn! UGH! 

Also, Sophomore year I was in APUSH– AP US History and we were required to read a book each quarter and to be honest, all of them for the most part were books that I would've never even thought about reading. Here's what I picked:

• 1776

• Uncle Tom's Cabin 

• The Jungle

• On The Road 

I am a terrible, terrible student, lemme tell you. I am just damn horrible. These history books were basically sparknoted. Although, I did like On The Road and will be buying it soon, so I can actually read the whole thing. The Jungle wasn't too bad (gross but not bad). Uncle Tom's Cabin was just okay and 1776...Well, I don't even know why I chose to read it. 

I AM NOT READY FOR ENLIGH 11 HONORS THIS YEAR! Well, actually it's called composition/American literature. Books such as The Crucible, The Scarlet Letter, Cold Mountain are on our reading list. 

School starts tomorrow. YIKES! 

I will be a better student this year. I will get all A's. *repeats mantra*