Vintage81 Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 If you were creating an American Literature (and composition) class, what books (or short stories, or poetry) would be on your must-read list? What things have your kids enjoyed, and which ones have created great discussions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El... Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Dd15 is reading American literature now. I'm sort of home-cooking it. It really depends on the kid, though, and on your family perspectives! Mine is a strong reader for her age, so she can handle a pretty good list. We're a biracial family, so books that have impacted US culture in that area (for good and ill) are important to us. And we're a military family, so it's important to us that our kids have some exposure to books that inspire or maybe just explain that impulse to serve in the military. A few she's liked recently, which have led to good discussions, are Huckleberry Finn, The Awakening, and The Great Gatsby. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 (edited) We recently read My Antonia, and I thought it was very good. Wonderful descriptive language. I am partial to Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn, "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", etc.) The Chosen was also interesting, as a peek at the life of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews around the time of WWII. To Kill a Mockingbird is so, so good. I thought The Yearling was pretty good. We didn't do it as a read aloud so I didn't get the kids' feedback so much with it. We are currently reading Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry and it is so good. It's really a junior high novel but worth reading for sure. I am sure there are more that I can't remember. I will come back if I think of any. Edited January 7, 2023 by cintinative 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El... Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Oooh, The Chosen is on our list. So good! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 (edited) I tried for a variety of forms and eras. I was however, quite short on women and people of colour. (FYI, This list was not completed in a year.) Twain - Huck Finn Douglas - The life of Fredrick Douglas Poe's short stories Dickinson's Poetry Fitzgerald - Great Gatsby Hemingway - Old Man and the Sea Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird Danielewski - House of Leaves (postmodern) My ds absolutely loved Cat's Cradle, House of Leaves, and Poe's short stories. The Great Gatsby was a huge dud for us as was Old Man and the Sea. I have been profoundly influenced by The Life of Fredrick Douglas, but I'm not sure my ds could really connect with it and there is one rape scene in particular that you may want to skip (I paperclipped the pages together as my ds was young - 13). Huck Finn needs to be done well and carefully-- my younger boy and I did a 12 week long literary analysis research paper on it, which was amazing and oh so fun (12th grade). Dickinson's poetry is very good, but easy to skim through because it is so short, so requires effort to really engage. To Kill a Mockingbird led to the best discussions, but that is because my dh read it outloud to both boys, so they had great 3 person discussions. HTH Edited January 7, 2023 by lewelma 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 (edited) Confession: American Lit. was my DSs' LEAST favorite year of literature 😬 And I worked hard to put together a list of works and authors that I thought might might connect with them. 🙄 My DSs just flat out don't care for poetry, so only an occasional poem clicks for them (we covered about 8-10 of the usual big names in American poetry). They also pretty much did not care for anything 19th century (except for some short stories). There were a few works they really DID like, and it surprised me -- Call of the Wild; The Old Man and the Sea, a number of the short stories (esp. Flannery O'Connor, which was a surprise), and the biggest surprise -- The Great Gatsby was a HUGE hit -- they loved the beauty of the language and the themes. The previous year we had done Classic Sci-Fi and Fantasy, so there were American works from that year that would have helped make the American Lit. year go better. They absolutely HATED Billy Budd (Melville) --in a different year we did Melville's short story of "Bartleby the Scrivener" which was much enjoyed as very early nihilism. The Chosen and Catcher in the Rye were both huge duds here, so YMMV. All that said... below are ideas for you -- we did not read every single work, and some were read in other years, so this is NOT meant to be a list for a single year -- more to give you options. 😉 short stories: - Rip Van Winkle (Irving) - The Minister's Black Veil (Hawthorne) - Bartleby the Scrivener (Melville) - something by Edgar Allen Poe - Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Bierce) - Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane) - Gift of the Magi --or-- Ransom of Red Chief (Henry) - The Most Dangerous Game (Connell) - Thank You Ma'am (Hughes) - The Lottery (Jackson) - James Thurber: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; The Catbird Seat (Thurber) - Ray Bradbury: The Sound of Thunder; All Summer in a Day; The Veldt; There Will Come Soft Rains (Bradbury) - Flannery O'Connor: A Good Man is Hard to Find; Revelation; Everything That Rises Must Converge novellas: - Call of the Wild (London) - The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) - The Pearl (Steinbeck) - The Outsiders (Hinton) - A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin) novels: - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) - The Friendly Persuasion (West) - The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) - Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston) - The Chosen (Potok) - To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) - Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) - Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury) - The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury) - I, Robot (Asimov) - The Joy Luck Club (Tan) plays (I recommend watching, rather than reading): - Our Town (Wilder) - A Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry) - Twelve Angry Men (Rose) - Arsenic and Old Lace (Kesselring) YA novels - Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (Taylor) - The Hate U Give (Thomas) - All American Boys (Kiely & Reynolds) - American Born Chinese (Yang) nonfiction - To Be a Slave (Lester) -- true, short narratives from former slaves - Black Like Me (Griffin) -- late 1950s; white journalist passed as black and traveled the Deep South for first-hand experience Edited January 7, 2023 by Lori D. