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
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
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)