JULIUS WEST MIDDLE SCHOOL 651 Great Falls Road, Rockville, Maryland 20850

Telephone 301-279-3979 FAX 301-517-8216

Nanette W. Poirier, Principal Frank G. Soo Hoo, Assistant School Administrator

Craig W. Staton, Assistant Principal Nancy C. Deprey, IB MYP Coordinator

H. Dudley Davidson, Assistant Principal

7th Grade Summer Reading 2012 Reading opens the world through various forms of literature and is essential in civic and personal activities. By reading, students have the opportunity to learn about people, times, regions, and ideas that may enhance their knowledge and development. Reading also can bring a lifetime of pleasure and mental acuity. Research strongly suggests that reading, like most skills, improves with practice and decreases when one does not engage in it for even a short time. Therefore, consistent with our commitment to prepare all students for success during school and after graduation, we continue to encourage all students to read during the summer. This summer Julius West students will engage in reading in two ways.

o First, as always students should read fiction or nonfiction books of their own choice. If a student needs help in finding a great book to read, they should check out the following website: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/readinglists/. Included in this packet, is a page where students may record and rate the books they read. A student who reads more than five books this summer will receive a special prize upon returning to school in August. We have also included a list of Black-Eyed Susan Award nominees and an explanation of the program at our school.

o Secondly, this packet contains some short selections of text. Students are asked to read and annotate the text* this summer and bring the annotated text when they return to school in August. Students should be prepared to discuss these texts in class.

Have a great summer and happy reading!!!

*See enclosed directions

Close Reading and Annotating the Text

Annotating the text is a strategy that helps students read the text closely and actively. It encourages readers to think and make connections as they read. At the bottom of each page, students are asked to complete one of the following:

ask a question about the story make a connection to your own knowledge or experience make a connection to another text make a comment about the events of the story(plot)

Passage for Close Reading

Example

“It has to belong to somebody,” Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody (Mrs. Price is sure of herself)

can remember. It’s an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar

and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope. It’s (uses strong imagery to describe)

maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn’t say so.

Maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me, that (Does she feel insecure?)

stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, “I think it belongs to Rachel.” An ugly sweater

like that, all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs. Price takes

the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth

nothing comes out.

“That’s not, I don’t, you’re not . . . Not mine,” I finally say in a little

voice that was maybe me when I was four. (She’s shy)

“Of course it’s yours,” Mrs. Price says. “I remember you wearing it

once.” Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.

Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page

thirty-two, and math problem number four. I don’t know why but all of a

sudden I’m feeling sick inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to (I always feel happy

come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my on my birthday)

teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is (she’s sensitive-

making a cake for me tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will feels helpless)

sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.

FROM “Eleven” by Sandra

In an effort to promote reading for pleasure every year Julius West participates in the Black-Eyed

Susan Book Award Program. The Black-Eyed Susan (BES) Program is the Children’s Choice Award

for the State of Maryland. The Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Program, named after Maryland’s

official state flower, is a program sponsored by the Maryland Association of School Librarians to

encourage students to read quality, contemporary literature. Students who have read at least 3 of

the books and have taken quizzes on the books are eligible to vote at a party for their favorite

book in April, in the Julius West Media Center. The results are then sent to the state to be tallied

with the other participants. The winner is announced in May, along with the new titles for the next

year. Copies of the books are available at Montgomery County Public Libraries.

The Black-Eyed Susan Committee of the Maryland Association of

School Librarians is pleased to announce the 2012-2013 nominees.

Grades 6-9 Nominees

Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker - Jefferson's Sons: a Founding Father's Secret Children

Choldenko, Gennifer – No Passengers Beyond This Point

Deuker, Carl – Payback Time

Frost, Helen – Hidden

Gidwitz, Adam – A Tale Dark & Grimm

LeFleur, Suzanne M. - Eight Keys

Leonard, Julia Platt - Cold Case

Meloy, Maile – The Apothecary

Schmatz, Pat - Bluefish

Schmidt, Gary – Okay for Now

Seventh Grade”

Gary Soto

In Baseball in April and Other Stories (1990)

