Narrowing down American Literature reading for soon to be 11th grader....

[momof2boys]

I have way to many books that I think my son would enjoy for American Literature(I literally have pages and pages). So I need to narrow the list down. What are your not to miss books from each of these authors?
William Faulkner
John Steinbeck
James Fenimore Cooper
Ernest Hemingway
William Golding
Washington Irving
Nathanial Hawthorne

Thanks

[kathleen]

I honestly don't think most high schoolers read Faulkner novels--they may read a short story, like A Rose for Emily, or The Bear. His novels are pretty dense (though I like them). I think you can safely read excerpts of Fenimore Cooper. He's not known for his excellent prose style! But he's important historically. Hawthorne's classic is The Scarlet Letter, of course, and I think I would pick The Old Man and the Sea for Hemingway. I'm not a Steinbeck fan and have only read The Grapes of Wrath. He has a lot of good short stories, though! I'm actually going to tackle East of Eden this summer to see if we'll add that to the 20th C lit class I'm teaching next year. If I'm not mistaken, William Golding is British, so you're off the hook there :). (He wrote Lord of the Flies). With Irving, I would do a short story, and maybe a poem--Sleepy Hollow?

[cajun.classical]

Agreeing with Kathleen. The Scarlet Letter is a pretty standard American lit title, but the other authors could easily be covered through short stories. You don't want to miss "Rip Van Winkle" by Irving.

[kortney in AL]

This author wasn't on your list, but I'd include some of O. Henry's stories. We did American Lit this year and my son (who hates reading) actually enjoyed those. The stories are usually short and the endings have a bit of a twist.

[Eliana]

I don't do Faulkner with my high school students at all.

If I do Hemingway I do a short story or two or a novella.

Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath is standard, but heavy and intense (and not appropriate for all families - my kids aren't covering it in high school); excerpt from Travels with Charlie are fun - and he has some fabulous short stories. The Red Pony might be better suited to middle school, but is a decent selection.

Cooper is optional here - my girls have done Last of the Mohicans and Deerslayer. With so much to choose from, Cooper would not make my top ten.

I, personally, think Golding's writing is dreadful, and we do not cover him at all. Obviously, ymmv. :)

I like Irving's Sketchbook, but, for time reasons, would only use sections. The very first part is my favorite - I do some other parts as well, but always the beginning.

We do Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter - a fairly standard selection.

I'm going to paste in the responses I made about American literature on two other threads:


Here's a post I made with American Lit suggestions in this thread (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22630&):

Quote:
Fiction:
Irving's Sketchbook
The Scarlet Letter
Washington Square (James) [novella]
Bartelby and/or Billy Budd (Melville) [novellas]
Huckleberry Finn
Red Badge of Courage [probably already covered in middle school]
Call of the Wild [ditto]
Old Man and the Sea [novella]
A Cather novel
The Great Gatsby
Perhaps a Cooper novel
possibly Grapes of Wrath (though Steinbeck's non-fiction Travels with Charlie is a lighter alternative)

Drama:
All My Sons (Miller)
Glass Menagerie (Williams)
Andersonville Trial (Levitt)
O'Neill is a standard, but most of his plays are so heavy - Ah, Wilderness is his one comedy, you might consider that
possibly an August Wilson play (Fences is my favorite, but screen for appropriateness for your family) and/or
A Raisin in the Sun
perhaps even Tally's Folly (Lanford Wilson)


Short stories:
Hawthorne, Poe, Jewett, Porter, Welty, O'Conner, perhaps Hemingway

Non-fiction:
selections from Native American 'texts'
Common Sense
Franklin's Autobiography
Letters from an American Farmer
Narrative of the Captivity of Mary Rowlandson
The Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers
Emerson's essays
Walden
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas
Out of Slavery
Lincoln's speeches
Education of Henry Adams

poetry:
Henry W. Longfellow, John G Whittier, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, EE Cummings, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Amy Lowell, Robert Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens [There are more I would suggest, but these are the essential ones.]
And from another post in this thread (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23524&):

:
Drama: All My Sons - Miller
Non-Fiction: Walden - Thoreau
Essays - Emerson
Poetry: Longfellow, Whittier, Whitman, Dickinson, Cummings,
Eliot, Frost, Hughes,Lowell, Millay, Sandburg, W. Stevens
Short Stories: See below (*) I would consider doing just short stories and skipping the novellas (I'll include a short story each for Melville and James at the end of the list).
Fiction: two novellas: Bartelby or Billy Budd - Melville
Washington Square - James


*
The Stolen Day - Anderson
A Horseman in the Sky - Bierce
There Will Come Soft Rains - Bradbury
Home - Brooks
Regret - Chopin
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (http://www.geocities.com/short_stories_page/cranebride.html) - Crane [I started to include links, but so
many things have been taken down that my links list is no longer very
useful - but I could tell what book I have each of these in, if you that
would be helpful...]
The Enchanted Bluff - Cather
OR Flavia and Her Artists - Cather
Contents of the Dead Man's Pockets - Finney
Drop in the Bucket - Fisher
The Revolt of Mother - Freeman
A Day's Pleasure - Garland
A Day's Wait - Hemingway
A Municipal report - Henry
Thank You Ma'm - Hughes
Rip van Winkle - Irving
Seven Types of Ambiguity - Jackson
OR The Lottery - Jackson
A White Heron - Jewett
Love of Life - London
OR To Build a Fire - London
Miss Brill - Mansfield
The Geranium - O' Conner (the *earlier* version, **not** the later one!)
A Mother in Mannville - Rawlings
Chrysanthemums - Steinbeck
The Test - Thomas
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - Thurber
The 1,000,000 pound Bank Note - Twain
Two Kinds - Tan
Everyday use - Walker
The Lie - Vonnegut
A Worn Path - Welty


The Fiddler - Melville
The Real Thing - James

[Sharon in MD]

I'd just add that my absolute favorites from this past year with our ds have been The Scarlett Letter - Hawthorne
Huckleberry Finn - Twaine...a must for boys, don't miss it.
Anything by Poe, if you can get the audio cd's of the short stories by Blackstone, they are a blast to listen to.
Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleep Hollow by Irving....very fast reads but so fun

We didn't get to To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'm going to have him read it this summer

HAve fun!

[tbmoran]

We liked:
Steinbeck - Grapes of Wrath (have to watch the cursing though)
Hawthorne - Scarlet Letter