Dear Incoming Ninth Grader, 

Welcome to SLA! Before coming to school in September we'd like you to read one of three books:The House of the Scorpion (Nancy Farmer), The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), or Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card). 

While you may get the book from the library, we strongly suggest that you purchase your choice text, as we will be using it in English classes in September.  Of course, feel free to read more than one title!  They are all so great!

Below are some questions to help you navigate your novel and help you prepare to discuss it with your classmates and teachers. As you may already know, SLA utilizes guiding questions that help focus our studies and make learning more meaningful for us all.

As you read, think about the following larger questions as they apply to the characters,action, conflicts, and resolutions in your choice text and also as they apply to your life. Part of active reading includes some writing. Prepare to hand in a journal consisting of at least eight entries, each one longer than a half page.  Before you write, consider the following questions to explore in your journal. Include your own personal responses to these questions, and how these questions might apply to your choice text. This will be collected in September.

• What is family?
• What is the power of friendship?
• What does it mean to be a caregiver/mother/father?
• What is education and where can it exist?
• What is love?
• How does a person become evil?
• In what ways can the line between good and evil be blurred?
• How do you justify the idea that a person can be both good and evil at the same time?
• Who is a survivor? Why?
• What does it mean to be human?
• How can children create their own paths in a world run by the adults?