AP English Language and Composition: LINKS TO ALL CLASS REQUIRED READING ASSIGNMENTS
Alphabetized by Title of Piece
*Please inform Mr. Diedrich A.S.A.P. if any of these links do not work.
The Abdication Speech of Edward VIII - 1936
The Abominations of War by Cindy Sheehan - 2006
Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids and Why by John Taylor Gatto - 2003
Ain't I a Woman by Sojourner Truth - 1851
Areopagitica by John Milton: A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The Parliament Of England
The Age of White Guilt: And the Disappearance of the Black Individual by Shelby Steele - 1999
AIDS Has A Woman's Face by Stephen Lewis - 2004
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
Dr. Maya Angelou's Speech to the Democratic National Convention - 2004
United States President George Bush Announces War Against Iraq in 1991
Apology from The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 2 - 399 BC
An Argument About Beauty (pdf) by Susan Sontag
The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcolm X - 1964
Best in Class by Margaret Talbot - 2005
Beyond Personality - Mere Men by C.S. Lewis - 1944
Billie Jean King Remembers Life as an Outsider in the 1950s and 1960s
by Billie Jean King and Frank Deford - 1982
Biology in the Twenty-First Century by Ernst Mayr - 2000
The Bird and the Machine by Loren Eiseley - 2006
Can We Know the Universe? by Carl Sagan - 1979
The Case for Staying Home by Claudia Wallis - 2004
The Epilogue to The Clan of One Breasted Women by Terry Tempest Williams - 1991
Class Division Among African Americans by Shelby Steele - 1988
Clear and Present Danger by John F. Kennedy - 1962
Prologue from Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond - 2005
Commencement Address at Wellesley College by Former First Lady Mrs. Barbara P. Bush - 1990
Compassion: The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel - excerpt from Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - 1992
A Crime of Compassion by Barbara Huttman - 1983
Cybergysies and the Net's Wilderness Years
by Peter James - 1999
The 14th Dalai Lama's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo - 1989
The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf - 1925
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions by Elizabeth Cady Stanton - 1848
Exerpt from Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary by Henry Hitchings - 2005
Designer Babies: U.S. Couples Seek Embryo Screening by Marilynn Marchione and Lindsey Tanner - 2006
The Destructive Male by Elizabeth Cady Stanton - 1868
Dispensing Morality by Ellen Goodman - 2005
The Divine Revolution by Vaclav Havel - 1998
Don't Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments by Robert L. Heilbroner
DNA as Destiny by David Ewing Duncan - 2002
Drugs, Sports, Body Image and G.I. Joe by Natalie Angier - 1998
Drumroll Please by Evany Thomas - 2006
from Dust Tracks on a Road (chapter one) by Zora Neale Hurston - 1942
from The End of the Story by Lydia Davis - 1995 - (the link is about one-third of the way down the page, on the left side)
An Essay on Modern Education by Jonathan Swift - 1728
An Evolutionist Look at Modern Man by Loren Eiseley - 1959
Fearing the Worst Should Anyone Produce a Cloned Baby by Philip M. Boffey - 2003
The First Fireside Chat: The Banking Crisis by Former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt - 1933
For Fasting and Football, A Dedicated Game Play by Samuel G. Freedman - 2005
For a Polyglot Federation by Umberto Eco - 1993
The Future of the Book by Umberto Eco - 1994
Mohandas Gandhi's Address at Kingsley Hall - 1931
Mohandas K. Gandhi's Speech At Montessori Training College in London - 1931
GeoSigns: The Big Thaw by Daniel Glick - 2004
The Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln - 1863
Give me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry - 1775
Global Greening? The Time for a 'Global Green Deal' Has Come by Mark Hertsgaard - 1999
God's Love to Fallen Man by John Wesley
Godzilla vs. the Giant Scissors: Cutting the Antiwar Heart Out of a Classic by Brent Staples - 2005
The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie - 1889
Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrast by Bruce Catton
A Hanging by George Orwell - 1931
Excerpt from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - 2003
Help Us Overthrow the Tall/Short Mafia at Starbucks Coffee by Tom Magliozzi - 2007
Introduction to Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, a Marriage by Diane Middlebrook - 2003
The Hidden Life of Dogs by Dave Barry - 1993
Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation by Jonathan Swift - 1709
Chapter One of His Excellency, George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis - 2005
The Holy War: Mac vs. Dos by Umberto Eco - 1994
Homelessness by Anna Quindlen - 1988
The House that Fell Down by Evan Taylor - 2005
How Boys Become Men by Jon Katz - 1993
from How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle by Frances Willard - 1895
How it Feels to be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston - 1928
How Much Wallop Can a Simple Word Pack? by Geoffrey Nunberg - 2004
The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society by Jonathon Kozol - 1985
I Am Prepared to Die by Nelson Mandela - 1964
I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - 1963
I Just Wanna be Average by Mike Rose - 1989
The Imprint of Evolution, Chapter One of Simon Conway-Morris's The Crucible of Creation - 1998
Prologue to The Informant: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald - 2001
The Inheritance of Tools by Scott Russell Sanders - 1987
In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell - 1932
In Praise of a Snail's Pace by Ellen Goodman - 2005
Excerpt from Iran - A Country on the Brink by Stephen Kinzer - 2007
from In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker - 1983
The Insufficiency of Honesty by Stephen L. Carter - 1996
Into the Electronic Millenium by Sven Birkerts - 1991
I Think You're Fat by A.J. Jacobs - 2007
Justice for Ireland by Daniel O'Connell - 1836
Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space by Brent Staples - 1994
U.S. President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address - 1961
The Laughing Animal - This article takes a time-lapse view of Encyclopædia Britannica's articles on laughter, with brief excerpts from past editions.
