BW English Department Provides Summer Reading Suggestions

As students begin the summer vacation, the Belleville West English Department reminds them to keep reading for pleasure.  Below is a list of summer book suggestions for students entering each grade level.

NINTH GRADE

Boy 21 by Matthew Quick

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Tradition by Brendan Kiely

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

TENTH GRADE

1984 by George Orwell

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

The Living by Matt de la Pena

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

March by Andrew Aydin and John Lewis

Ms. Marvel by G. Wilson and Adrian Alphona

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

ELEVENTH GRADE

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Monsters by Rich Cohen

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Pointe by Brandy Colbert

The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

Yummy by Greg Neri

TWELFTH GRADE

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Home by Toni Morrison

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

BW Junior Receives Harvard Book Award

Junior Hannah Witkus was awarded the 2017-2018 Harvard Prize Book for Belleville West High School.  The Harvard Prize Book program was established by Harvard alumni in 1910.  The Prize Book is awarded to an outstanding student in the junior class who displays excellence in scholarship and high character, combined with achievement in other fields.

Belleville West Students Finish Year with 4.8 Million Pages of Pleasure Reading

CONGRATULATIONS, BELLEVILLE WEST READERS!  As the 2017-2018 school year draws to a close, Belleville West students have read a grand total of 4,823,292 PAGES OF PLEASURE READING.

What does that mean?

If those pages were laid end-to-end, they would stretch over 647 MILES—that’s all the way from Belleville West to Dallas, Texas!

If one person wanted to read that many pages, he or she would need to read one page every minute for MORE THAN NINE YEARS!  Without ever stopping to eat or sleep!

If you had one penny for every page read by a Belleville West student this year, you would have $48,232!

How did the classes stack up against each other?

The CLASS OF 2019 (the JUNIOR class) read 1,477,286 pages of pleasure reading this year.  That’s an average of 3021 pages per junior.

These junior classes each read more than 500 pages per student in the sixth triad:

Mr. Garland’s second hour – 2076 pages per student

Ms. Guebert’s first hour – 821 pages per student

Mr. Spriggs’s sixth hour – 773 pages per student

Mr. Schobert’s third hour – 733 pages per student

Mr. Brunner’s sixth hour – 675 pages per student

Mr. Garland’s fifth hour – 657 pages per student

Ms. Guebert’s second hour – 648 pages per student

Mr. Brunner’s second hour – 636 pages per student

Mr. Spriggs’s seventh hour – 590 pages per student

Ms. Comley’s first hour – 585 pages per student

Ms. Guebert’s seventh hour – 562 pages per student

Mr. Spriggs’s fifth hour – 558 pages per student

Mr. Schobert’s fifth hour – 533 pages per student

Mr. Spriggs’s first hour – 506 pages per student

The CLASS OF 2021 (the FRESHMAN class) read 1,187,390 pages of pleasure reading this year.  That’s an average of 2500 pages per freshman.

These freshman classes each read more than 500 pages per student in the sixth triad:

Ms. Ursani’s second hour – 763 pages per student

Ms. Ursani’s first hour – 710 pages per student

Ms. Thurnau’s fifth hour – 708 pages per student

Mrs. Hunter’s sixth hour – 678 pages per student

Mrs. Short’s fourth hour – 595 pages per student

Ms. Thurnau’s first hour – 585 pages per student

Mr. Garland’s sixth hour – 573 pages per student

Ms. Comley’s fourth hour – 569 pages per student

Ms. Thurnau’s sixth hour – 521 pages per student

Ms. Thurnau’s second hour – 514 pages per student

The CLASS OF 2018 (the SENIOR class) read 1,099,150 pages of pleasure reading this year.  That’s an average of 2580 pages per senior.

These senior classes each read more than 500 pages per student in the sixth triad:

Mr. Lodle’s fifth hour – 1428 pages per student

Mr. Lodle’s sixth hour – 1093 pages per student

Ms. Guebert’s sixth hour – 754 pages per student

Ms. Thurnau’s seventh hour – 624 pages per student

Ms. Guebert’s third hour – 559 pages per student

The CLASS OF 2020 (the sophomore class) read 1,059,466 pages of pleasure reading this year.  That’s an average of 1995 pages per sophomore.

These sophomore classes each read more than 500 pages per student in the sixth triad:

Ms. Ursani’s fifth hour – 922 pages per student

Ms. Schloesser’s sixth hour – 533 pages per student

Mr. Johnson’s fifth hour – 512 pages per student

Mr. Jenkins’s third hour – 502 pages per student

The ENGLISH TEACHERS read 99,746 pages of pleasure reading this year.  That’s an average of 4,987 pages per English teacher.

CONGRATULATIONS to all four classes!  Keep reading this summer!

Students Celebrate Annual Day of Reading

On Thursday, May 10, Belleville West English classes held the annual Reading Celebration Day.  Activities included a Skype visit with Ibi Zoboi (author of the novel American Street), presentations about favorite books, drawings for Kindles and books, independent reading time, word-related games, and snacks.