Academics

Select at least one book from the list below and read it prior to the first day of school. You may read more than one book from the list, but only one is required.

While reading, select ten quotations that you either connect with on a personal level or allow you to think about your world in a different way. You can highlight these quotations, keep track of them with sticky notes, or write them down in a hand-written document. 

In the first weeks of the school year, your freshman English teacher will ask you to write about this book in class. Therefore, you will need to read this book to gain a full understanding of the plot, characters, and important ideas.  For this assignment, you will be required to bring your book and ten quotations. This assignment will be worth 25 points in the essay/project category of your first quarter grades.

In class, your teacher will ask you to reflect on ideas similar to the following question: Choose one character from your summer reading book. What can readers learn from that character's journey and how can you apply it to your own life as you embark on your high school journey?

Book Options for Incoming Freshmen:

Select at least one book from the list below and read it prior to the first day of school. You may read more than one book from the list, but only one is required. While you read, annotate your book to track your thinking.  

In the first weeks of the school year, your sophomore English teacher will ask you to write about this book in class. Therefore, you will need to read this book to gain a full understanding of the plot, characters, and important ideas. For this assignment, you will be required to bring both your book and annotations on the first day of class. This assignment will be worth 25 points in the essay/project category of your first quarter grades. 

For your annotations, you can mark in your book (if it belongs to you), keep track of them with sticky notes, or write them down in a hand-written document. This document may not be typed. Use the thematic questions below to guide your annotations while reading. 

In class, your teacher will ask you to reflect on one the following questions, all of which are thematic questions from each unit of English 2: 

• What has this work taught you about portrayals of fear?
• What have you learned about the nature of being an outsider from this work?
• What has this work taught you about power and freedom?
• What have you learned about greed and/or materialism from this work?
• What have you learned about forgiveness from this work?
• What have you learned about seeing and knowing from this work?

Book Options for Incoming Sophomores:

Please Note: This assignment is to be completed for your Social Studies course. Please direct all questions to the Social Studies Department.

Incoming 11th graders will be reading Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken (ISBN: 978-0-8129-7449-2). When students return to school in the fall, US History and AP US History teachers will facilitate a class discussion using this text. This will happen during the first week of school. In order to prepare for this discussion, you are expected to read and annotate this book to gain a clear understanding of its contents. For your annotations, you can mark in your book (if it belongs to you), keep track of them with sticky notes, or write them down in a hand-written document. This document may not be typed. Be prepared for your teacher to assign graded work based on your reading and annotations of this book. Please bring our book during the first week of school.

Please Note: This assignment is to be completed for your Religious Studies course. Please direct all questions to the Religious Studies Department.

Incoming 12th graders will be reading Beautiful Mercy: Experiencing God’s Love So We Can Share It With Others by Pope Francis, Matthew Kelly, Dr. Scott Hahn, et al (ISBN: 978-1-942611-50-9) available through Amazon. This coming Fall 2025 Semester, you will not have a dialectical journal assignment due the first week of class covering this text; rather you WILL have a scantron assessment/test covering the entire book. There will be one to two questions per chapter on your assessment/test. Therefore, as you read, take some good notes, and please read carefully/attentively, ensuring that you are getting the main points of each chapter. Please arrive to school prepared for this upcoming assessment within the first week of class. Thank you, and God Bless you as you read!

Beginning next school year, students will be responsible for purchasing their own copies of the novels assigned in English courses. This shift is designed to enhance the learning experience and promote deeper engagement with literature, as it allows students to annotate major texts freely, keep their books for future reference, and engage more deeply with the texts during assessments. A list of required novels will be provided at the start of each course, along with recommended editions to ensure consistency during class discussions, so please refer to your course syllabus in the fall for this information. The school will continue to provide access to any textbook connected to the course as well as all supplemental texts, including short stories, essays, poems, and other materials used throughout the year.

To help get you started, find your English course below to see which novel(s) you’ll need to have purchased for the beginning of the fall semester. Please note that you are required to purchase printed copies of these texts!

Click here to download the Fall Novel List