Phonics
9th -12th
9th Grade Language Arts
9th Grade Curriculum Reading List
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Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) [Drama]
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The Odyssey (excerpts, Fagles/Fitzgerald) [Epic]
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Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck) or Born a Crime (Young Readers, Noah) [Novel/Memoir]
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Persepolis (Satrapi) [Graphic Memoir]
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Poetry Pack: sonnets + global voices
• • Nonfiction: MLK “Letter from Birmingham Jail” + paired articles
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Antigone — Sophocles (trans.) [Drama]
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American Born Chinese — Gene Luen Yang [Graphic]
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Born a Crime (YA) — Trevor Noah [Memoir]
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time — Haddon [✳️]
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The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho [Allegory]
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I Am Malala (Young Readers) — Yousafzai [NF]
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The Book Thief — Markus Zusak [Historical]
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We Should All Be Feminists — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Essay]
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Poetry pack: sonnets + global voices
10th Grade Language Arts
10th Grade Curriculum Reading List
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Julius Caesar or Macbeth (Shakespeare) [Drama]
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Things Fall Apart (Achebe) [Novel]
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Lord of the Flies (Golding) or The Joy Luck Club (Tan) [Novel]
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Nonfiction: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloot) [NF]
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Poetry Pack: Neruda, Dickinson, Wilfred Owen (sel.)
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• • Media: documentary + op-ed synthesis
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A Raisin in the Sun — Lorraine Hansberry [Drama]
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Fences — August Wilson [Drama]
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Purple Hibiscus — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Novel]
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The Joy Luck Club — Amy Tan [Linked Stories]
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All Quiet on the Western Front — Remarque [War]
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Between Shades of Gray — Ruta Sepetys [Historical]
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Into the Wild — Jon Krakauer [NF]
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The Devil in the White City — Erik Larson [NF/Hist]
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• • Poetry pack: Neruda, Dickinson, Owen (close-reading)
11th Grade Language Arts
11th Grade Curriculum Reading List
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Grade 11 (American focus)
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The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) [Novel]
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The Crucible (Miller) [Drama]
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Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston) or The Things They Carried (O’Brien) [Novel/Stories]
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Nonfiction: Just Mercy (YA, Stevenson) or Between the World and Me (Coates) [NF]
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Poetry Pack: Whitman, Dickinson, Hughes, Brooks (sel.)
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• • Seminal Documents: Declaration of Independence; Federalist No. 10 (excerpts); Sojourner Truth; King’s Letter
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The Scarlet Letter — Nathaniel Hawthorne [Classic]
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The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck [Classic]
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The Awakening — Kate Chopin [Classic]
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The Things They Carried — Tim O’Brien [Stories]
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Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston [Novel]
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Death of a Salesman — Arthur Miller [Drama]
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A Streetcar Named Desire — Tennessee Williams [✳️ Drama]
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Essays/speeches: Emerson “Self-Reliance,” Thoreau “Civil Disobedience,” King “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Douglass “What to the Slave…”
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• • NF: Silent Spring (excerpts) — Rachel Carson; Just Mercy (YA) — Bryan Stevenson
12th Grade Language Arts
12th Grade Curriculum Reading List
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Grade 12 (global/college-prep)
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Hamlet or Othello — Shakespeare [Drama]
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1984 — George Orwell / Brave New World — Aldous Huxley [Dystopian]
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Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro [Speculative]
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The Namesake — Jhumpa Lahiri / Homegoing — Yaa Gyasi [Contemporary]
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The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini [✳️]
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Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe [Postcolonial]
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The Stranger — Albert Camus / The Metamorphosis — Franz Kafka [Existential/Novella]
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NF: Educated — Tara Westover; Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates; Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell (critique practice)
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Poetry pack: world poets (Szymborska, Heaney, Adichie speech pairing)
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Grade 12 (global/contemporary + capstone)
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Hamlet or Othello (Shakespeare) [Drama]
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1984 (Orwell) or Brave New World (Huxley) [Novel]
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The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood) or The Namesake (Lahiri) or Things Fall Apart if not used [Novel]
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Nonfiction/Memoir: Educated (Westover) or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloot) [NF]
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Poetry Pack: contemporary world poets (Adichie speech pairing; Heaney; Szymborska)
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Media/Capstone: longform investigative feature + research portfolio