Poets.org: Protest Poetry
Throughout history, poetry has always spoken in the most challenging and tragic circumstances. Poets have been at the forefront of wielding language to create change for the people. Explore the work of Elizabeth Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Marilyn Chin, Aracelis Girmay, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Claudia Rankine, Adrienne Rich and Muriel Rukeyser, to name just a few.
Poets.org: poems inspired by Black Lives Matter
As we grieve the loss of innocent lives and stand in solidarity with those calling for change, join us in reading and sharing poems addressing racial injustice, human rights, the right to protest, and imagining a more perfect union. Reflect, support, and act with these poems.
"The Anthropocene Reviewed" This podcast, written and hosted by author John Green, "reviews facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale". In practice, it is a collection of short, interesting and sometimes powerful essays on subjects as diverse as hot dog eating contests, the capacity for wonder, the Taco Bell breakfast menu and Googling strangers.
Check out the library's fiction and nonfiction summer reading lists.
Read widely and keep a reading journal!
Recommended books:
*You may have read some of these in class.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Articles, Podcasts and More:
My Antonia by Willa Cather
My Antonia is the inspiring story of Antonia Shimerda, daughter of a Bohemian immigrant, in 1880's Nebraska. It is a story of struggles and triumphs in the face of relentless hardship in rural America. In addition to this novel, we recommend reading the news this summer, and consider while you do the essential questions of this course.
These questions are:
Recommended books:
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Arrow of God and No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Fools Crow by James Welch
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer
The Quiet American (Greene);
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
ALL of the great books on our Novel Project List
Recommended authors:
