October 13, 2020A 10th Grade Reading List for Times Like These
Beloved |
do you have memories like mine, of stickered paperbacks and pencil-smudged desks—
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The Lord of |
the flies’ lazy laps overhead, the dry erase fumes and overcooked body spray? Outside, the
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The House on Mango |
street noise, like mortgages or old age, is far away from essays and lunch trays and football
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The Hunger |
games and dress codes. Now listen up: Allegory. Foreshadowing. Irony. Theme. In a quality
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The Handmaid’s |
tale, everything has a symbol. (Are you taking notes?) A fireman, a cake, a pilgrim, a paperweight,
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To Kill |
a mockingbird, any bird. Glasses, skulls, heads on sticks, #42. Today nothing adds up. What would
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The Hate |
u give for the answer—easy to spot, like red hunting hats or scarlet letters or blue eyes? Vocab quiz:
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Slaughterhouse- |
five ways to describe a dock light: emerald, jade, viridian, lime, chartreuse. Why would you need these
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Into the | wild stories? Pages dripped with blood, trauma, conspiracy, breakdowns, talking animals. But |
The Things |
they carried truths, along with imperfections, histories, warnings. So when you’re getting torn
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Things Fall |
apart (hang the witch/burn the pages/send them back/lock them up/distrust the
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Love |
medicine/white noise & white houses/red hats & red plagues), remember the night still
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I Know Why the Caged Bird |
sings with voices. Changing the ending. Do you have memories like mine, of an eager, limitless
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Brave New |
world, of it stretching before you? I’m taking a breath. I’m ready to
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Speak | |
from Poets Respond