11th Grade Common Core Suggested Reading Lists

11-1 Literary Texts—The New World

Poems

• “An Hymn to the Evening” (Phillis Wheatley) (EA)
• “To His Excellency General Washington” (Phillis Wheatley) (EA)
• “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (Phillis Wheatley) (E)
• “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (Anne Bradstreet)
• “Upon the Burning of Our House” (Anne Bradstreet)
• “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly” (Edward Taylor)
• An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1648 (Samuel Danforth) (selections)
• “The Day of Doom” (Michael Wigglesworth)
• “The Sot-Weed Factor” (Ebenezer Cook)

Plays

• The Crucible (Arthur Miller) (EA) (L 755)

Informational Texts

• Of Plymouth Plantation (William Bradford) (selections)
• “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (Jonathan Edwards)
• The Bloody Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience (Roger Williams) (selections)
• A Key into the Language of America (Roger Williams) (selections)
• The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712 (William Byrd) (selections)
• A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (Mary Rowlandson)
• The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial (Samuel Sewall)

11-2 Literary Texts—A New Nation

Poems

• “The Star-Spangled Banner” (Francis Scott Key)
• “The Wild Honeysuckle” (Philip Freneau)
• “The Indian Burying Ground” (Philip Freneau)

Prose

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin Franklin) (L 1370)
• Equiano’s Travels: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (Olaudah Equiano)

Informational Texts

Informational Text

• “Declaration of Independence” (Thomas Jefferson) (E) (L 1252)
• “Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom” (Thomas Jefferson) (EA)
• Letter to John Adams (1 August 1816) (Thomas Jefferson) (EA)
• Benjamin Banneker’s Letter to Thomas Jefferson (August 19, 1791)
• Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to Benjamin Banneker (August 30, 1791)
• Preamble to the Constitution (E)
• “The Way to Wealth,” Poor Richard’s Almanack (Benjamin Franklin) (selections) (L 630)
• Speech to the Virginia Convention (Patrick Henry) (E)
• Common Sense or The Crisis (Thomas Paine) (E) (L 1330)
• Federalist No. 1 (Alexander Hamilton) (E) (L 1450)
• Federalist No. 10 (James Madison) (L 1450)
• The Complete Anti-Federalist (Herbert J. Storing) (selections)
• Letters from an American Farmer (J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur) (selections)

Art, Music, and Media
Prompt: How did artists portray historical figures and events from the founding of America?

Art

• Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing The Delaware (1851)
• John Trumbull, Declaration of Independence (1819)
• John Copley, Paul Revere (ca. 1768)
• Thomas Pritchard Rossiter, Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon (1859)
• Gilbert Stuart, James Monroe (ca. 1820-1822)
• Gustavus Hesselius, Lapowinsa (1735)
• Auguste Couder, Siège de Yorktown (ca. 1836)

11-3 Literary Texts—American Romanticism

Poems

• “The Old Oaken Bucket” (Samuel Woodworth)
• “The Raven” (Edgar Allan Poe) (E 9 -10)
• “Annabel Lee” (Edgar Allan Poe) (EA)
• “Song of Myself” (Walt Whitman) (E)
• “I Hear America Singing” (Walt Whitman) (EA)
• “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (Walt Whitman) (EA)
• “A Bird came down the Walk” (Emily Dickinson) (EA)
• “This is my letter to the World” (Emily Dickinson) (EA)
• “Because I could not stop for Death” (Emily Dickinson) (E)

Short Stories

• “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Edgar Allan Poe) (EA)
• “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (Washington Irving) (L 1019)
• “Rip Van Winkle” (Washington Irving) (L 930)
• “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) (EA)
• “The Minister’s Black Veil” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) (EA) (L 1270)
• “Young Goodman Brown” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) (EA)
• “Billy Budd” (Herman Melville) (E) (L 1450)
• “The Piazza” (Herman Melville) (EA)

