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American Literature for High School
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I am trying to decide what books to assign to DD’s American Literature readings this year. She is in 10th grade. She has read Tom Sawyer, so she will continue with Huckleberry Finn, and she has already read Watership Down and Tales from Watership Down. I have assigned The Scarlet Letter to her as well.
Any must-read ideas? BTW, we are studying Early Modern Times in history this year.
This is my work-in-progress, so this is what I’ll share:
Anything plus a couple(and minus) more from the Excellence in Lit list and the Stobaugh’s Amer. Lit. list. I like the essays/short stories, plays, and poetry in Stobaugh’s Amer Lit; also AO has similar Short story and Essay lists as Stobaugh’s
I would subtract:
- Maybe Farewell to Arms by Steinbeck (I will be reading it first)
- 20th C Drama The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill
- The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (maybe, need to reread it)
- Maybe Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway; A Moveable Feast
I would add:
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- Probably Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck (will be prereading)
- Rip Van Winkle; Legend of Sleepy Hollow- Irving
- Maybe the Dramas: The Miracle Worker and/or Driving Miss Daisy
In addition to the Short Stories,Essays, and poetry from Stobaugh’s Am. Lit., and choosing amongst AO’s selections, these lit books:
- Scarlett Letter and/or Hose of Seven Gables
- Walden
- Moby Dick
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- The Last of the Mohicans or The Pioneers (mine have done Sawyer and Huck)
- Red Bage of Courage
- Ethan Frome or The House of Mirth by Wharton and/or Daisy Miller Henry James
- My Antonia by Cather (If no Farewell…Arms)
- Their Eyes were Waching God
- The Unvanquished by Faulkner
- The Pearl by Steinbeck and/or Grapes of Wrath
- The Glass Menagerie – Drama T Williams
- The Crucible
- A Separate Peace – J Knowles
- Cold Sassy Tree– Oliver Ann Burns
- The Chosen – Potok (though my dd’s already read this one)
- Autobiography by B. Franklin
- Fahrenheit 451 – Bradbury
- White Fang (less violent), Call of the Wild (more violent) and/or The Sea Wolf; also, his short stories
- Dystopian choices: The Giver series (excellent); the Hunger Games trilogy (very below level reading for her, but good story); Ender’s Game by O. Card (very good)
Many of the short stories, essays and poems you can find in the Norton Anthologies. For example: Poe; Hawthorne; A. Bradstreet; P. Wheatley; William C Bryant; Longfellow; Whittier, Dickenson; Emerson; W. Whitman; Negro Spiritals; Indian writings (ex: Legends, Iroquois Cnstition; Cherokee writings; Chief Joseph; W Bradford; Flannery O’Conner
HTH
I second Uncle Tom’s Cabin but you might want to save that one for next year since you’ll be studying the Civil War if you continue with the SCM modules.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin sounds good as well as,
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving.
Little Women if she hasn’t read it yet.
Up from Slavery would be good but you might want to save that one for the next module as well.
I’m thinking that you mentioned somewhere else that you didn’t want to assign too much reading for this child so I am trying to think of some titles that are challenging but not too hard. Adding short stories and poetry is always good as it exposes them to more diversity (and beefs up the course) without adding too many hefty books.
Yes, I guess a good question would be:
How many literature books are you interested in actually assigning?
That would help in the narrowing down.
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