ENGLISH 3 AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
INDEPENDENT READING PROJECT
General Directions:
-The titles have been selected for their literary and historical importance in American literature.
-During ERA 1, students will maintain a Reading Response Journal documenting their reading. A comprehension test will be administered at the end of ERA 1. During ERA 2 and subsequent eras, students will maintain Reading Logs that will document their reading over an assigned period of time.
-When students finish a required book from each ERA, they will continue to read independently from any ERA of their choice.
READING LIST – ERAS 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Note: Please feel free to suggest books to be added to the list. Ask your U.S. History teachers for suggestions. Most of the titles here are fiction; some nonfiction is included and you are encouraged to read nonfiction, especially biography that is appropriate for the era. The books that are starred (*) indicate that there are multiple books or class sets available for that title. Please obtain permission to read a book that does not appear on this list.
ERA 1: COLONIAL
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scarlet Letter* (This book represents the Colonial Era, though it is a Romantic novel.)
ERA 2: COLONIAL (cont.), REVOLUTIONARY, ROMANTIC and CIVIL WAR
Cooper, James Fenimore – The Last of the Mohicans; The Deer Slayer; The Pathfinder; The Pioneers, The Prairie
Franklin, Benjamin – Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Vidal, Gore – Burr (biography)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The House of Seven Gables
Melville, Herman – Moby Dick; Billy Budd
Thoreau, Henry D. – Walden
Brown, Dee – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage *
Morrison, Toni – Beloved
Vidal, Gore – Lincoln
Frazier, Charles – Cold Mountain
Welch, James – Fools Crow
Shaara, Michael – The Killer Angels
ERA 3: LATER 19TH CENTURY
(Post Civil War, Westward Movement, Industrial Age)
Clark, Walter Van Tilburg – The Oxbow Incident
McMurtry, Larry – Lonesome Dove
Cather, Willa – O Pioneers!* My Antonia*
Ambrose, Stephen – Undaunted Courage
Twain, Mark – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Dreiser, Theodore – Sister Carrie
James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady; The Golden Bowl
Wharton, Edith – The Age of Innocence; The House of Mirth; Ethan Frome*
ERA 4: EARLY 20TH CENTURY
(Early Modernism, 1900 – WWII)
Potok, Chaim – The Chosen*; My Name is Asher Lev
Smith, Betty – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Norris, Frank – McTeague; The Octopus
Sinclair, Upton – The Jungle
Stegner, Wallace – The Big Rock Candy Mountain; Joe Hill; Angle of Repose
Baldwin, James – Go Tell it on the Mountain*
Hemingway, Ernest – The Sun Also Rises*; For Whom the Bell Tolls; A Farewell to Arms; Islands in the Stream
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – This Side of Paradise; Tender is the Night; The Great Gatsby*
Malamud, Bernard – The Fixer; The Natural
Wolfe, Thomas – You Can’t Go Home Again
Dreiser, Theodore – An American Tragedy
Morrison, Toni – The Bluest Eye; Jazz
Walker, Alice – The Color Purple
Doctorow, E.L. – Ragtime
Lewis, Sinclair – Babbitt; Arrowsmith; Elmer Gantry; Main Street
Steinbeck, John – Cannery Row;* East of Eden;* In Dubious Battle
Faulkner, William – The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom; Light in August; As I Lay Dying
Hurston, Zora Neale – Their Eyes Were Watching God
Saroyan, William – The Human Comedy
Era 5: WW II and Later 20th Century
Heller, Joseph – Catch 22
Knowles, John – A Separate Peace
Wouk, Herman – Winds of War
Collins and Lapierre – Is Paris Burning?
Guterson, David – Snow Falling On Cedars
Kogawa, Joy – Obasan
Dillard, Annie – An American Childhood
Keillor , Garrison – Lake Woebegon Days
Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye*
Puzo, Mario – The Godfather
Villasenor, Victor – Rain of Gold
Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man
Wright, Richard – Native Son
Gaines, Ernest – A Lesson Before Dying
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird*
Haley, Alex – Autobiography of Malcolm X
Branch, Taylor – Pillar of Fire
Warren, Robert Penn – All the King’s Men
Wolf, Tom – The Right Stuff
Mason, Bobbie Ann – In Country
O’Brien, Tim – The Things They Carried
Otsuka, Julie – When the Emperor Was Divine
Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood
Houston, Jean Wakastuki - Farewell to Manzanar*
Bragg, Rick – All Over but the Shoutin’
Wolff, Tobias – This Boy’s Life
Kennedy, John F. – Profiles in Courage
Kercheval, Jesse Lee - Space
INDEPENDENT READING PROJECT
General Directions:
-The titles have been selected for their literary and historical importance in American literature.
