Summer O.R. will begin in June, and all TJ students will be reading and writing right up to the start of the upcoming school year. Below you’ll find the list of summer O.R. books with their ISBN numbers to help you order them from wherever you purchase books.
Although we do not permit ebooks to be used during the school year, since the bulk of summer O.R. will be done at home, feel free to pursue this path. When you click the link for each class, you’ll find instructions that will detail expectations and how to submit work. On average, students should expect to read about 30 to 45 minutes a day this summer and then write for about fifteen minutes, although instructions may differ by class.
We recognize that vacation plans may require students to modify their work schedule, so they should contact their teachers if they need to change a deadline. Please contact Mr. Roth (broth@tjs.org) if you have questions about O.R. or English instruction at T.J.
Among TJ’s many virtues, teaching its students to read carefully and write elegantly definitely stands out. Forget our stellar standardized reading and writing test scores: TJ students graduate knowing how to tackle difficult texts and how to construct coherent and concise paragraphs.
At the center of our English-language instruction is Outside Reading—or O.R., as we call it. During a typical school night, our students will read about five to ten pages from a novel and then either write a summary about the assignment or respond to an analytic question. The following day, the teachers scrutinize the grammar, usage, mechanics, and style of the students’ prose. Through this constant repetition, TJ’s students become sophisticated readers and writers.
And O.R. does not stop during vacations. During winter, spring, and summer vacations, TJ students have O.R. Although these assignments do not receive a grade, they challenge our students to cultivate the habits of close reading and thoughtful composition they build up during the school year.