30-1 Diploma Suggested Reading List


from: http://education.alberta.ca/media/1325271/03_ela30-1_studentguide_2014-2015.pdf

The following is a compilation of literary texts that students have discussed on diploma examinations. If you are not in a classroom setting or wish to broaden your range of choices, you may want to study one or more selections from each of the categories on this list. This list is not prescriptive. Choosing literature from this list does not guarantee success. You may choose from this list or from other appropriate literary sources, including film. You will find previous experience with a variety of texts valuable in your preparation for writing the Critical/Analytical Response to Literary Texts Assignment and essential to your preparation for the reading comprehension required of you in Part B of the diploma examination.

Many of the short stories, poems, and drama selections in the following list are available in anthologies. These and other helpful resources are available through many public and school libraries.

Short Stories
“A & P”–Updike
“The Boat”-MacLeod
“Boys and Girls”–Munro
“Cathedral”–Carver
“Celebration”–Valgardson
“Dancing Bear”–Vanderhaege
“The Destructors”–Greene
“The Glass Roses”–Nowlan
“The Guest”–Camus
“Horses of the Night”–Laurence
“I Stand Here Ironing”–Olsen
“The Lost Salt Gift of Blood”–MacLeod
“Miss Brill”–Mansfield
“On the Rainy River”–O’Brien
“The Painted Door”–Ross
“Paul’s Case”–Cather
“The Rocking-Horse Winner”–Lawrence
“The Shining Houses”–Munro
“Sonny’s Blues”–Baldwin
“The Spaces Between Stars”–Kothari
“To Set Our House in Order”–Laurence
“Touching Bottom”–Strutt
“The Wall”–Sartre
“The Yellow Wallpaper”–Perkins

Drama
All My Sons–Miller
Bethune–Langley
The Crucible–Miller
Death of a Salesman–Miller
A Doll’s House–Ibsen
The Drawer Boy–Healey
The Glass Menagerie–Williams
A Man for All Seasons–Bolt
Oedipus Rex–Sophocles
Man of La Mancha–Wasserman
Medea–Euripedes
A Raisin in the Sun–Hansberry
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead–Stoppard
A Streetcar Named Desire–Williams

Nonfiction
Apollo 13–Lovell and Kluger The Glass Castle–Walls
Into the Wild–Krakauer
Into Thin Air–Krakauer
A Long Way Gone–Beah
Night–Wiesel
On Running Away–Keats
Tuesdays with Morrie–Albom
Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing–Lees

Full–length Fiction
1984–Orwell
The Ash Garden–Bock
The Bean Trees–Kingsolver
The Cellist of Sarajevo–Galloway Crime and Punishment–Dostoevsky Crow Lake–Lawson
Fifth Business–Davies
The Grapes of Wrath–Steinbeck Great Expectations–Dickens
The Great Gatsby–Fitzgerald
The Handmaid’s Tale–Atwood Heart of Darkness–Conrad
The Hero’s Walk–Badami
The Kite Runner–Hosseini
House of the Spirits–Allende
The Lovely Bones–Sebold
Life of Pi–Martel
The Metamorphosis–Kafka Monsignor Quixote–Greene
The Mosquito Coast–Theroux
My Name is Asher Lev–Potok
No Great Mischief–MacLeod Obasan–Kogawa
The Outsider–Camus
The Poisonwood Bible–Kingsolver Pride and Prejudice–Austen
Snow Falling on Cedars–Guterson The Stone Angel–Laurence
The Stone Carvers–Urquhart Things Fall Apart–Achebe
Truth and Bright Water–King
The Wars–Findley
Wild Geese–Ostenso Windflower–Roy
Wuthering Heights–Brontë

Poetry
My Last Dutchess–Browning
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock–Eliot Ulysses–Tennyson

Shakespearean Plays
Hamlet
King Lear
Othello
The Tempest

Film
Not all films studied in Grade 12 are effective choices for diploma examination purposes. Ensure that your choice is one that you have studied in detail and know well. The list below contains both original film presentations and adaptations of written literary works. If you are using the film version of a written text, indicate this choice clearly on the Initial Planning page.
American Beauty
A Beautiful Mind
Big Fish
Billy Elliot
Children of Men
Chocolat
Dead Poets Society
The Godfather
Gran Torino
Lars and the Real Girl
Life is Beautiful
Memento
Million Dollar Baby
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Pianist
Pleasantville
Schindler’s List
The Shawshank Redemption
Stranger than Fiction
The Truman Show