On the first day of school, Victor stood in line half an hour before

he came to a wobbly card table. He was handed a packet of

papers and a computer card on which he listed his one elective,

French. He already spoke Spanish and English, but he thought some

day he might travel to France, where it was cool; not like Fresno,

where summer days reached 110 degrees in the shade. There were

rivers in Prance, and huge churches, and fair-skinned people

everywhere, the way there were brown people all around Victor

Besides, Teresa, a girl he had liked since they were in catechism

classes at Saint Theresa‟s, was taking French, too. With any luck they

would be in the same class. Teresa is going to be my girl this year,

he promised himself as he left the gym full of students in their new

fall clothes. She was cute. And good in math, too, Victor thought as

he walked down the hall to his homeroom. He ran into his friend,

Michael Torres, by the water fountain that never turned off.

They shook hands, raza-style, and jerked their heads at one

another in a saludo de vato. “How come you‟re making a face?”

asked Victor.

“I ain‟t making a face, ese. This is my face.” Michael said his face

had changed during the summer. He had read a GQ magazine

that his older brother had borrowed from the Book Mobile and

noticed that the male models all had the same look on their faces.

They would stand, one arm around a beautiful woman, and scowl.

They would sit at the pool, their rippled stomachs dark with shadow,

and scowl. They would sit at dinner tables, cool drinks in their hands,

and scowl,

“I think it works,” Michael said. He scowled and let his upper lip

quiver. His teeth showed along with the ferocity of his soul. “Belinda

Reyes walked by a while ago and looked at me,” he said.

Victor didn‟t say anything, though he thought his friend looked

pretty strange. They talked about recent movies, baseball, their

parents, and the horrors of picking grapes in order to buy their fall

clothes. Picking grapes was like living in Siberia, except hot and

more boring.

“What classes are you taking?” Michael said, scowling.

“French. How „bout you?”

“Spanish. L ain‟t so good at it, even if I‟m Mexican."

“I‟m not either, but I‟m better at it than math, that‟s for sure.”

A tiny, three-beat bell propelled students to their homerooms.

The two friends socked each other in the arm and went their ways,

Victor thinking, man, that‟s weird. Michael thinks making a face

makes him handsome.

On the way to his homeroom, Victor tried a scowl. He felt foolish,

until out of the corner of his eye he saw a girl looking at hint Umm,

he thought, maybe it does work. He scowled with greater

conviction.

In the homeroom, roll was taken, emergency cards were passed

out, and they were given a bulletin to take home to their parents.

The principal, Mr. Belton, spoke over the crackling loudspeaker,

welcoming the students to a new year, new experiences, and new

friendships. The students squirmed in their chairs and ignored him,

they were anxious to go to first period. Victor sat calmly, thinking of

Teresa, who sat two rows away, reading a paperback novel. This

would be his lucky year. She was in his homeroom, and would

probably be in his English and math classes. And, of course, French.

The bell rang for first period, and the students herded noisily

through the door. Only Teresa lingered, talking with the homeroom

teacher.

“So you think I should talk to Mrs. Gaines?” she asked the

teacher. “She would know about ballet?”

“She would be a good bet,” the teacher said. Then added, “Or

the gym teacher, Mrs. Garza."

Victor lingered, keeping his head down and staring at his desk.

He wanted to leave when she did so he could bump into her and

say something clever.

He watched her on the sly. As she turned to leave, he stood up

and hurried to the door, where he managed to catch her eye. She

smiled and said, “Hi, Victor."

He smiled back and said, “Yeah, that's me.” His brown face

blushed. Why hadn‟t he said, “Hi, Teresa,” or "How was your

summer?” or something nice.

As Teresa walked down the hall, Victor walked the other way,

looking back, admiring how gracefully she walked, one foot in front

of the other. So much for being in the same class, he thought. As he

trudged to English, he practiced scowling.

In English they reviewed the parts of speech. Mr. Lucas, a portly

man, waddled down the aisle, asking, “What is a noun?”

“A person, place, or thing,” said the class in unison.

Yes, now somebody give mean example of a person--you, Victor

Rodriguez.”

"Teresa,” Victor said automatically. Some of the girls giggled.

They knew he had a crush on Teresa. He felt himself blushing again.

“Correct,” Mr. Lucas said. “Now provide me with a place.”

