You may have brought home a grade level reading list today, to be signed by yourself and by a parent or guardian. I’m following the middle school reading syllabus from Ridgeview Classical Charter School, in Fort Collins, Colorado, as they have a successful proven track record, and we’re in the process of establishing our own. This means we’re following the Core Curriculum suggested reading, and supplementing it. Though challenging, I’m excited to work through the material with you, and am confident you’ll have a real feeling of accomplishment by the end of the school year. If nothing else, it sounds pretty cool to be able to tell people you’re reading The Odyssey or Twelfth Night--and, oh, yes, Cyrano de Bergerac, too.
Grade Six
Iliad (retold by Padriac Colum)—Homer
Odyssey (translation by George Herbert Palmer)—Homer
Julius Caesar—Shakespeare
The Prince and the Pauper—Twain
The Sea Wolf—London
An Enemy of the People—Ibsen
The Scarlet Pimpernel—Orczy
The Count of Monte Cristo—Dumas
Selected poems, essays, speeches and short stories
Grade Seven
Fahrenheit 451—Bradbury
All Quiet on the Western Front—Remarque
Cyrano de Bergerac—Rostand
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—Stevenson
The Tempest—Shakespeare
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl—Frank
The Hiding Place—ten Boom
The Call of the Wild—London
Selected poems, essays, speeches and short stories
Grade 8
Lord of the Flies—Golding
To Kill a Mockingbird—Lee
Pride and Prejudice—Austen
Hard Times—Dickens
Twelfth Night—Shakespeare
My Early Life—Churchill
The Good Earth—Buck
Animal Farm—Orwell
Selections from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—Angelou
Selected poems, essays, speeches and short stories
