Summer Reading Assignment: 2025-2026

Mayo High School for Math, Science, and Technology

 

Overview

The Summer Reading Assignment is designed to encourage reading through contemporary young adult literature within set guidelines. Students will be able to choose books that interest them and allow their perspectives of the reading to shine through.

The written work serves as a diagnostic tool for the English teachers to gauge strengths and weaknesses in the students’ critical reading, critical thinking, and writing. This will allow them to plan lessons according to the needs of the students. Once the teachers have gone over these key concepts in the first few weeks of school, each student will have a chance to revise the response.

Below is a list of teachers and the courses that they teach. If you have any questions at any time, please do not hesitate to reach out to your upcoming English teacher or any of the teachers in the English Department.

 

 

Instructions

• Books chosen for the Summer Reading Assignment must be listed on the required reading list accessible by clicking the following link: Reading List. Both Honors and CP students will select one book from this list. The dual-credit ENG 101 students are the only ones who have an assigned text; they will not need to select any other book. If a parent and/or student has any objections to the books on this list, please contact a member of the English Department, so a suitable replacement can be discussed and approved. 
• Once the student has read the text, the student will complete a written response according to the English class in which the student is enrolled. Each class has a different prompt and response length requirement, so be sure that you check the writing prompt list to make sure you are doing the correct assignment. The writing prompt list can be found by clicking here.
• Written responses must be typed in MLA format. This also includes correctly citing any textual evidence you use from your book. You can access our MLA template by clicking here for guidance on how to set this up. Click here for another website that is also helpful.
• Students need to submit their written responses to the Summer Reading Submission form no later than 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 31st. Please click here to access the Summer Reading Submission Form. A letter grade will be deducted from the assignment for each day it is late. To make the submission process as seamless as possible, please do the following:
• If you create this in Google Docs and share it via your Google Drive:
  • Please title your work with English Course, Summer Reading, and your name. (ex: English 3 Honors Summer Reading Toby Flenderson). 
  • Please make sure that your Google Doc privacy settings allow for the teacher to access the document. 
• Plagiarism or cheating in ANY way will not be tolerated and will result in a zero for the assignment.

 

Scoring

The students’ work will be scored using an analysis rubric. Please click here to access the analysis rubric. This allows each English teacher to assess the students' strongest skills and what skills the students will need some help with.