I need novel suggestions for a 9th grade curriculum. The novel should be by a woman, be around 200 pages (re: not long), be accessible to reluctant readers, and, hopefully, be Catcher in the Rye-ish. International would be great. So would a "classic." We've had too many middle school students reading A Lesson Before Dying and To Kill a Mockingbird in the 8th grade, and also want something that doesn't focus primarily on African American issues (Fences is already one of our staples).
Ideas I have so far:
Ellen Foster. Positives -- it's a good book, it's coming-of-age, it's a female protagonist. Negatives -- it would be our second work written primarily in dialect; it uses the n-word a few times, perhaps too focused on race (it's been a while since I read it.)
Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky: I just picked this up and read about a quarter of it this weekend. It has a lot of the attributes (female, Catcher-in-the-rye-ish) I'm looking for, plus it's international, but I'm now getting a little bored by it and think it might be a little too cerebral for the 9th graders. I want them to have a good time raading a book.
Other thoughts I'm having:
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg: Wonderful book, but I'm not sure if I can get my colleagues into it.
Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Norris: Too bad it's by a man; it would be perfect (it's also about female characters, so maybe I can justify it in my head).
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: I don't have a good reason against it right now, although I'm not sure it would be a great choice for our boys.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker: It's always been a dream to teach this one, but it's another African American novel right after Fences. Not much exposure to the wider world.
By the, the curriculum is looking like this:
Summer Reading: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Hadden) plus either The Book Thief (Zusak), A Long Way Gone (Baeh), and Does My Head Look Big In This? (Abdel-Fattah)
Book 1: Persepolis (Satrapi)
Book 2: Fences (Wilson)
Book 3: The Novel
Book 4: Perhaps Oedipus
Book 5: Lit Circles novel -- Students choose from Swimming the Monsoon Sea (Selvadurai), Life of Pi (Martell), In the Time of the Butterflies (Alvarez), or Nectar in a Sieve (Markandaya)
Book 6: Romeo and Juliet
So, too male as it is, probably.
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10 comments:
My favorite female authors (both very accessible) Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler. Yeah - stereotypical engineer reading too much science fiction. What can I say? Another option since you touched on autism with Dog in the Night is Songs of the Gorilla Nation by Dawn Prince-Hughes. It was a very easy read for me, but I have personal issues there. It's a memoir, not a novel.
Oh, I guess specific books would be helpful. For Octavia Butler I'd go with Dawn. I read it and loved it when I was much younger (if not in high school). For LeGuin maye Left Hand of Darkness? I loved it in high school. Or maybe Powers. An easy and engrossing read.
Check out Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates. It's a little bit longer than 200 pages, but it's a great book and it should be a quicker read. If you have any interest, I have a unit plan already written for the novel (we used it in my old 10th grade reading class), complete with an interesting tie in to Edgar Allan Poe.
My kids (all ages) have loved Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games. It's dystopian literature: Brave New World/1984 meets Shirley Jackson's The Lottery meets Reality TV/Survivor. There are male characters, but the main character is a very strong female. There's a love triangle (nothing graphic) for the girls and violence/fighting for the boys (and my girls liked it too). You could also get into topics such as controlling government, loyalty to family, socio-ecomonic inequality, just to name a few.
One other thing, it's longer than your 200 pages, but the kids who have loved it were reluctant readers (and avid readers as well). I had one boy who didn't like to read - EVER - who not only read The Hunger Games, but also the 2nd book Catching Fire, and then kept asking me when the 3rd book was coming out. He was bummed he had to wait until August 24.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are both excellent choices that fulfill all your criteria, although Tree is much longer, but still an easy read.
I second the Hunger Games, or by another strong female writer but totally different: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. It was a National Book Award finalist, is an easy read and is knock-your-socks off good (and a quick read, even if it is over 200 pgs, I think I read it in a matter of three hours). Lots to chew on, very feminist. E. Lockhart is, perhaps, the best YA writer for young women.
We teach Speak to our 8th graders-- and I don't think there's an issue with the boys. Also, why not do Antigone instead of Oedipus, to balance out what you see as male-centered lit.?
When Women Had Wings might work-- and I teach both Octavia Butler's Kindred (bonus: it takes place in Maryland) as well as Ellen Foster (great voice); kids like them both. Or Bean Trees (which I love, but-- admittedly-- my 9th grade boys don't. I say, sucks to them, though.)
I agree with the idea to switch to Antigone. Also I nominate The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers for a novel, well novella.
What about Sandra Cisneros? House on Mango Street written by a Hispanic woman, narrator is a 14 year old girl.
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