Summer Reading 2015
Grade 10 summer reading: you will read the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel. The ISBN number for this book is: 13: 978-0-374-50001-6. Books are available at school and can be obtained any time between 8:30am-3pm Monday-Friday. Mrs. Griffin is at school every Wednesday from 9am-11am if you need extra help with the book or the assignment. After reading the book, you are required to complete the assignment below. Please call or email Mrs. Griffin at 513-535-5407 or griffin_s@nrschools.org if you have any questions about the assignment or the book.
Night Reading Response
Complete any two of the following on a separate sheet of paper. This assignment will be counted as your first grade for first quarter. Each of your responses should be about a page long. You may type or hand-write your answers. Additional items you complete will be counted as extra credit.
1. Which of the following best describes how you felt when you finished reading
Night.: angry, awed, amazed, baffled (puzzled), disgusted, disturbed, dissatisfied, irritated, joyous, uneasy, untouched, sad? Explain why you feel this way.
2. Complete any five of the following statements with a minimum of three additional sentences each, reacting to what you read.
a. If I were in this story, I would/wouldn’t have . . .
b. I admire the character of ______________________ because . . .
c. I realized . . .
d. I can’t understand . . .
e. I did/didn’t like the way . . .
f. The character of ____________________ reminds me of myself when . . .
g. I know the feeling of . . .
h. I began to think of . . .
3. The main thing that the character of ____________________ learned in this story was . .
4. The most important lesson I, the reader, learned in this story was . . .
5. Which of the following descriptive terms makes you think of one of the characters in Night: lonely, angry, helpless, uncaring, helpful, wise, responsible, unselfish? Describe the character and explain why you think this character feels or personifies this emotion.
While you’re reading Night, consider the following questions and be prepared to discuss them when we return to school.
a. How is night an appropriate symbol to convey Elie Wiesel's concentration camp experience? How does it represent his suffering, man's inhumanity to man, and the effects of the Holocaust upon his faith?
b. Wiesel describes his total loss of faith in God for allowing the Jews, God's chosen people, to suffer so inhumanely. How could a God who was all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving allow this to occur? Was he too weak to intervene? Was he too apathetic to care? Did he know this would one day occur? How could God, in his perfect justice, allow children to be burned, tortured and hanged? How could God stand by silently while six million Jews were starved, worked to death and gassed for no apparent reason?
c. In what ways did Elie Wiesel change as a result of his imprisonment? Discuss emotional, physical and spiritual changes and the causes of these changes.
d. At one point in the novel, the prisoners are told by a Kapo, "...let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers and we are all suffering. Help one another. It is the only way to survive." Toward the end of the novel, Elie is given the opposite advice by a Blockalteste: "Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone." Which advice is best for concentration camp prisoners, in your opinion?
