NINTH GRADE EXTRA CREDIT This year, we will be exploring ideas about masculine heroism throughout the history of Western literature. You’ll find a list below of texts (plays, novels, short stories, etc.) that won’t be included in the curriculum this year, but which contribute to the debate about what makes a man heroic. Choose one of the texts from that list, not including a text you have read at school or will read this year, or one you have read on your own. Please ask your parent to help you choose as some of these novels have mature themes or content. Read it. When you are finished, write an essay of at least five paragraphs in which you identify and explore one of the text’s themes. You may use Sparknotes or another reference for help, but you must cite it. You may earn up to ten points added to your final, quarter grade for each essay you submit—I will grade them out of ten for grammar, writing, and thoughtful argument. You may earn up to ten total points each quarter. I may choose to give you a reading quiz if I have reason to suspect you haven’t read your novel. • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain • The Aeneid by Virgil • The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton • Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley • Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky • from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (ask me for suggestions) • A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens • Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton • The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald • Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad • The Inferno by Dante Aligheri • Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka • Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot • Oedipus Rex by Sophocles • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck • Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn • Othello by William Shakespeare • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (the play only, not the novel) • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde • Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe • A Separate Peace by John Knowles • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens • Tartuffe by Moliere • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee For up to five points, students may also choose from the following juvenile fiction novels: • The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander • Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis • The Cay by Theodore Taylor • The Giver by Lois Lowry • Hatchet by Gary Paulson • The Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus • Holes by Louis Sachar • Johnny Tremain by Ester Forbes • Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli • The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster • Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean • Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi • Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings • The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis For up to five points, students may choose one of the following films: • Alive (R—1993) • Apollo 13 (PG—1995) • Ben-Hur (1959) • Braveheart (R—1995) • Casablanca (1942) • Come September (1961) • Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (PG-13—1986) • Finding Neverland (PG—2004) • Gandhi (PG—1982) • Harvey (1950) • It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) • The Kid (1921) • The King and I (1956) • Life Is Beautiful (PG-13—1997) • Life with Father (1947) • The Manchurian Candidate (1962) • Old Yeller (1957) • Patton (PG—1970) • Peter Pan (PG—2003) • Remember the Titans (PG—2000) • Saving Private Ryan (R—1998) • Sommersby (PG-13—1993) • Spartacus (1960) • A Raisin in the Sun (1961) • To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) • Twelve Angry Men (1957)