Great literature is the foundation of a great Language Arts program.Reading and analysis of great literature, including poetry, improves reading skills, expands vocabulary, and cultivates learning in a variety of other ways.  Students begin to understand and appreciate the author’s mastery of writing as a craft, and improve their own writing skills by imitating such excellent models of writing. The study of great literature also fills the imaginations of our students with goodness, truth, and beauty, and they learn important lessons about life, history, nature, right and wrong, and good and evil.

​

Kindergarten

​

Poetry:

Animal Crackers - Christopher Morley

At the Sea-Side - Robert Louis Stevenson

Bird Talk - Aileen Fisher

Good Morning, Merry Sunshine - Anonymous

Happy Thought - Robert Louis Stevenson

Hurt No Living Thing - Christina Georgina Rossetti

I’m Glad - Anonymous

Mary’s Lamb - Sarah Josepha Hale

Once I Saw a Little Bird - Old Nursery Rhyme

Rain - Robert Louis Stevenson

Singing - Robert Louis Stevenson

Singing-Time - Rose Flyeman

The Little Turtle - Vachel Lindsay

The Three Little Kittens - Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

Time to Rise - Robert Louis Stevenson

Whole Duty of Children - Robert Louis Stevenson

​

1st Grade

Texts: Collection of Young Scholars (Literature) & SRA Reading Mastery (Fluency)

Topics: 

• Reading for fluency and comprehension. Introduction of different genres in literature.  Discussion of plots, characters and settings.

• Introduction and memorization of poems.

• Read alouds include; My Father’s Dragon (Books 1, 2& 3), The Little’s, The Adventures of Tumtum and Nutmeg, The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

​

Poetry:

Bed in Summer - Robert Louis Stevenson

Easter - Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Foreign Lands - Robert Louis Stevenson

My Shadow - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Cow - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Hayloft - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Lamplighter - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Land of Counterpane - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Moon - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Swing - Robert Louis Stevenson

There Once Was a Puffin - Florence Page Jaques

Where Go the Boats? - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Wind - Robert Louis Stevenson

Windy Nights - Robert Louis Stevenson

​

2nd Grade

​

Texts: Open Court Collections for Young Scholars and other books.

 

Topics:

• Read stories with class discussion & questions to test understanding

• Read fiction, non-fiction & poetry.

​

Poetry:

A Christmas Carol - G. K. Chesterton

At the Zoo - A.A. Milne

Boy and His Stomach - Edgar Albert Guest

Furry Bear - A. A. Milne

Little Jesus - Francis Thompson

Looking-Glass River - Robert Louis Stevenson

My Ship and I - Robert Louis Stevenson

Our Brother Is Born - Harry and Eleanor Farjeon

Some One - Walter de la Mare

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

The Christening - A.A. Milne

The Duel - Eugene Field

The Land of Nod - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Land of Story-books - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat - Edward Lear

The Song of Mr. Toad - Kenneth Grahame

Trees - Sara Coleridge

What are Heavy? - Christina Rossetti

​

3rd Grade

​

Texts: Open Court Collections for Young Scholars, Fables, Farmer Boy, Stuart Little, The Family Under the Bridge, Poppy, Black Beauty.

​

Poetry:

A Child’s Thought of God - Elizabeth Barnett Browning

A Sea-Song from the Shore - James Whitcomb Riley

Casey at the Bat - Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Christmas Bells - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore - William Brighty Rands

Man of the House - Katherine Tynan

Sailor, Come Ashore - Christina Georgina Rossetti

October’s Party - George Cooper

Old Ironsides - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The Children’s Hour - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Elf and the Dormouse - Oliver Herford

The Flag Goes By - Henry Halcomb Bennett

The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cooky - Vachel Lindsay

The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Village Blacksmith - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What Do We Plant? - Henry Abbey

​

4th Grade

​

Texts: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Island of the Blue Dolphins, By the Great Horn Spoon, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

​

Poetry: 

America for Me - Henry Van Dyke

Captain Kidd - Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét

Christmas Everywhere - Phillips Brooks

Columbus - Joaquin Miller (Abridged)

Four Things - Henry Van Dyke

Hernando De Soto - Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét

Hiawatha’s Childhood - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Requiem - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Bells - Edgar Allan Poe

The Fool’s Prayer - Edward Rowland Sill

The Rainbow - Christina Rossetti

 

5th Grade

​

Texts: 

• Declaration of Independence (first section)

• Preamble to the Constitution 

• C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

• Elizabeth George Speare, The Sign of the Beaver

• Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer, The Phantom Tollbooth

​

Poetry:

A Child’s Prayer - Old English Prayer

Benjamin Franklin - Stephen Vincent Benét

He Prayeth Best - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix - Robert Browning (Abridged)

Lewis and Clark - Rosemary Benét

Love and the Child - Frances Thompson

O Captain! My Captain! - Walt Whitman

Paul Revere’s Ride - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sheridan’s Ride - Thomas Buchanan Read

Solitude - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Destruction of Sennacherib - Lord Byron

The Spider and the Fly - Mary Botham Howitt

The Star-Spangled Banner - Francis Scott Key

Who Has Seen the Wind? - Christina Rossetti

​

6th Grade

​

Greek Myths:

Apollo and Daphne

Narcissus and Echo

Orpheus and Eurydice

Pygmalion and Galatea

*** Greek & Roman Plays, Dr. Cullum;

 

Short Stories:

“The Adventure of the Dancing Men” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“The Ransom of red Chief” by O. Henry

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Open Window” by Saki (H.H. Munro)

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain

​

Essays and Speeches:

“Are Women Persons?” by Susan B. Anthony

The House Divided Speech by Abraham Lincoln

The Atlanta Exposition Address of 1895 by Booker T. Washington

Message from Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe to Children: The Suffering of Children Challenges our Consciences.

