High School Reading Lists Save The Best for Last

The high school reading list is the cream that rises to the top. During the high school years at Great Hearts, scholars enjoy the very best in literature.  And with the rich foundation of reading they have had throughout their education, a deeper appreciation the literature has been cultivated in them.  “In the high school Humane Letters sequence, I love The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, and Confessions,” said Great Hearts Academic Officer Jake Tawney. “But even in saying that makes me feel guilty for leaving off books like The Brothers Karamazov, The Divine Comedy, A Tale of Two Cities, The Iliad, and My Antonio. Come to think of it, they are all my favorite.”

We cannot discuss the high school reading list without mentioning the Humane Letters course. This class typically begins the high school day and sets the tone for the other courses. Humane Letters is first and foremost a Great Books seminar, in which the reading and Socratic discussion of great works of prose fiction, political theory, epic poetry, philosophy, autobiography, drama, and selections from Jewish and Christian scriptures are the work of the course. There are no tests or exams on the Great Books. Only daily discussions that usually fill the entire 1 hour and 50 minutes of class time.

The selection and sequence of the Great Books is not strictly chronological.  There is an intentional working-backwards in the sequence from 9th grade (American) through 10th (Modern European), into 11th (Ancient Greek), with a springing forward in 12th grade (from Virgil to Dante, Shakespeare to Descartes, and into Dostoyevsky). This sequence is above all a developmentally appropriate one for students, both because it starts with the most familiar and moves back to the least familiar. The depth and difficulty of the books in each course will increase throughout the four-year sequence. The books could not be moved from one course to another without disruption to a proven sequence.

The Great Books introduced in 9th grade have been time-tested and proven to be perfectly suited for high school freshman, which include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, Othello, The Scarlet Letter, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, Our Town, and Old Man and the Sea.  With a focus on the American tradition, scholars read historical works like The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, The Monroe Doctrine, Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise, First Inaugural Address by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.

10^th grade reading follows the curricular emphasis on modern Europe with Pride and Prejudice, Discourse on Inequality, Tale of Two Cities, Crime and Punishment, Henry V, Frankenstein, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It has been said that sophomore year’s Crime and Punishment is the most perfect pairing of book and age group in the entire Humane Letters sequence.

Great Books like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Plato’s Republic are for the emerging adult minds of juniors.  Other ancient Greek works introduced in the 11^th grade include selections from History of the Peloponnesian War, Herodotus, Oedipus Rex, Eumenides, Oedipus at Colonus, Poetics by Aristotle, Plutarch’s Lycurgus, and On Duties by Cicero.

The capstone year of 12th grade is where our seniors can robustly seminar with relatively seasoned ease. Great Books like Aenei, The Divine Comedy, Discourse on Method, King Lear, Macbeth, Meditations on First Philosophy, Paradise Lost, and Montaigne’s Essays are read and discussed.  The Brothers Karamazov could not be anything other than the last book in the 12th grade. The Russian novel has been widely acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.

Tawney stresses that these literary works play an integral part in a Great Hearts Education. “Literature forms the moral imagination of the student. It teaches the student what it means to be human and how to act virtuously in the world.” For the complete High School Reading List, visit https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/great-hearts-life/great-hearts-curriculum/high-school-reading/

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