Honors World Literature Reading List

2010-2011

Required Reading:

Knowles, John                                      A Separate Peace

Sophocles                                            Antigone

Suggested Reading:

Buck, Pearl                                          The Good Earth

Bradbury, Ray                                     Something Wicked This Way Comes

Hilton, James                                       Lost Horizon

Grass, Gunter                                      The Tin Drum

Gordimer, Nadine                               July’s People

Smith, Betty                                        A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Conroy, P.                                          The Lords of Discipline

Camus, A.                                           The Plague

Malamud, Bernard                              The Fixer

Wiesel, Elie                                         Dawn

White, T.H.                                         The Once and Future King

Hesse, Herman                                    Siddhartha

Remarque, Erich Maria                       All Quiet on the Western Front

Achebe, Chinua                                  Things Fall Apart

Markandaya, Kamala                          Nectar in a Sieve

Dafka, Franz                                       The Metamorphosis

Kincaid, Jamaica                                 Annie John

Allende, Isabel                                    Paula

Drama (to be assigned during the school year):

Euripides                                             Medea

Rostand, E.                                         Cyrano de Bergerac

Chekov, Anton                                   The Cherry Orchard

Ibsen, Henrik                                      An Enemy of the People

Maeterlinck, Maurice                          The Blue Bird

The following works are to be purchased for the class:

CLASS DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS:

Shakespeare, William                          Julius Caesar

Shelley, Mary                                      Frankenstein

Wiesel, Elie                                         Night

An essay on the required novel and a test on the drama are the assignments for the first day of school. There are no acceptable excuses for late work. Manage your time and do not wait until the last minute. I do not want to hear that your printer would not work or that you printer ran out of ink or that you do not have a computer and, therefore, had to wait for your best friend to finish his/her essay before you could type yours.

Essay Topic:

Contemporary Literary Criticism states that John Knowles’s main characters often

“. . . arrive at a painful awakening, the realization of the evil in society and themselves.” According to Knowles, the realization helps them to enter adulthood. Relate these comments to Gene and his environment. When does Gene reach his painful awakening to the evil in himself and in society: In what ways do these realizations help him to mature?

(Requirements: 2-3 pages, at least five paragraphs [first paragraph, introduction; second through fourth or more paragraphs, body; final paragraph, conclusion; and each paragraph to include at least five sentences])

BE PREPARED FOR A TEST ON BASIC INFORMATION ON THE DRAMA.

The required essay and any other essays, novel reports, or drama sheets assigned during the school year are to be typed (Times New Roman 12) and placed in a folder. All essays, reports and drama sheets will be turned in (in the same folder as your first assigned writing on each successive due date). All essays, novel reports, and drama sheets will be turned in at the end of the school year. If you would like to keep a personal copy, please be sure to save to a flash drive.

NOVEL REPORT FORM (to be used during the school year)

1. Title

2. Original publication date

3. Author

4. Authorial background (include style, techniques, classification, significance, influence)

5. Setting (description required)

6. Theme (support with elements from the novel)

7. Character sketch (analysis of one major character)

8. Works Cited page

Any novel report is to be written in paragraph form (including #’s 1, 2, and 3). Research is required for #4 and will probably be helpful in composing section #’s 5 and 7. Research will necessitate the inclusion of in-text citations and a Works Cited page. MLA style is required.