Description
The list of book titles that follows was compiled from the results of an informal survey conducted by the Department and distributed by the New York State English Council and the New York State Reading Association. Teachers were asked to suggest books they felt were “appropriate and successful with readers in the K-12 curriculum.” These titles represent a sample of those submitted. The list is not inclusive, nor is it intended as a recommended reading list; rather, it is a list of books that English Language Arts teachers in New York State suggest have literary merit, are representative of the genres, and are being read by students in today’s classrooms. Some are appropriate for all students, some for advanced readers. Titles include folklore, fantasy, science fiction, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Selected magazine titles are included in recognition of the importance of using magazines to meet informational and recreational needs.
Following the New York State English Language Arts teacher selections are two lists— “Notable Children’s Books, 1995” and “Best Books for Young Adults, 1995”—published by the American Library Association and representative of the many distinguished published lists of books that teachers rely on as they help students select reading material. The concluding example of reading selections is provided by the New Standards Project “Performance Standards: English Language Arts.” The three lists suggest acceptable titles for student readers at elementary, middle, and high school levels.
Website(s)
To view the complete English Language Arts Resource Guide: Instructional Materials document, please click the link below.
Fiction and Nonfiction
Selected Titles
Title........................................................................................................... Author
Things Fall Apart ....................................................................................Achebe, Chinua
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings..........................................................Angelou, Maya
Days of Grace...........................................................................................Ashe, Arthur
Pride and Prejudice..................................................................................Austen, Jane
Growing Up.............................................................................................Baker, Russell
Forbidden City .........................................................................................Bell, William
Wuthering Heights ..................................................................................Bronte, Charlotte
My Antonia .............................................................................................Cather, Willa
Shogun .....................................................................................................Clavell, James
Heart of Darkness ....................................................................................Conrad, Joseph
Prince of Tides..........................................................................................Conroy, Pat
After the First Death................................................................................Cormier, Robert
Maggie: Girl of the Streets.......................................................................Crane, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage .......................................................................Crane, Stephen
Tale of Two Cities .....................................................................................Dickens, Charles
Crime and Punishment............................................................................Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass...............................................Douglass, Frederick
Silas Marner ............................................................................................Elliott, George
The Invisible Man....................................................................................Ellison, Ralph
The Portable Emerson..............................................................................Emerson, Ralph Waldo
As I Lay Dying ........................................................................................Faulkner, William
The Great Gatsby .....................................................................................Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Lord of the Flies........................................................................................Golding, William
Waiting for the Rain ................................................................................Gordon, Sheila
Black Like Me...........................................................................................Griffin, John Howard
Roots ........................................................................................................Haley, Alex
A Raisin in the Sun .................................................................................Hansberry, Lorraine
Tess of the D’Urbervilles..........................................................................Hardy, Thomas
The Scarlet Letter.....................................................................................Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Pentimento...............................................................................................Hellman, Lillian
A Farewell to Arms..................................................................................Hemingway, Ernest
The Snows of Kilimanjaro........................................................................Hemingway, Ernest
Lés Miserables..........................................................................................Hugo, Victor
Dust Tracks on a Road.............................................................................Hurston, Zora Neale
Their Eyes Were Watching God...............................................................Hurston, Zora Neale
A Time to Speak .......................................................................................Jackson, Jesse
The Lottery...............................................................................................Jackson, Shirley
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man ................................................Joyce, James
Profiles in Courage ..................................................................................Kennedy, John F.
Ironweed...................................................................................................Kennedy, William
Stride Toward Freedom ............................................................................King, Martin Luther
A Separate Peace ..................................................................................Knowles, John
Dark Child ...............................................................................................Laye, Camara
To Kill a Mockingbird..............................................................................Lee, Harper
Call of the Wild ........................................................................................London, Jack
Ninety-Five Theses ..................................................................................Luther, Martin
The Prince ................................................................................................Machiavelli, Niccolo
A Death in Venice ....................................................................................Mann, Thomas
Nicholas and Alexandra.........................................................................Massie, Robert
Color of Water..........................................................................................McBride, James
All the Pretty Horses ...............................................................................McCarthy, Cormac
Moby Dick ...............................................................................................Melville, Herman
Blue Highways.........................................................................................Moon, William Least Heat
Song of Solomon ......................................................................................Morrison, Toni
Beloved ...................................................................................................Morrison, Toni
The Power of Myth ..................................................................................Moyers, Bill
1984..........................................................................................................Orwell, George
Cry the Beloved Country .........................................................................Paton, Alan
*See Original Doc. For More Titles
Folklore
Selected Titles
Aesop’s Fables ..........................................................................................Aesop
Andersen’s Fairy Tales.............................................................................Andersen, Hans Christian
Johnny Appleseed.....................................................................................Benet, Rosemary
Trickster Stories .......................................................................................Edmonds, I. G.
