Incoming IB Juniors
Wichita East Junior IB World Language and Literature 1
Summer Reading List
Pride and Prejudice (ISBN: 9780141439518)
This text and the required work you do with it over the summer will be the foundation of the work we do in the first few weeks of the fall 2026 semester. You will read and annotate the novel and complete the assignments below by the first day of class. Your summer reading will be Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I think you will enjoy this book, but I want you to remember this is an IB Curriculum text. You should read and reflect with care, as you may use this text in your IB Assessments and you will be given a test over the material when you return in the fall.
All texts for the 2026/2027 school year will be available for pre-order through Watermarks books at a discounted price. If finances are an issue for any of the texts assigned this year, please direct questions to the IB office at 973-7289 or let me know and I will direct you to the correct Administrator.
Pre-Reading: Sign Up for Summer 2026 CANVAS Class
I have created a special summer class on CANVAS. You can access the course by signing up at https://usd259.instructure.com/courses/126162
There is a copy of the assignment in the Class Modules. I have also uploaded resources and will use the space to answer questions. Please, do NOT turn your work in on the Summer Canvas Course. It is a temporary space, and I will not be grading anything that is placed in this electronic space. You will submit your work in person or, if you do it digitally, on the Fall 2025 Class Space.
Reading Expectations:
Read thoughtfully and reread when you find the need. Annotate your text and be sure to look up any terms, names, ideas, etc. that are not familiar to you as you read and think about the novel. Note anything that confuses, fascinates, or moves you. Expect that I will review your annotations.
While you are reading, read and enjoy the novel. On first blush, Pride and Prejudice is the epitome of a Rom Com. In fact, Austen has been called a “miniaturist” who specializes in writing novels that are merely “comedies of manners,” focusing on the small domestic trifles of a few families in a country village. Your job, as you read, is to dig deeper into the text. You will take note of the various themes in the book and determine whether you think Pride and Prejudice is Daring or Dated. Is this novel merely a romance touching on social niceties or is Austen “an agent of the Terror” who forces her readers to confront their own moral weaknesses?
Assignment One:
Just as Austen writes about domestic scenes, which is the purview of women in her time (if they are to be writers at all), she uses very specific choices in her writing to broach issues that might be unseemly for women to even discuss. Your first assignment is to take thorough notes on 3 of the following issues:
· Women’s Emancipation
· Struggles against rigid class expectations
· Struggles against social expectations
· Influences of war and the French Revolution
· Class Struggles
· Impact of primogeniture laws and the security of women
· Pride
· Prejudice
· Familial bonds and duties—my own query: are we all just bound to become our parents?
· Any other topic you want to address
Your notes should be handwritten on loose-leaf paper or done digitally, one topic per page so that you have space to follow the issue throughout the novel. If you choose to do your notes digitally, I expect you to bring a printed copy of your notes to class on the second day of class—you may make copies in the Commons if you do not have a printer. At the top of each page, write the name of the text, identify your topic, and write your name.
As you take notes over each issue, include the following information:
- Brief summaries of moments where this issue surfaces
- Key quotations (with page numbers)
- Your reflections, questions, and ethical implications
- Any connections to real life, other texts, or current events
As with everything in this class, I expect your work to be your own. You gain nothing by using AI for this assignment, or any other (unless explicitly required). Your goal is to create resources for future assessments. Further, I know some of you will want to write 60 pages of notes over each issue; that is not necessary. Use your judgment. I will grade you on thoroughness, which means I should see notes from throughout the novel.
Assignment Two: Big Picture Responses
Please respond to each of the following questions. Start a new page for each question. Make sure you fully address each question, providing evidence from the text by way of examples, explanation, and reasoning. Be mindful of how you paraphrase and quote from the text and make sure you provide reasoning that connects the evidence to what you are claiming. You should use the ACE Paragraph Graphic Organizer provided on CANVAS, as well as the Embedding Quotation Resource. I expect your answers to be 1-2 paragraphs long—these are not essays.
1) Austen lives in a time when there is a strong prohibition against women’s voices in public and many private spheres—it was frowned upon for women to express opinions on politics, read newspapers, or listen to talks of current events. Some say Pride and Prejudice is a feminist novel, while others think it is a novel that supports and reinforces the patriarchy. Where are you on this spectrum? Does the courtship plot endorse the patriarchal status or does it explores female empowerment? Does it matter that Jane Austen published her novels anonymously, choosing “By a Lady” as her byline?
2) Choose two couples from Pride and Prejudice and imagine you are giving them advice at a pivotal moment in their relationship. When are you stepping in to provide your advice and what warnings, guidance, or encouragement are you offering (and why, of course)? Use the couple’s actions, choices, and communication styles to explain your advice. How does your advice reflect your own beliefs about what makes a relationship work?
3) As you read the novel, I am sure you noticed just how “accomplished” all the characters are or are expected to be. Discuss how this focus on accomplishment is present in the novel and what impact it has on the characters and the other characters’ perception of them. Why do you think there was such an expectation during the Regency period? This drive for “accomplishment” is present today, as well. Discuss where we see this in our own society. Do you think “accomplishment” should be the goal?
Assignment Three:
Although Pride and Prejudice is not an epistolary novel, there are a number of letters that drive the plot. There are 40 letters that are directly referred to or paraphrased. Through the letters, we see into the mind of the characters; they can talk with one another in a shroud of privacy that they may not otherwise have. In this way, we get to pry a bit into the minds of the characters as they share with one another.
Your final assignment is to write a letter to ME. I want you to introduce yourself. Tell me something about yourself that you think I will enjoy knowing or that you think I should know. Additionally, take one of the themes you explored or a connection you made with the novel (it can be something you wrote about in assignments one and two OR something altogether new) and relate it to your life, your beliefs, or an issue that you think is important.
This is a personal narrative, so consider TONE and AUDIENCE as you write. I am your audience—your “new to you” ELA teacher. I drink way too much coffee, kill every plant I touch (except the few plants I now have in our classroom, if they are still alive after the summer), read and write A LOT, and spend time with my family. It’s a minor miracle I haven’t choked on my own spit or laminated my children. I am an English teacher, but I am also a lawyer and a mom. I write in my free time and find myself to be more enthusiastic about crafting than I am accomplished. As you write, you will have to ride the fine line between using your own voice and a less formal tone and providing me with a letter that accomplishes a formal connection between you and the text.
As you plan, take a minute and check out letter writing formalities. If you want to be extra, you can Google: Letter Writing in the 18th Century. Send your letter to the following:
Jamie Smartt
c/o Wichita East High School
2301 E. Douglas Avenue
Wichita, KS 67208
Extra Information:
Pride and Prejudice remains a classic and has found its way into the modern zeitgeist. If you want to check out an adaptation, there are several modern adaptations (novels and movies) and stories that continue where Pride and Prejudice leaves off. I have not watched or read all of them (which means you will want to check for suitability), but I am a particular fan of the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice and the Bollywood Bride and Prejudice. The 2005 version with Kiera Knightley is nice, as well.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (book and movie) Bridget Jones Diary (book and movie)
Bride and Prejudice Unmarriageable (book)
Austenland (book and movie) Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan (book)
Eligible (book) Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennett (book)
1932 (book) The Forgotten Sister (book)
Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe (movie) Lost in Austen (movie)
Death Comes to Pemberley (movie) Lizzie Bennet Diaries (movie)
The Other Benet Sister (movie) Pride (YA novel)
Netflix’s NEW Pride and Prejudice (series)
And MORE!!!