​

Combination In Class & At Home Reading:

First Quarter: The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Second Quarter: The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Third Quarter: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Fourth Quarter: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

​

At-Home Reading: (at least one book per quarter)

First Quarter: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Second Quarter:The Golden Goblet by Jarvis McGraw

Third Quarter: Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley

Fourth Quarter: Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare

 

Saint Biography – 6th Graders will read one saint biography of their choice and create a shoebox report on it.  Students also read several Old Testament Bible stories directly from the Bible regularly throughout the school year.

​

Poetry: 

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Lord Alfred Tennyson

“An Old Woman of the Roads” by Pádraic Colum

“Be Strong” by Maltbie Davenport Babcock

“Father William” by Robert Southey

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe

“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll

“Opportunity” by Edward Rowland Sill

“Out of Bounds” by John B. Tabb

“The Builders” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The Coin” by Sara Teasdale

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats

“The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” by Francis W. Bourdillon (Abridged)

“The Violet” by Jane Taylor

“Trees” by Joyce Kilmer

“Two Went up into the Temple to Pray” by Richard Crashaw

​

Accelerated Reader

Students must earn at least 5 points per quarter in addition to their other assigned reading. All books must be at grade level.

​

7th Grade

​

Short Stories:

“The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant

“The Tell-Tale Heart” &  “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poe

“Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”  by James Thurber

 

Essays and Speeches:

“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell

"Fifty Years Hence" by Winston Churchill

Message of Pope Francis for the twenty-ninth world youth day 2014

​

Combination In Class & At Home Reading:  (One per quarter at least)

Additional At Home Reading:  (at least one book per quarter, same book for all students, additional books for extra credit); students to keep a weekly journal of reading (including vocabulary list) which may include illustrations; assessment at end of quarter.  Students will also read one saint biography. 
 

First Quarter

Son of Charlemagne, Barbara Willard

Additional: The Eagle of the Ninth, Sutcliff

 

Second Quarter

The Black Arrow, Robert Louis Stevenson

Additional: Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving

 

Third Quarter:

The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy

Additional: Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

​

Fourth Quarter:

Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling

Additional: Treasure Island, Stevenson

 

Lives of the Saints:

Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Story of the Dumb Ox, Winde

​

Poetry: 

A Ballad of Trees and the Master - Sidney Lanier

Beautiful Things - Ellen P. Allerton

Eldorado - Edgar Allan Poe

Sonnet 19 - William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar - Act III, Scene 2, 52 - 86 - William Shakespeare

I see His Blood upon the Rose - Joseph Mary Plunkett

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - William Wordsworth

Sonnet 306 - William Shakespeare

Sonnet 116 - William Shakespeare

Henry V - Act IV, Scene 3, 20 - 73 - William Shakespeare

Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

Macbeth V - Act V, Scene 5, 22 - 33 - William Shakespeare

The Dinkey-Bird - Eugene Field

Merchant of Venice - Act V, Scene 1, 180 - 201 - William Shakespeare

Henry V - Act IV, Scene 1, 116 - 170 - William Shakespeare

The Walrus and the Carpenter - Lewis Carroll

Sonnet 30 - William Shakespeare

The Tempest - Act V, Scene 1, 38 - 62 - William Shakespeare

Hamlet - Act I, Scene 3, 62 - 86 - William Shakespeare

​

Accelerated Reader

Students must earn at least 5 points per quarter in addition to their other assigned reading. All books must be at grade level.

​

8th Grade

​

Short Stories:

Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment by Nathanial Hawthorne

God sees the truth but waits by Leo Tolstoy

The Open Boat by Stephen Crane

​

Essays and Speeches:

Thomas Paine – The Crisis # 1 

Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg Address

John F Kennedy – Inaugural Address

Martin Luther King Jr – I have a dream

Message of the Holy Father John Paul II on the XIX world youth day

 

Combination In Class & At Home Reading:

My Brother Sam is Dead

The Screwtape Letters

Across Five Aprils  

Up From Slavery

The Diary of Anne Frank

 

Additional At Home Reading:  (at least one book per quarter, additional books for extra credit); students to keep a weekly journal of reading (including vocabulary list) which may include illustrations; assessment at end of quarter.  Students will also read one saint biography.  

​

The Iliad by Homer 

Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tom Sawyer

The Red Badge of Courage 

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers 

Uncle Tom's Cabin 

The Miracle Worker 

The Man who knew too much by G.K. Chesterton 

Call of the Wild by Jack London

The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party by Marian Calabro

Joan of Arc by Louis de Wohl & other Vision

 

Books of Saints

St. Thomas Aquinas by Mary Fabyan

Windeatt and other Saints lives by Windeatt.

​

Poetry: 

Courtesy - Hilaire Belloc

Horatius at the Bridge - Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay

Hymn of St. Francis Xavier (O Deus, Ego Amo Te) - St. Francis Xavier, SJ

If— - Rudyard Kipling

Lochinvar - Sir Walter Scott

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer - John Keats

The Canticle of the Sun - St. Francis of Assisi

The Lady of Shalott - Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

The Splendor Falls - Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Tyger - William Blake