Greek Mythology .....................................................................................Hamilton, Edith
Mules and Men........................................................................................Hurston, Zora Neale
Tales of King Arthur................................................................................Malory, Sir Thomas
Paul Bunyan ............................................................................................Sandburg, Carl
Fantasy and Science Fiction
Selected Titles
Watership Down......................................................................................Adams, Richard
The Handmaid’s Tale................................................................................Atwood, Margaret
I, Robot ....................................................................................................Azimov, Isaac
The Illustrated Man.................................................................................Bradbury, Ray
Jurassic Park ............................................................................................Crichton, Michael
The Princess Bride ...................................................................................Goldman, William
Stranger in a Strange Land .....................................................................Heinlein, Robert A.
Brave New World ....................................................................................Huxley, Aldous
1984..........................................................................................................Orwell, George
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.......................................Twain, Mark
Sirens of the Titan....................................................................................Vonnegut, Kurt
The Time Machine ...................................................................................Wells, H.G.
Poetry
Selected Titles
And Still I Rise ........................................................................................Angelou, Maya
Collected Poems .......................................................................................Auden, W. Hugh
Cry ...........................................................................................................Baca, Jimmy Santiago
Tiger, Tiger...............................................................................................Blake, William
Thanatopsis..............................................................................................Bryant, William C.
The Canterbury Tales...............................................................................Chaucer, Geoffrey
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson................................................Dickinson, Emily
Collected Poems .......................................................................................Eliot, Thomas S.
Endless Life ..............................................................................................Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
The Poetry of Robert Frost.......................................................................Frost, Robert
My House.................................................................................................Giovanni, Nikki
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes........................................................Hughes, Langston
The Iliad ...................................................................................................Homer
The Odyssey.............................................................................................Homer
Poetical Works .........................................................................................Keats, John
Spoon River Anthology............................................................................Masters, Edgar Lee
Poems of Pablo Neruda (bilingual)..........................................................Neruda, Pablo
The Collected Poems ................................................................................Plath, Sylvia
The Raven ................................................................................................Poe, Edgar Allan
Richard Cory............................................................................................Robinson, Edwin A.
Sonnets.....................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
The Poetical Works ..................................................................................Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Leaves of Grass.........................................................................................Whitman, Walt
Drama
Selected Titles
Becket .......................................................................................................Anouilh, Jean
Antigone ..................................................................................................Anoulih, Jean
Waiting for Godot....................................................................................Beckett, Samuel
The Stranger ............................................................................................Camus, Albert
Medea.......................................................................................................Euripides
Julia ..........................................................................................................Hellman, Lillian
A Doll’s House .........................................................................................Ibsen, Henry
Inherit the Wind ......................................................................................Lawrence, Jerome
Death of a Salesman.................................................................................Miller, Arthur
The Crucible.............................................................................................Miller, Arthur
Long Day’s Journey Into Night...............................................................O’Neill, Eugene
Twelve Angry Men..................................................................................Rose, Reginald
Cyrano de Bergerac..................................................................................Rostand, Edmond
As You Like It...........................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Hamlet......................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Macbeth....................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Richard II .................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Romeo and Juliet ......................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Pygmalion................................................................................................Shaw, George Bernard
Oedipus Rex.............................................................................................Sophocles
Tartuffe..........................................................................................Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poquelin
The Heidi Chronicles ...............................................................................Wasserman, Wendy
A Streetcar Named Desire .......................................................................Williams, Tennessee
Fences.......................................................................................................Wilson, August
Periodicals
Selected Titles
Literary Cavalcade
Merlyn’s Pen
The New Yorker
New York Times Magazine
Newsweek
Poets and Writers
Sports Illustrated
Time