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 I tried to weave in a few YA books as well as some classics. The full books we read (and I also did this set with a class): Huck Finn Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter The Joy Luck Club My Antonia The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Their Eyes Were Watching God Black Boy The Great Gatsby The Crucible A Separate Peace Cat's Cradle Sing, Unburied, Sing The Poet X Ceremony Biggest hit every time was The Joy Luck Club. My class adored Black Boy. My kids really liked The Poet X. No one liked Oscar Wao, unfortunately. Additionally, we read lots of short stories and poetry. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 American lit I've done recently with my kids: Scarlet Letter Bartleby the Scrivener Their Eyes Were Watching God Cathedral Great Gatsby Pym A Narrative of the Life of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Why I Live at the PO Pale Horse, Pale Rider Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Song of Soloman Invisible Man Beloved The Sound and the Fury ...no one has much cared for Scarlet Letter, but I've had them read it anyway because it pairs well with early American history and because I've come to find it more interesting than I used to (I'm particularly intrigued by symbolism in it--it's sort of useful for high schoolers because Hawthorne whacks you over the head with his symbols but then the book also has some surprisingly intriguing things to say about the whole concept of symbols). All of my kids love Gatsby for whatever reason--something I didn't accomplish until I was much older, but I guess I've managed to pass on my enthusiasm. Bartleby is always a hit (and rich yet approachable). Arthur Gordon Pym is Poe's only novel, and it's pretty deeply flawed in all sorts of ways, but also fascinating, and my kids still talk about it a ton. Pym is a modern satire of it, and they pair well, though probably better for college students, really. Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a short novel (or maybe more of a long short story) by Katherine Anne Porter that I've always loved. It's one of the few fictional works about the 1918 flu pandemic, which makes it a good one for these troubled times. I really wanted The Sound and the Fury to go over well, but it was a little much for the 2 kids I did it with. I'm still contemplating trying to get through Absalom, Absalom with my upcoming senior, though, because I have a hard time relegating Faulkner to short stories. ANYWAY, to try to wrap things, up, what I'd pick would probably depend on whether I was coordinating lit with American history or not. If so, I'd keep in Scarlet Letter, definitely do Huck Finn (which I gather has fallen out of favor in high school lit classes and probably for good reasons, but if you can do it well and dive into criticism and outside resources and neither demonize nor valorize Twain (or Huck) it's a great read), Bartleby, Pale Horse Pale Rider, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Gatsby, one of those two Toni Morrisons (I think Beloved it probably the stronger novel, but Song of Solomon is somewhat lighter and more hopeful), and then something contemporary based on student interest. And tons of poetry, heavy on modernism, because that's just what I always end up doing. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 1 hour ago, kokotg said: ... Huck Finn (which I gather has fallen out of favor in high school lit classes and probably for good reasons, but if you can do it well and dive into criticism and outside resources and neither demonize nor valorize Twain (or Huck) it's a great read)... ^^^ Agree! My own thoughts bunny trailing out from the this quote are that I find it SO sad (and deeply troubling and short-sighted) that one strong aspect of the general social trend is to "cancel" everything that was written longer ago than 20 years because it doesn't promote the current point of view. How can we hope to learn and become discerning, if we do not engage with authors and points of view from the past, from other cultures, from other contemporary viewpoints?? sigh. Anyways... Specifically regarding Huck Finn -- I enjoyed the variety of reactions and thoughts in this past thread -- linking "Help us like Huck Finn". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 4 hours ago, kokotg said: I really wanted The Sound and the Fury to go over well, but it was a little much for the 2 kids I did it with. I'm still contemplating trying to get through Absalom, Absalom with my upcoming senior, though, because I have a hard time relegating Faulkner to short stories. We read "Barn Burning" and I thought it was accessible considering I am not much of a lit expert. 😃 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto6inIN Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 Titles we've enjoyed that have led to good discussions: Huck Finn, Hunger Games trilogy, Moby Dick (if only to discuss how much Melville needed an editor! lol), My Antonia, Old Man and the Sea, Scarlet Letter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Up from Slavery 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paige Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 I haven't seen it mentioned but I'd definitely include something from Tennessee Williams and maybe Arthur Miller if you have room for more plays. I also like to include Their Eyes Were Watching God and Catcher in the Rye. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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