Dear Freshmen,

Congratulations on your acceptance to the Yeshivah of Flatbush; we look forward to working with you in September. We wish to have our incoming freshmen enjoy the summer and also use their vacation time productively. Therefore, over the summer, all freshmen are required to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and complete the required assignment. Your assignment is due on the first day back at school. We also encourage you to read additional books from the recommended reading list.

Please remember you need not like or agree with everything you read. Sometimes a book that provokes dissent is as stimulating as a book that echoes our own thoughts. Our hope is that your summer reading will engage your minds, stimulate thought and help you to clarify and become more comfortable with your individual and unique perspectives on life.

Best wishes for a healthy and productive summer.

Sincerely,

Mica Bloom English Department Chair

mbloom_te@flatbush.org

FRESHMEN 2015/5775

FRESHMEN 2015/5775

Caught Between Two Worlds

Summer Homework for Incoming Freshmen

Part 1: Read the novel Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

Part 2: At various points in the novel, both Henry and Keiko discuss feeling uncomfortable and/or unwelcome in two sepa-rate communities at once, not American enough to be accept-ed by their schoolmates but too American to be accepted by those from their parents’ native country.

Choose one of the two characters (Henry or Keiko). In a brief but coherent essay no longer than 500 words, (A) use details from the novel to discuss how and why your chosen character feels caught between two worlds. (B) Then relate the charac-ter’s experience to your own life and a time or situation in which you felt caught between two worlds, identifying with both but not fully accepted in either one. Your two worlds can be physical or political like Henry’s and Keiko’s, or they can be academic, religious, familial, finan-cial, intellectual, etc.

Note: No more than half of your essay can be devoted to your discussion of your own life.

FRESHMEN 2015/5775

Rubric for Summer Assignment

5 (A) 4 (B) 3 (C) 2 (D) 1 (F)

Focus

Establishes and maintains a clear purpose

Maintains a clear purpose but occa-sionally falters in keeping a single

Shows uncertain-ty about task and audience; con-fused purpose

Has no clear pur-pose; varies in point of view

Unacceptable/

Illegible

Content

Shows sophisticat-ed thinking and ideas

Shows some sophis-ticated thought

Presents under-developed ideas and little sophisti-cated thought;

Very under-developed ideas; Shows little awareness of the audience’s needs; does not

Unacceptable/

Illegible

Organization

Maintains logical sequence and or-der; use of logical transitions; strong intro, middle, and

Maintains a reason-able or-sequence; offers adequate introduc-tion and conclusion

Inconsistent order and sequence in paper; jumbled intro, middle, and end

Shows difficulty in use of transi-tions; offers no obvious introduc-tion or conclusion

Unacceptable/

Illegible

Style

Use of strong, precise language; thoughtful word choice; consistent voice and tone

Shows fairly precise language use; ade-quate word choice; somewhat incon-sistent voice and tone

Little precision in language use; little originality in word choice; in-consistent voice and tone

Inappropriate word choices; inconsistent voice and tone

Unacceptable/

Illegible

Conventions

Exhibits few, if any, errors in spelling, punctua-tion, and capitali-zation; no unnec-essary fragments, no run-ons

One to three errors in spelling, punctua-tion, and capitaliza-tion; some errors with fragments and run-ons

Three to six er-rors in spelling, punctuation, and capitalization; many errors with fragments and run-ons

Excessive errors in spelling, punc-tuation, and capi-talization; errors interfere with reader’s under-standing

Unacceptable/

Illegible

Total Score: __________ / 25