Novels

• The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) (E) (L 1332)
• The Pioneers (James Fenimore Cooper) (L 1260)
• Moby-Dick (Herman Melville) (EA) (L 1200)
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe) (L 1050)

Informational Texts

Essays

• “Self-Reliance” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (EA)
• “Society and Solitude” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (E)
• Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Henry David Thoreau) (E) (L 1340)
• “Civil Disobedience” (Henry David Thoreau) (EA) (L 1240)
• “Annexation” United States Magazine and Democratic Review 17, No. 1 (1845) (John O’Sullivan)

Speeches

• “Address to William Henry Harrison” (Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, 1810) (text and audio)

Art, Music, and Media

Art
Paintings

• Frederic Church, Niagara (1857)
• George Inness, The Lackannawa Valley (1855)
• Asher Durand, Kindred Spirits (1849)
• Albert Bierstadt, Looking Down Yosemite Valley (1865)
• John Trumbull
  • Declaration of Independence

10-4 Literary Texts—A Troubled Young Nation

Folk Tales

• “Promises of Freedom” (search for “Promises of Freedom” in the Negro Folk Rhymes ebook)
• “Plantation Proverbs” (Uncle Remus)
• “All God’s Children Had Wings”
• “The Signifying Monkey”

Short Stories

• “Roman Fever” (Edith Wharton)
• “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (Mark Twain) (EA) (L 982)
• “What Stumped the Bluejays” (Mark Twain) (EA)

Novels

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) (EA) (L 850)
• The Awakening (Kate Chopin) (L 960)
• Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton) (L 1160)
• Daisy Miller (Henry James) (L 850)
• The Call of the Wild (Jack London) (L 951)
• Sister Carrie (Theodore Dreiser) (L 945)
• My Ántonia (Willa Cather) (L 970)

Informational Texts

Historical Nonfiction

• Letter to Albert G. Hodges (Abraham Lincoln) (EA)
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (Frederick Douglass) (EA) (selections) (L 1077)
• Up From Slavery: An Autobiography (Booker T. Washington) (L1320)
• The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Sojourner Truth and Olive Gilbert)
• Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
• “The Higher Education of Women” A Voice from the South (Anna Julia Cooper)
• The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (James Weldon Johnson) (L 1100)
• Twenty Years at Hull House (Jane Addams) (selections) (L 1650)

Speeches

• “A House Divided” (Abraham Lincoln) (EA)
• “The Gettysburg Address” (Abraham Lincoln) (E) (L 1340)
• “Ain’t I a woman?” (Sojourner Truth) (May 29, 1851)
• “I will fight no more forever” (Chief Joseph the Younger of the Nez Perce Nation) (October 5, 1877)

Art, Music, and Media

Music
Spirituals

• “Go Down, Moses” (Traditional)
• “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (Traditional)
• “I Thank God I’m Free at Last” (Traditional)
• “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (James Weldon Johnson) (E)

Art
Painters

• Thomas Eakins
• Winslow Homer

Film
“Unchained Memories” (HBO Documentary, in conjunction with the Library of Congress, 2003) (Readings From the Slave Narratives)

10-5 Literary Texts—Emerging Modernism

Poems

• “Tableau” (Countee Cullen) (EA)
• “Yet Do I Marvel” (Countee Cullen) (E)
• “Richard Cory” (E.A. Robinson)
• “The House on the Hill” (E.A. Robinson)
• “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (Langston Hughes) (EA)
• “Mother to Son” (Langston Hughes) (EA)
• “Harlem” (Langston Hughes) (EA)
• “The Death of the Hired Man” (Robert Frost) (EA)
• “Birches” (Robert Frost) (EA)
• “The Road Not Taken” (Robert Frost) (E)
• “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (T.S. Eliot) (E)
• “Poetry” (Marianne Moore)
• The Pisan Cantos (Ezra Pound) (selections)
• “Domination of Black” (Wallace Stevens)
• “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman” (Wallace Stevens)
• “Conscientious Objector” (Edna St Vincent Millay) (EA)
• “In the Dordogne” (John Peale Bishop)
• “Grass” (Carl Sandburg) (EA)
• “The Silent Slain” (Archibald MacLeish)

