BHS ELA Instructional Guide

Approved Texts & Sample Themes

12thGrade

Below are sample themes, essential questions, and texts. Teachers are encouraged to choose themes and essential questions that deepen the understanding of the texts chosen for their class. These sample themes and texts are not comprehensive, nor required. When choosing texts to use in your classroom, remember to use the Instructional Materials Selection Criteria to help you make your decisions. Also, refer to text complexity to ensure that students are reading steadily increasing complex texts throughout high school.

Approved Novels and Plays for Grades 11-12 (as of May 15, 2024)

● ● ● ●

● ●

1984by George Orwell

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

● Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann ● Les Miserables by Victor Hugo ● Life of Pi by YanMartel ● Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds ● Lord of the Flies by William Golding ● Macbethby William Shakespeare ● My Antonia by Willa Cather ● Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass ● Night by Elie Wiesel ● Norse Myths: Tales of Odin, Thor, and Loki by Kevin Crossley by Holland, Illustrated By Jeffrey Alan Love ● Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck ● Othelloby Shakespeare ● Passingby Nella Larsen ● Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ● Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ● Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw ● Resistance vol. 1 by Carla Jablonski ● Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse ● Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut ● Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy ● The 57 Bus: The True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed their Lives by Dashka Slater ● The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey ● The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey ● The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho ● The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver ● The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ● The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown ● The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer ● The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas ● The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

● A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ● A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson ● Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ● All American Boys by Jason Reynolds And Brendan Kiely ● All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque ● All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr ● All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy ● Antigone by Sophocles ● As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman ● Belovedby Toni Morrison ● Beowulf by Unknown ● Catch by 22 by Joseph Heller ● Citizen 13660 by MinéOkubo ● Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ● Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostovesky ● Death Coming Up the Hill by Chris Crowe ● Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller ● Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham ● Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell ● Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley ● Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Albert Marrin ● Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ● Great Expectations by Charles Dickens ● Grit, the Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth ● Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls ● Hamlet by William Shakespeare ● Hamlet by No Fear by William Shakespeare ● Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad ● Heist Society by Ally Carter ● I Am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina ● I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Last Updated August 13, 2024

High School ELA, Page 120