Mr. Lucas called on a freckled kid who answered, “Teresa‟s

house with a kitchen full of big brothers.”

After English, Victor had math, his weakest subject. He sat in the

back by the window, hoping that he would not be called on. Victor

understood most of the problems, but some of the stuff looked like

the teacher made it up as she went along. It was confusing, like the

inside of a watch.

After math he had a fifteen-minute break, then social studies,

and finally lunch. He bought a tuna casserole with buttered rolls,

some fruit cocktail, and milk. He sat with Michael, who practiced

scowling between bites,

Girls walked by and looked at him, “See what I mean, Vic?”

Michael scowled. "They love it.”

Yeah, I guess so.

They ate slowly, Victor scanning the horizon for a glimpse of

Teresa. He didn‟t see her. She must have brought lunch, he thought,

and is eating outside. Victor scraped his plate and left Michael, who

was busy scowling at a girl two tables away.

The small, triangle-shaped campus bustled with students talking

about their new classes. Everyone was in a sunny mood. Victor

hurried to the bag lunch area, where he sat down and opened his

math book. He moved his lips as if he were reading, but his mind

was somewhere else. He raised his eyes slowly and looked around.

No Teresa.

He lowered his eyes, pretending to study, then looked slowly to

the left. No Teresa. He turned a page in the book and stared at

some math problems that scared him because he knew he would

have to do them eventually. He looked at the right. Still no sign of

her. He stretched out lazily in an attempt to disguise his snooping.

Then he saw her. She was sitting with a girlfriend under a plum

tree. Victor moved to a table near her and daydreamed about

taking her to a movie. When the bell sounded, Teresa looked up,

and their eyes met. She smiled sweetly and gathered her books. Her

next class was French, same as Victor‟s.

They were among the last students to arrive in class, so all the

good desks in the back had already been taken. Victor was forced

to sit near the front, a few desks away from Teresa, while Mr. Bueller

wrote French words on the chalkboard. The bell rang, and Mr.

Bueller wiped his hands, turned to the class, and said, “Bonjour.”

“Bonjour,” braved a few students.

“Bonjour” Victor whispered. He wondered if Teresa heard him.

Mr. Bueller said that if the students studied hard, at the end of the

year they could go to France and be understood by the populace.

One kid raised his hand and asked, “„What‟s „populace‟?”

"The people, the people of France.”

Mr. Bueller asked if anyone knew French. Victor raised his hand,

wanting to impress Teresa. The teacher beamed and said, “Tres

bien. Parlez-vous francais?”

Victor didn‟t know what to say. The teacher wet his lips and

asked something else in French. The room grew silent. Victor felt all

eyes staring at him. He tried to bluff his way out by making noises

that sounded French.

“La me vave me con le grandma,” he said uncertainly.

Mr. Bueller, wrinkling his face in curiosity, asked him to speak up.

Great rosebushes of red bloomed on Victor‟s cheeks. A river of

nervous sweat ran down his palms. He felt awful. Teresa sat a few

desks away, no doubt thinking he was a fool. Without looking at Mr.

Bueller, Victor mumbled, „Frenchie oh wewe gee in September.”

Mr. Bueller asked Victor to repeat what he said.

“Frenchie oh wewe gee in September," Victor repeated.

Mr. Bueller understood that the boy didn‟t know French and

turned away. He walked to the blackboard and pointed to the

words on the board with his steel-edged ruler.

"Le bateau,” he sang.

“Le bateau,” the students repeated.

"Le bateau est sur l’eau,” he sang.

“Le bateau est sur l’eau.”

Victor was too weak from failure to join the class. He stared at

the board and wished he had taken Spanish, not French. Better yet,

he wished he could start his life over. He had never been so

embarrassed. He bit his thumb until he tore off a sliver of skin.

The bell sounded for fifth period, and Victor shot out of the room,

avoiding the stares of the other kids, but had to return for his math

book. He looked sheepishly at the teacher, who was erasing the

board, then widened his eyes in terror at Teresa who stood in front

of him. “I didn‟t know you knew French,”she said. “That was good.”

Mr. Bueller looked at Victor, and Victor looked back. Oh please,

don‟t say anything, Victor pleaded with his eyes. I‟ll wash your car,

mow your lawn, walk your dog--anything! I'll be your best student,

and I‟ll clean your erasers after school.

