High School Book List - So, what *is* good?

[Ginevra]

I've wondered this before when different people are debating novel lists for high school. If you were to make a list of 5 essential books per year to read that are no less than 9th grade, and progressively becoming more challenging, what would be on your list?

[The other Kimberly]

Novels:

Grapes of Wrath

Moby Dick

Don Quixote

To Kill a Mockingbird

Uncle Tom's Cabin

[The other Kimberly]

Histories:

History of the American People - Paul Johnson

Ecclesiastical History - Eusebius

The World's Great Speeches

Uliad/Odyssey

Aeneid

[The other Kimberly]

Other:

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Eats Shoots Leaves

Basic Ecomomics - Thomas Sowell

Knowing God - JI Packer

Evidence That Demands a Verdict

[Miss Marple]

Check out this recent thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163026&highlight=reads+high+school

 

You might get some ideas from these.

[Lori D.]

This is one of those impossible to answer questions -- WAAYY too much good lit. to narrow it to 20 works in 4 years! ;) I'm joking, of course -- but only sort-of. The answer to your question, "What *is* good as far as high school literature?" is going to be very dependent on what you mean by "good". I am guessing by "good" you mean "books most likely to help me achieve a specific goal, such as ________". Here are possible specific goals a homeschooler might have in making a book list:

 

- most frequently alluded to in other literature, films, and culture as a whole

- most likely to expose students to a wide variety of genres and types of literature

- most likely to help the student see/understand a particular time/culture

- most likely to reveal worldviews

- most likely to be of interest or connect with students

- most "meaty" or obvious in helping students learn how to analyze literature

- most frequently covered by high school students

- most likely to encourage and challenge your student in their beliefs

- most likely to impart some of your family values to your student

 

 

It's easier to put together a "good book list" when you limit the scope a little. ;) For example I have narrowed our booklists each year by some sort of "theme" for our two DSs:

 

gr. 8/9 = Classic Ancient Literature

gr. 9/10 = Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi & Gothic Literature

gr. 10/11 = Classic American Literature

gr. 11/12 = Classic British & World Literature from 1500-present

gr. 12 = Kitchen Sink Lit. (an eclectic mix of classic works we want to cover but never got around to before)

 

 

Don't forget to include non-fiction and biography/autobiography, as well as shorter works, such as short stories, essays, and poetry. In this thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160309 are ideas about how to make your own booklist / literature course. And in case it helps, below are just a few ideas for booklists to get you started. Enjoy your literature journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

Works Most Frequently Alluded To:

1. the Bible

2. Greek myths

3. plays by Shakespeare

4. Greek epics: The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid

5. works on King Arthur

 

 

Works Most Frequently Taught in High School (in order of frequency)

1. To Kill A Mockingbird

2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

3. a play by Shakespeare

4. something by Dickens

5. Farenheit 451

6. Lord of the Flies

7. The Odyssey

8. 1984

9. The Scarlet Letter

10. choice of: Catcher in the Rye; Grapes of Wrath; Animal Farm; Price & Prejudice; Diary of Anne Frank; Red Badge of Courage; or Things Fall Apart

 

 

35 Classic Works Most Frequently Taught in High School

(listed roughly in order of when they were WRITTEN)

- The Iliad (Homer)

- The Odyssey (Homer)

- Beowulf (translation by Heaney)

- a play by Shakespeare

(usually a choice from: Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Henry V, or Julius Caesar)

- The Last of the Mohicans (Cooper)

- The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)

- Pride and Prejudice -- OR -- Emma (Austen)

- Frankenstein (Shelley)

- Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

- Great Expectations (Dickens)

- a short story by Edgar Allen Poe (usually a choice from: Tell Tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Gold Bug, or The Rue Morgue)

- Adventures of Tom Sawyer -- OR -- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)

- Moby Dick (Melville)

- Treasure Island (Stevenson)

- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson) -- novella

- a Sherlock Holmes short story (usually a choice from: The Blue Carbuncle, The Red Headed League, A Scandal in Bohemia, The Adventure of the Dancing Men, or The Problem of Thor Bridge)

- The Red Badge of Courage (Crane)

- a short story by O. Henry (usually The Gift of the Magi; or perhaps The Ransom of Red Chief)

- Call of the Wild (London)

- The Open Window (Saki) -- short story

- All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque)

- The Most Dangerous Game (Connell) -- short story

- The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

- Animal Farm (Orwell) -- novella

- 1984 (Orwell)

- Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl (Frank)

- Lord of the Flies (Goldman)

- The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)

- Things Fall Apart (Achebe)

- Death of a Salesman (Miller) -- play

- Farenheit 451 (Bradbury)

- Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)

- A Farewell to Arms -- OR -- The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)

- To Kill A Mockingbird (Lee)

- The Lottery (Jackson) -- short story

Edited April 3, 2010 by Lori D.
fixed typos

[JennW in SoCal]

Danielle,

 

You are thinking along the right lines in thinking a good target for a year is 5 essential books. The reading lists for my ds this year and last are an equal mixture of "essential" or great books and good/topical/interesting books for a total of about 10 - 12 titles per year.

 

I choose my books from lists such as the ones Lori D often posts, the lists in the WTM and the college board list of 101 Great Books. I choose books based on the history we'll be covering and balance them out with good books that cover the same period but that aren't considered "must reads". Those "good but not Great Books" titles I just find through my own reading, through browsing Amazon, and reading the book a week thread on the General Board here.

 

I love creating book lists for my teens -- they are personalized and tailored to fit their interests and skills. They are also fun to share -- books are just plain fun to talk about, so that is why you see threads debating about titles. I don't think there is a right or wrong list for high school -- you'll just find folk here tend to prefer exposing their teens to lots of classics.

[Ginevra]

Lori D, that is exactly what I wanted. THANK YOU! :001_smile::001_smile::001_smile:

 

Thanks, too, to everyone else as well. Now, if anyone can solve the problem of how to fit 200 books into 4 years...? :lol:

[MIch elle]

I like it! That list is helpful, thanks. :001_smile:

[Reya]

Great reply!

 

"Works Most Frequently Alluded To:"

 

I'd add Alice and Wonderland to that list, though it's not HS level.

 

Many of those "most studied" books are not honors level for HS, though they are for middle school--To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies, in particular, were middle school texts for honors students in the area I lived.

 

I'd aim for 8 major works as a decent minimum--maybe only 1-2 really long works, and some of the rest would by plays (very short).

 

I prefer to suspend class and just read a book quickly and then suspend reading and talk about it in depth. There's nothing that kills a good book like reading it too slowly. :-(

 

I'm not very excited about reading Don Quixote in English. I'm just not. It's full of word play and cultural references in Spanish, and that's what makes it both funny and clever. These things don't translate. There are few works that lose so much. In fact, I can't think of a single Spanish work that loses more in translation.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Reya

[Liza Q]

gr. 12 = Kitchen Sink Lit. (an eclectic mix of classic works we want to cover but never got around to before)

 

 

This made me laugh out loud. Loudly. I am working on two lists for my daughter next year - a World Lit 1600-2000 list and a last-chance-to-read-it-with-Mom-before-college list, which now has a new name!

 

On topic - yes, I totally agree with everything Lori said!

[Gratia271]

Thanks for the wonderful suggestions. I am going to be writing down these lists!

[Lizzie in Ma]

Anyone else really, really hate that book?

 

Anyone else watch Big Bang Theory and for the first time were glad they read it when the guys had spiked cookies and went all "Lord of the Flies"?

 

That is all.:D

[Ester Maria]

I'm not very excited about reading Don Quixote in English. I'm just not. It's full of word play and cultural references in Spanish, and that's what makes it both funny and clever. These things don't translate. There are few works that lose so much. In fact, I can't think of a single Spanish work that loses more in translation.