-During ERA 1, students will maintain a Reading Response Journal documenting their reading. A comprehension test will be administered at the end of ERA 1. During ERA 2 and subsequent eras, students will maintain Reading Logs that will document their reading over an assigned period of time.
-When students finish a required book from each ERA, they will continue to read independently from any ERA of their choice.
READING LIST – ERAS 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Note: Please feel free to suggest books to be added to the list. Ask your U.S. History teachers for suggestions. Most of the titles here are fiction; some nonfiction is included and you are encouraged to read nonfiction, especially biography that is appropriate for the era. The books that are starred (*) indicate that there are multiple books or class sets available for that title. Please obtain permission to read a book that does not appear on this list.
ERA 1: COLONIAL
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scarlet Letter* (This book represents the Colonial Era, though it is a Romantic novel.)
ERA 2: COLONIAL (cont.), REVOLUTIONARY, ROMANTIC and CIVIL WAR
Cooper, James Fenimore – The Last of the Mohicans; The Deer Slayer; The Pathfinder; The Pioneers, The Prairie
Franklin, Benjamin – Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Vidal, Gore – Burr (biography)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The House of Seven Gables
Melville, Herman – Moby Dick; Billy Budd
Thoreau, Henry D. – Walden
Brown, Dee – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage *
Morrison, Toni – Beloved
Vidal, Gore – Lincoln
Frazier, Charles – Cold Mountain
Welch, James – Fools Crow
Shaara, Michael – The Killer Angels
ERA 3: LATER 19TH CENTURY
(Post Civil War, Westward Movement, Industrial Age)
Clark, Walter Van Tilburg – The Oxbow Incident
McMurtry, Larry – Lonesome Dove
Cather, Willa – O Pioneers!* My Antonia*
Ambrose, Stephen – Undaunted Courage
Twain, Mark – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Dreiser, Theodore – Sister Carrie
James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady; The Golden Bowl
Wharton, Edith – The Age of Innocence; The House of Mirth; Ethan Frome*
ERA 4: EARLY 20TH CENTURY
(Early Modernism, 1900 – WWII)
Potok, Chaim – The Chosen*; My Name is Asher Lev
Smith, Betty – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Norris, Frank – McTeague; The Octopus
Sinclair, Upton – The Jungle
Stegner, Wallace – The Big Rock Candy Mountain; Joe Hill; Angle of Repose
Baldwin, James – Go Tell it on the Mountain*
Hemingway, Ernest – The Sun Also Rises*; For Whom the Bell Tolls; A Farewell to Arms; Islands in the Stream
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – This Side of Paradise; Tender is the Night; The Great Gatsby*
Malamud, Bernard – The Fixer; The Natural
Wolfe, Thomas – You Can’t Go Home Again
Dreiser, Theodore – An American Tragedy
Morrison, Toni – The Bluest Eye; Jazz
Walker, Alice – The Color Purple
Doctorow, E.L. – Ragtime
Lewis, Sinclair – Babbitt; Arrowsmith; Elmer Gantry; Main Street
Steinbeck, John – Cannery Row;* East of Eden;* In Dubious Battle
Faulkner, William – The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom; Light in August; As I Lay Dying
Hurston, Zora Neale – Their Eyes Were Watching God
Saroyan, William – The Human Comedy
Era 5: WW II and Later 20th Century
Heller, Joseph – Catch 22
Knowles, John – A Separate Peace
Wouk, Herman – Winds of War
Collins and Lapierre – Is Paris Burning?
Guterson, David – Snow Falling On Cedars
Kogawa, Joy – Obasan
Dillard, Annie – An American Childhood
Keillor , Garrison – Lake Woebegon Days
Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye*
Puzo, Mario – The Godfather
Villasenor, Victor – Rain of Gold
Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man
Wright, Richard – Native Son
Gaines, Ernest – A Lesson Before Dying
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird*
Haley, Alex – Autobiography of Malcolm X
Branch, Taylor – Pillar of Fire
Warren, Robert Penn – All the King’s Men
Wolf, Tom – The Right Stuff
Mason, Bobbie Ann – In Country
O’Brien, Tim – The Things They Carried
Otsuka, Julie – When the Emperor Was Divine
Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood
Houston, Jean Wakastuki - Farewell to Manzanar*
Bragg, Rick – All Over but the Shoutin’
Wolff, Tobias – This Boy’s Life
Kennedy, John F. – Profiles in Courage
Kercheval, Jesse Lee - Space