Great books for 9th grade

[Kris in Wis]

We are a little "off-cycle", due to when we started the 4-year cycle years ago with my older children, so my son, now starting grade 9, is in Medieval/Early Renaissance. Looking at the readings for this period, I'm wondering if some of them might be a little beyond him. He just turned 14 in May.

 

We've already read Beowulf. I thought the story line would intrigue him, and it did. He got a lot out of it!

 

My question is, where to go next. I've always tweaked the lists a little, but I'm at a loss right now of what to read next. Knowing my son, there is no way he could do everything on the list. So, if you had to choose 10, which would they be? What is most important for a student to have background in? And what, if anything, could be substituted to make sure his literature/history is well-rounded? I'm thinking some can't-miss readings would be Shakespeare and Chaucer, of course; probably Dante, Machiavelli, and some of the reformers . . . ?

 

Are excerpts OK if he can't manage the whole piece?

 

Thanks for your advice!

[regentrude]

My 14 y/o is currently doing Medieval/Renaissance.

She finished Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied.

She already has a strong background in Norse mythology and read plenty of Arthurian legend, which otherwise I would include in the reading for this period.

 

She is currently reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I gave her the original Middle English version, in a selection of tales. I don't think one needs to read the whole thing. I prefer her to read at least the Prologue and one tale in Middle English; if it becomes too much, a student could read several other tales in a prose retelling.

 

Next on the list is Dante's Divine Comedy. Most people just read the Inferno. We will see how this goes (she wants the whole thing - not sure about it).

 

Other items on our list are

Macchiavelli The Prince

Bocaccio Decameron - careful selections because some stories are rather inappropriate. I want her to read the story about the three rings, because that features prominently in the enlightenment play Nathan the Wise by Lessing which we will study next year.

Petrarca some poetry

 

Shakespeare - have done the sonnets and will add some plays.

More- Utopia, at least excerpts

 

We have not thought further, because I anticipate spending a LOT of time wrestling with Dante. Not sure how much we will be reading of the reformers -one should, I guess.

[Nissi]

Eusebius: The Church History

On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius

Rule of St. Benedict

Macbeth, Henry V, Richard III, Midsummer Night's Dream

Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede

Augustine's Confessions

Beowulf

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Song of Roland

History of the Kings of Britain

Here I Stand by Roland Bainton

Divine Comedy - Inferno

Canterbury Tales

[Lori D.]

For a 9th grader, you may want to consider using the Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings as your "spine" literature, which would allow you to also delve into other literature such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, etc.

 

 

Works we enjoyed from that time period when we did British Lit:

- Beowulf

- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

- Canterbury Tales-- Prologue (excerpts); Nun's Priest's Tale; Pardoner's Tale; Knight's Tale; Retraction

- Macbeth -- read it; watched the samurai film variation "Throne of Blood"

- Hamlet -- read it

- Midsummer Night's Dream -- watched live performance; discussed after

- Much Ado About Nothing -- watched Kenneth Branaugh film version

- Utopia (More) -- excerpts from the Norton Anthology of English Literature

- Farmer Giles of Ham; Smith of Wooten Major (Tolkien) -- short stories set in that time

- Lord of the Rings trilogy (Tolkien) -- influenced by those times

 

POETS (16th-19th century) -- I listed just a few ideas

- John Donne ("Holy Sonnet X"; "Holy Sonnet XIV")

- William Shakespeare (sonnets: 116, 18, 130)

- William Blake ("The Lamb"; "The Tyger"; "The New Jerusalem")

- Robert Burns

- William Wordsworth ("I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" [also entitled "Daffodils"]) -- and check out the YouTube video of

for a fun spoof

- Samuel Coleridge ("Rime of the Ancient Mariner")

- John Keats ("Ode to a Nightingale"; "Ode on a Grecian Urn"; "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"; "Bright Star") -- also, check out the film about Keats, entitled "Bright Star"

- Lord Byron ("Darkness"; "The Destruction of Sennacherib"; "She Walks in Beauty")

- Percy Shelley ("Ozymandius"; "To a Skylark")

Edited September 16, 2011 by Lori D.