OK, I was just approached about a new job opportunity - Grade 10 Honors English. Here is my question: What novels would you suggest for Grade 10 Honors English? There is no required list as part of the curriculum.
Night To Kill A Mockingbird Lord of the Flies A Seperate Peace Julius Caesar As I Lay Dying (maybe) Good luck
How is your school set up as far as the emphasis for the different grade levels? I ask because, at my school, 10th grade (all levels) is specifically world literature.
Good question, kilgore trout, however, I do not know the answer. This is not only a new grade (I currently teach 7th), a new subject (I currently teach science), this is also a new district. It would make sense that it would be world lit because I know Grade 10 history is world history. I will ask.
Not that I had anything helpful to add if you knew . . . I might be teaching 10th grade next year, too (although I don't know yet). I'm super new at this, I just am always confused about the 10th grade reading lists. At our school, 10th is world literature and 11th is American literature. Yet, in 10th grade, they read Of Mice and Men and All Quiet on the Western Front. It makes me confused. Well, I'm meeting again with my department head in a couple of weeks, so we'll see!
Our recommended 10th grade novels are the same for all levels, you can just go more in depth with the more advanced levels, of course. I teach 10th grade (American lit) college prep level now. This year we've read Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, and Catcher in the Rye. I have some really fun projects I do with Catcher in the Rye, if you're interested. I also did a unit on short stories (Poe, Irving, Jackson, and Stephen King) and poetry (Dickinson and Whitman.) Hands down, the overwhelming majority of the students all cited Catcher in the Rye as their favorite. I'm thinking about incorporating Separate Peace or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for next year.
The Inferno The Great Gatsby Catcher in the Rye Macbeth The Lord of the Flies One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest In my school we read 3-4 books per term at the honors level.
Definitely Catcher in the Rye. My Honors class read it in our freshman year and I think it went way over a lot of their heads. But 10th grade is probably the perfect age. Of Mice and Men and possibly Grapes of Wrath. However, I seem to be one of few who actually enjoyed that book! ha
I teach tenth grade honors. The county has recommended novels for tenth grade, but a lot of it depends on what the school has copies of or is willing to purchase. Then we assign it a grade level so there is no overlap. I also scoured the websites of other county schools to see what those tenth grade honors teachers teach. This year we read: summer reading (students could choose from a list) The Count of Monte Cristo excerpts from Le Morte d'Arthur A Separate Peace The Old Man and the Sea Antigone Julius Caesar Night The Bridge of San Luis Rey poetry Because of my student teacher I had to cut two books I taught last year: The Secret Life of Bees The Pearl Next year I plan to add: A Doll's House The Awakening The Turn of the Screw and to cut The Old Man and the Sea and The Pearl I'm planning to group the books into thematic units for the first time: the hero cycle the unreliable narrator the unfulfilled woman the tragic hero perhaps an accident Other books that are available to me to teach: Silas Marner David Copperfield Inherit the Wind Girl in Hyacinth Blue Othello Books I know other schools in the county read in 10 honors: Lord of the Flies Anthem Siddhartha Ethan Frome The Bean Trees Here are some teacher websites with sophomore English that I've found useful: http://mrmac.homestead.com/10.html http://masconomet.org/teachers/trevenen/index.html http://teacherweb.com/va/hermitagehighschool/lindbloom/index.html http://www.argo217.k12.il.us/departs/english/blettiere/index.htm http://killenglish.homestead.com/index.html http://www.huffenglish.com/?page_id=15 http://englishrocks1.tripod.com/ http://www.janaedwards.com/ http://teachers.henrico.k12.va.us/godwin/nagle_k/englishweb/ Let us know if you take the job!
I would want to know what the cultural, racial, ethnic backgrounds of your students will be. I teach 7th grade and feel lucky that I get to pick books outside of the traditional "cannon." I've taught Night and my students responded really, really well. Sherman Alexie and Walter Dean Myers are also a favorite authors of mine not mentioned here yet. In high school I read Ishmael and really loved that. I also read Ayn Rand and enjoyed that. My personal opinion is that picking books that I'm excited to teach help me get my students excited, which makes them so much more successful. I suspect Catcher in the Rye goes over so well because students relate to it. I don't know how much autonomy you have...
Just a suggestion - check with your fellow English teachers to make sure you don't include a novel they teach. Good Luck and have fun You have quite a change from 7th grade science to 10th grade English
Wow, I'd never give 10th graders The Inferno ))! And it really does depend on whether your English class is Brit Lit or American Lit or World Lit. Here, 10th graders have American Lit. And of course, avoid overlap. I had 12th graders in AP Lit this year, and I really wanted to do Hamlet with them but their 11th grade teacher beat me to it. So I had to drop it and do The Tempest. Our pre-AP 10th graders read: A Gathering of Old Men, Death of a Salesman, The Optimist's Daughter, The Scarlet Letter, The Grapes of Wrath, The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying, The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Huck Finn/Invisible Man (teacher's discretion). Our Honors 10th graders have more or less the same list, but they read fewer books.
A lot of schools teach A Separate Peace which isn't bad, but I think it's a little too outdated to really engage students like you'd hope. See if your department will let you teach The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chboksky. It's a great contemporary coming of age novel. I've never met a kid who didn't like it.
I remember reading: Julius Caesar Measure For Measure Ethan Frome Jurrasic Park Things Fall Apart A Town Called Alice The Scarlet Letter
I am going to teach Gr. 10 for the first time next year. We will be reading Catcher in the Rye, Night, Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth. We might read sections of Odessey and Beowulf. We'll also read a few short stories and lots of poetry. I teach in an IB school and students are required to write commentaries on selections of prose and poetry. Does anyone have any samples of well written commentaries by students in Gr. 10?
In tenth grade I read: The Iliad and The Odyssey Beowulf Grendel by John Gardner Canterbury Tales Hamlet Much Ado About Nothing I remember each book vividly as this was my favorite year of HS. I love this class and it prompted me to become an English major in college. I read children's versions of Beowulf and Hamlet to my 3rd and 4th grade students this year.
One of the schools I've subbed in got their hands on A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah. This is a true story and is completely riveting. I've seen it work especially well as group reading for lower level students who normally have trouble paying attention to reading material.
I teach 10th grade and we focus on World Lit. I teach the following... Lord of the Flies A Long Way Gone Copper Sun The Good Earth My Sister's Keeper Night Life of Pi The Merchant of Venice Othello A Thousand Splendid Suns The Book Thief The kids love A Long Way Gone and My Sister's Keeper.
My favorites from when I was about that age (forgive me if they're not exactly right. I'm trying to recall from my own education): Janey Eyre 1984 The Illiad and the Oddysey The Scarlett Leter The Count of Monte Cristo Les Miserables (The abridged version is totally fine...hugo got diareah of the pen quite a bit in the full version.) Of Mice and Men The Picture of Dorian Grey