Short Stories

• “A Rose for Emily” (William Faulkner) (EA) (L 1270)
• “Hills Like White Elephants” (Ernest Hemingway) (EA) (L 790)
• “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (Ernest Hemingway) (EA) (L 820)
• “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (Ernest Hemingway) (EA) (L 790)

Novels

• Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) (E) (L 1080)
• The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) (E) (L 1070)
• As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner) (E) (L 870)
• A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway) (E) (L 730)
• The Pearl (John Steinbeck) (EA) (L 1010)
• Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) (EA) (L 630)
• Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson) (selections) (L 1050)

Plays
The Piano Lesson (August Wilson)

Informational Texts

Speeches

• Black Elk Speaks (Black Elk, as told through John G. Neihardt) (selections) (L 910)
• “The Solitude of Self” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) (February 20, 1892)
• “Freedom” (White)
• “The Spirit of Liberty” speech at “I Am an American Day” (1944) (Learned Hand) (EA)

Essays

• “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” (James Baldwin)

Art, Music, and Media

Art

• Marsden Hartley, Mount Katahdin, Maine (1942)
• Georgia O’Keefe, Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory (1938)
• Alfred Stieglitz, From the Back Window, 291 (1915)
• Jacob Lawrence, War Series: The Letter// (1946)
• Charles Sheeler, Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company (1927)
• Stuart Davis, Owh! In San Pao (1951)
• Charles Demuth, My Egypt (1927)
• Arthur Dove, Goat (1934)
• Imogen Cunningham, Calla (1929)

11-6 Literary Texts—Challenges and Successes of the Twentieth Century

Short Stories

• “Petrified Man” (Eudora Welty)
• “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (Flannery O’Connor)
• “The Swimmer” (John Cheever)
• “A Small, Good Thing” (Raymond Carver)
• “Flying Home” (Ralph Ellison)
• “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” (Richard Wright)
• “A & P” (John Updike)
• “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Joyce Carol Oates)

Plays

• Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)

Novels

• Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) (L 950)
• Native Son (Richard Wright) (L 700)
• Seize the Day (Saul Bellow)
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) (L 790)
• Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut) (L 790)
• The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan) (L 930)
• Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich) (L 780)
• Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison) (L 870)
• All the Pretty Horses (L 940) or The Road (L 670) (Cormac McCarthy)

Poems

• “Sestina” (Elizabeth Bishop) (E)
• “The Fish” (Elizabeth Bishop) (EA)
• “One Art” (Elizabeth Bishop) (EA)
• “America” (Allen Ginsberg)
• “Love Calls us to the Things of This World” (Richard Wilbur)
• “Skunk Hour” (Robert Lowell)
• “Memories of West Street and Lepke” (Robert Lowell)
• “July in Washington” (Robert Lowell)
• “The Black Swan” (James Merrill)
• “The Octopus” (James Merrill)
• “Days of 1964” (James Merrill)

Informational Texts

Speeches

• “Address to the Broadcasting Industry” (Newton Minow)
• Inaugural Address (John F. Kennedy) (January 20, 1961) (L NC1110)
• “Brandenburg Gate Address” (Ronald Reagan) (June 12, 1987)

Essays

• “On Being an American” (H.L. Mencken)
• “Seeing” or other essays from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dillard) (L 1100)
• “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Biography and Autobiography

• Patton: A Biography (Alan Axelrod) (selections)
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: as Told to Alex Haley (Malcolm X) (selections) (L1120)

Historical Nonfiction

• The Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedan)

Art, Music, and Media

Music

• “This Land is Your Land” (Woody Guthrie)
• “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” (Pete Seeger)
• “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Bob Dylan)

Media

• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1955)