Greta Lea Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 What early american lit. selections have you and/or your student enjoyed and learned from the most? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Well, I think everyone's "must read" list is a bit different. But... we did American History and American Lit. last year. The HISTORY "must reads" for us were out the book of primary source documents in the Notgrass American History, while for LIT must reads, we did a lot of short stories so we could cover more authors -- we enjoyed quite a few of those. (In one of the threads below is our Amer. Lit. list from last year.) I finally decided to count things like speeches, documents, essays, and autobiographies toward the American history credit; and also counted the solo historical fiction and non-ficition works towards the history credit. That way, we were able to have a pretty big "lit." list, with novels, novellas, short stories, and poetry. ;) In my planning, it took all summer to narrow down our American Lit. list, trying to juggle: - traditional "big classics" and authors (To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn, Our Town, Death of a Salesman, Twain, Hemingway, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, etc.) - variety of types of works (novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, essays, speechs, autobiographies, plays, etc.) - works throughout the time-span of our history coverage (1600-2000) - works by women and ethnic/minorities (Cather, Hurston, Potok, Maugham, etc.) - not classics, but worthwhile works about women and/or ethnic/minorities -- some below high school reading level (Education of Little Tree; Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry; I Heard the Owl Call My Name; etc.) - not classics, but thought-provoking works (such as The Given; The Day They Arrested the Book; etc.) - lighter historical fiction (Cheaper by the Dozen; Mama's Bank Account; etc.) In case it helps, below are links to past threads on this topic, and below that are lists of the usual classic American works covered in high school. BEST of luck whittling it all down to make your own "must read" list! Warmest regards, Lori D. Must read American Lit What are your must reads for American Literature What would you include in an American Literature course Nine essential American novels; what's on your list Suggestions for 9th grade American lit books Looking for enjoyable American Lit Here's a list from About.com of the 10 most frequently taught American works: 1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) 2. The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne) 3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) 4. The Red Badge of Courage (Crane) 5. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 6. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) 7. Call of the Wild (London) 8. Invisible Man (Ellison) 9. A Farewell to Arms (Hemingway) 10. Farenheit 451 (Bradbury) Here are American works from the College Board website's "101 great books recommended reading list for students who are college bound" Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter Heller, Joseph - Catch-22 Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt London, Jack - The Call of the Wild Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener Melville, Herman - Moby Dick Miller, Arthur - The Crucible Morrison, Toni - Beloved O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man Is Hard to Find O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin Thoreau, Henry David - Walden Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five Walker, Alice - The Color Purple Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 What early american lit. selections have you and/or your student enjoyed and learned from the most? PS -- and in specific answer to your question: Neither of our DSs really cared for early American works, except for Edgar Allen Poe. They esp. loved Poe's poem The Raven -- and they usually really don't like poetry! (Which is why, while I enjoyed some of the poems by Bradstreet, Wheatly, Dickinson, and Longfellow, they were rather ho-hum about it.) I found some of the famous speeches to be very moving and inspiring -- esp. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address. They said they didn't mind The Scarlet Letter -- in fact they thought it had a really interesting theme -- but they felt really bogged down by the extremely long "Custom House" prologue to the work, and by the language style/sentence structure. They didn't seem to mind Irving's 2 short stories of Rip Van Winkle and Legend of Sleepy Hallow. They absolutely loathed Melville, and the essays by Emerson and Thoreau. Again, maybe it's just boys, but our DSs more endured rather than enjoyed early American lit. selections. (In contrast, they really enjoyed more modern American works such as Call of the Wild, The Great Gatsby, The Old Man and the Sea, Farenheit 451, and most of the 20th century short stories we did.) At that point, they were really seeing various worldviews and were really enjoying discussing them. Wish that could sound more positive and encouraging about early Amer. lit, but I'm guessing you'd prefer to hear an honest answer... BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HollyDay Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 How early do you want to start? William Bradford's writings can certainly be included in early American, as are other puritan writers and poets. Nathaniel Hawthorn should be included. Benjamin Franklin and other revolutionary war writers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greta Lea Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 And will for sure include the Autobiography of Ben Franklin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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