Reya, are you by chance familiar with Leo Spitzer's essay Linguistic perspectivism in the Don Quijote?

If not, I warmly suggest it. It was one of the essays which really influenced my own reading of that work, because it dealt with things that you, reading it through a medium of a translation, cannot notice, yet are crucial parts of the text. :)

Anyone else really, really hate that book?

I wouldn't say I really hate Lord of the Flies, or that my personal disliking of the book made me cut it off off our curriculum (I read and discussed it with both of my daughters), but it's a, definitely not my cup of tea, and b, I'd dare to claim it's overrated as a literary work. The only reason why I included it was its "presence in the air" in broader culture and, needless to say, I didn't really study it with either of my daughters, it was more of simply reading it followed by a light discussion, nothing more. So you're not alone. :D

 

Now, ontopic, I actually have a rather clear perspective on which books should be studied throughout one's high school education: those from the "canon". Simple as that. You cannot possibly include all that would qualify as that, but I'm pretty convinced that you CAN make a list of books to study which would be based on the classics of the epoch, allowing space both for works of national significance and for world literature (the ratio may vary, of course), and covering at least some of the most culturally significant and alluded to works, and there's always some more space left for various other interesting readings to squeeze in.

 

If you do literature along with history and arts, you can design a curriculum that would follow the 4-year plan. If you limit yourself to only 6 lenghtier and 7-8 shorter works a year (that would be a decent minimum, in my opinion), you can accomplish a lot; you just have to have a sort of clear vision of the things that you consider more and less important in the epoch - there is no "the list" that would be one-size-fits-all, even if there are many good lists out there.

[Gratia271]

I detested Lord of the Flies.

[Ester Maria]

Histories: [...]

Uliad/Odyssey

Aeneid

You must have a really flexible definition of "history"; may I ask you based on what criteria exactly do you include into that group works that deal with gods, half-gods, cyclops, heroes descending into the underworld, events whose historicity is largely disputable even if we assume some amount of historicity in the former two, and works which are obviously an artistic text, like the latter one?

[Nan in Mass]

Me, too. I gave it to my son to read so he would recognize the references, but I told him to skim it for the plot. We discussed it because I wanted to discuss whether the basic premise for the book was correct or flawed. This is totally not how I normally approach books GRIN.

-Nan

[Lori D.]

Now, if anyone can solve the problem of how to fit 200 books into 4 years...? :lol:

 

 

I'm looking for that solution too!!!

 

 

MY solution is that the boys just don't get to graduate until we've read all the books. :tongue_smilie: Funny, they don't seem to like my plan...

[Nan in Mass]

I think it is a splendid plan! I would just alter it to include a different and probably longer list of books. I am empty nesting this month (youngest peacewalking, oldest two at college) and grappling with the news that my oldest is trying not to come home this summer and my middle one is going to turn 20 in the middle of the ocean somewhere (keeping up a long tradition beginning when he was 12 of being somewhere interesting for his birthday. Without me. I'm all for the interesting part - I do that myself usually - I just don't like the without the rest of us part...) and I will only have three more years with my youngest... i really, really like your plan GRIN.

-Nan

 

PS - If it is any comfort to you, my youngest and I are doing lit with my mother for high school and my older ones tell me about what they are reading.

[Lori D.]

"gr. 12 = Kitchen Sink Lit. (an eclectic mix of classic works we want to cover but never got around to before)"

 

This made me laugh out loud. Loudly. I am working on two lists for my daughter next year - a World Lit 1600-2000 list and a last-chance-to-read-it-with-Mom-before-college list, which now has a new name!

 

 

Sadly, I don't think college application boards have the same great sense of humor, so I'm gonna have to come up with some "legit" name by the time younger DS graduates in 2 years... I rather like yours: "Last Chance Lit." :tongue_smilie:

 

Warmest regards, Lori

[Jenn in Mo]

Lori D., you rock.