Mr. Bueller shuffled through the papers on his desk, He smiled and

hummed as he sat down to work. He remembered his college years

when he dated a girlfri0end in borrowed cars. She thought he was

rich because each time he picked her up he had a different car. It

was fun until he had spent all his money on her and had to write

home to his parents because he was broke.

Victor couldn‟t stand to look at Teresa. He was sweaty with

shame. “Yeah, well, I picked up a few things from movies and books

and stuff like that.” They left the class together. Teresa asked him if

he would help her with her French.

"Sure, anytime,” Victor said.

“I won‟t be bothering you, will I?”

"Oh no, I like being bothered.”

“Bonjour,”Teresa said, leaving him outside her next class. She

smiled and pushed wisps of hair from her face.

"Yeah, right, bonjour,” Victor said. He turned and headed to his

class. The rosebuds of shame on his face became bouquets of love.

Teresa is a great girl, he thought. And Mr. Bueller is a good guy.

He raced to metal shop. After metal shop there was biology, and

after biology a long sprint to the public library, where he checked

out three French textbooks.

He was going to like seventh grade.

Benjamin Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan. His mother Sonya had dropped out of school in

the third grade, and married when she was only 13. When Benjamin Carson was only eight, his

parents divorced, and Mrs. Carson was left to raise Benjamin and his older brother Curtis on her

own. She worked at two, sometimes three, jobs at a time to provide for her boys.

Benjamin and his brother fell farther and farther behind in school. In fifth grade, Carson was at

the bottom of his class. His classmates called him "dummy" and he developed a violent,

uncontrollable temper.

When Mrs. Carson saw Benjamin's failing grades, she determined to

turn her sons' lives around. She sharply limited the boys' television

watching and refused to let them outside to play until they had finished

their homework each day. She required them to read two library books

a week and to give her written reports on their reading even though,

with her own poor education, she could barely read what they had

written.

Within a few weeks, Carson astonished his classmates by identifying

rock samples his teacher had brought to class. He recognized them from

one of the books he had read. "It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't stupid," he recalled

later. Carson continued to amaze his classmates with his newfound knowledge and within a year

he was at the top of his class.

The hunger for knowledge had taken hold of him, and he began to read voraciously on all

subjects. He determined to become a physician, and he learned to control the violent temper that

still threatened his future. After graduating with honors from his high school, he attended Yale

University, where he earned a degree in Psychology.

From Yale, he went to the Medical School of the University of Michigan, where his interest

shifted from psychiatry to neurosurgery. His excellent hand-eye coordination and three-

dimensional reasoning skills made him a superior surgeon. After medical school he became a

neurosurgery resident at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At age 32, he

became the hospital's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery.

In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins. The

Binder twins were born joined at the back of the head. Operations to separate twins joined in this

way had always failed, resulting in the death of one or both of the infants. Carson agreed to

undertake the operation. A 70-member surgical team, led by Dr. Carson, worked for 22 hours. At

the end, the twins were successfully separated and can now survive independently.

Carson's other surgical innovations have included the first intra-uterine procedure to relieve

pressure on the brain of a hydrocephalic fetal twin, and a hemispherectomy, in which an infant

suffering from uncontrollable seizures has half of its brain removed. This stops the seizures, and

the remaining half of the brain actually compensates for the

missing hemisphere.

In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Carson is in constant

demand as a public speaker, and devotes much of his time to

meeting with groups of young people. In 2008, the White

House announced that Benjamin Carson would receive the

Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian

honor.

Dr. Carson's books include a memoir, Gifted Hands, and a

motivational book, Think Big.

Benjamin Carson Interview

Pediatric Neurosurgeon June 7, 2002 Dublin, Ireland

(Dr. Benjamin S. Carson was first interviewed by the Academy of Achievement on June 29, 1996 in Sun Valley,

Idaho, and again on June 7, 2002 in Dublin, Ireland. The following transcript draws on both interviews.)

1. People often speak of brain surgery as the epitome of something difficult and hard to .

When did you have the first notion you wanted to do this?

Benjamin Carson: Medicine has always been the only career that I considered, but the

aspect of medicine changed. It went from missionary doctor to psychiatrist and then I

toyed for a while with the idea of being a cardiovascular surgeon. But, as I began in

medical school -- toward the end of my first year -- to realize that I really didn't want

to do psychiatry, and I felt that although cardiothoracic surgery was challenging, that

it didn't offer me enough variety of cases. And then I said, "Well, what's an area

where you could become an authority very quickly?" and I said, "The brain, because

nobody knows anything about the brain." And, I spent all those years thinking I was

going to be a psychiatrist. So, I already knew quite a lot about the brain. So, it was

toward the end of my first year in medical school that I decided that neurosurgery was

going to be the right field for me

2. You say you never really considered anything other than medicine. You must have been a very

serious student, to get into medical school.

Benjamin Carson: I was not a serious student at all. In fact, I was a horrible student.

But, you know, like many students, I kind of envisioned myself as a doctor anyway,

despite the fact that I wasn't doing well. I can remember we used to sit in the hallways

at Detroit City Hospital or Boston City Hospital for hours and hours because we were

on medical assistance, which meant we had to wait until one of the interns or

residents was free to see us, and I didn't mind at all because I was in the hospital.

And, I was listening to the PA system. "Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones to the emergency room,"

just sounded so fabulous. And I would be saying, "They're going to be saying 'Dr.

Carson' one day." But, of course we have beepers now. But nevertheless, it was just

wonderful to have that dream and to imagine myself in that setting.

3. It was perhaps unrealistic, because...

Benjamin Carson: We lived in the inner city, single parent home, dire poverty, my

mother only had a third grade education. I was perhaps the worst student you've ever

seen. I thought I was really stupid. All my classmates and teachers agreed, and my

nickname was "Dummy." But, fortunately I continued to hold onto that dream and,

you know, when I was in the fifth grade, my mother put us on this reading program

and said we had to read two books a piece from the Detroit Public Library and submit

to her written book reports, which she couldn't read, but we didn't know that, and

she'd put a little check mark on them and act like she was reading them

4. So she actually could not read

Benjamin Carson: She couldn't read, no. She only had a third grade education, but she

was horrified when she saw my report card at mid-term in the fifth grade. I was failing

almost every subject. She knew what a difficult life she had, having only a third grade

education, trying to raise two young sons in the inner city, with no resources. She saw me

heading down the same path, and my brother as well. She just didn't know what to do.

She prayed for wisdom and came up with this idea of turning off the television set and

letting us watch only two to three pre-selected TV programs during the week. I was

considerably less than enthusiastic about this program, as you might imagine. We had to

stay in the house and read these books and our friends were outside and they were

playing and they knew we couldn't come out. It seems like they would be making just

that much more noise to torment us. But, I hated it for the first several weeks, but then all

of a sudden, I started to enjoy it because we had no money, but between the covers of

those books, I could go anyplace, I could be anybody, I could do anything. And, I began

to learn how to use my imagination more because it doesn't really require a lot of

imagination to watch television, but it does to read. You've got to take those letters and

make them into words, and those words into sentences, and those sentences into concepts,

and the more you do that, the more vivid your imagination becomes. And, I believe that's

probably one of the reasons that you see that creative people tend to be readers, because

they're exercising their mind.

5. A lot of people say, "I can learn everything I need to know. I can watch this video or I

can watch this DVD," or what have you, but that's like saying you can develop your

muscles by watching somebody else lift weights. You have to actually exercise your

mind in order to get it to be active and to get it to be creative and reading is a tremendous

way to do that.

Benjamin Carson: I was reading about people in laboratories, pouring chemicals from a

beaker into a flask and watching the steam rise, and completing electrical circuits, and

discovering galaxies, and looking at microcosms in the microscope, and I just acquired so

much knowledge, and I had put myself into those settings and I saw myself differently

than everybody else in my environment who just wanted to get out of school so they

could get some cool clothes and a cool car. And, I was looking down the pike and seeing

myself as a scientist or a physician or something of that nature, and that was one of the

things that sort of carried me through much of the ridicule and some of the hardships that

a person would have to go through coming from my environment and going to medical

school.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/car1bio-1

Name: _____________

Books I Read Summer 2012

Title of book Rating Okay

Awesome

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Please note there is not a required amount of books