Leaps of Consciousness by Gloria Steinem - 2004
Learning to Read - by Malcolm X - 1965
Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglas - 1845
Letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - 1963
A Letter from Eighteen Writers: Including Three Nobel Prize Recipients
The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut by Tom Gitlin - 1998
Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor by Garrett Hardin - 1974
Life at the Edge by Paul Nicklen - 2007
Lizbeth by Lars Eighner - 1992
Lost in America by Dave Barry - 1987
Lost in the Kitchen by Dave Barry
Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Soldiers by Cindy Sheehan - 2006
Nelson Mandela's Address during a joint sitting of Parliament to mark ten years of Democracy In South Africa - 2004
Nelson Mandela's Address to the United Nations Security Council on the Arusha Peace Process - 2000
Nelson Mandela's Nobel Peace Prize Address - 1993
Nelson Mandela's Speech upon his Release from Prison - 1990
Marrying Absurd by Joan Didion - 1979
The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1836
A Model for High Schools by David S. Broder - 2005
The Moral Equivalent of War by William James - 1910
More Working Parents Play 'Beat the Clock' by Marilyn Gardner - 2004
Toni Morrison's Speech at the Nobel Banquet on December 10th, 1993
Wangari Muta Maathai's Nobel Lecture on December 10th, 2004
Mother Tongue by Amy Tan - 1991
My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation by James Baldwin - 1963
My Fellow Americans: What I'd Say If They Asked Me by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - 1988
My Luminous Universe by Helen Keller - 1956
My Outsourced Life by A.J. Jacobs - 2005
My Wood by E.M. Forster
The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria (pdf) by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Nader 2004 (pdf) by Lou Novak - 2004 (located on page 14)
'A New Mexican Rebecca': Imagining Pueblo Women by Barbara A. Babcock
No Name Woman by Maxine Hong Kingston - 1976
Not Worth My Son's Sacrifice by Cindy Sheehan - 2005
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce - 1890
Introduction to The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (pdf) by Michael Pollan - 2006
On the Backs of Blacks by Toni Morrison - 1993
On Being a Cripple (pdf) by Nancy Mairs - 1986
On Compassion by Barbara Lazear Ascher - 1988
On The Different Kinds of Republic and Of What Kind The Roman Republic Was by Niccolo Machiavelli - 1519
Of the Different Species of Philosophy by David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - 2004
On Being Black and Middle Class by Shelby Steele - 1988
On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner - 1992
On Keeping a Notebook (pdf) by Joan Didion - 1966
On Women's Right to Vote by Susan B. Anthony - 1872
On Writing by Arundhati Roy
The Penalty of Death by H.L. Mencken - 1949
Pet Clones Spur Call for Limits by Rick Weiss - 2005
The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe - 1846
Planet of the Bacteria by Stephen Jay Gould - 1996
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell - 1946
Popular Culture in the Aftermath of Sept. 11 Is a Chorus Without a Hook,
a Movie Without an Ending by Teresa Wiltz - 2001 Pride to One is Prejudice to Another by Courtland Milloy - 2005 Professions for Women by Virginia Woolf - 1931
Chapter One (all eleven pages) of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
(all eleven pages) by Robert Sullivan - 2004
The Real New York Giants by Rick Reilly - 2002
Reflections on Working Toward Peace by Alice Walker
from Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education by Horace Mann - 1848
A Report on Mesopotamia by T.E. Lawrence - 1920
Richard Rodriguez's passage about his attitude toward his family and himself
(pdf)
The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered, Chapter One of The Vindication of the Rights of a Woman
- by Mary Wollstonecraft - 1792
from A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf - 1929 - (it's at the end of the page)
Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened from BBC News - 2004
Salvation by Langston Hughes - 1940
Science: It's Just Not Fair by Dave Barry - 1998
Science and Religion Can Coexist by Freeman J. Dyson - 2000
Seeking a New Globalism in Chiapas by Tom Hayden - 2003
The Sense of Place by Wallace Stegner - 1992
Sexism and Misogyny: Who Takes the Rap? Misogyny, gangsta rap, and The Piano by bell hooks - 1994
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell - 1936
Sick Parents Go to Work, Stay Home When Kids are Ill by Chritopher Mele - 2002
Silent Dancing by Judith Ortiz Cofer - 1990
The Simplest Way to be Happy by Helen Keller - 1933
The Singer Solution to World Poverty by Peter Singer - 1999
Sixteen Hours Ago by U.S. President Harry S. Truman - 1945
The Smurfette Principle by Katha Pollitt - 1991
Soap and Water by Aanzia Yezierska - 1920
The Solitude of Latin America: Gabriel García Márquez Nobel Prize Lecture - 1982
Soul of a Surgeon by Richard Selzer, M.D. - 2004
Stranger in the Village by James Baldwin - 1955
Strike Against War by Helen Keller - 1916
Students for Sale by Stephen Manning - 1999
Studying Islam, Strengthening the Nation by Peter Berkowitz and Michael McFaul - 2005
Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie - 1998
Sweeping the Clouds Away by Virginia Heffernan - 2007
Television News Coverage by Spiro T. Agnew - 1969
Theme for English B by Langston Hughes - 1951
Selection from Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
Part I - Of the Propriety of Action Consisting of Three Sections, Section I - Of the Sense of Propriety, Chapter I - Of Sympathy
Thirty-Eight Who Saw Muder Didn't Call the Police by Martin Gansberg - 1964
This Country is at War with Germany by Neville Chamberlain - 1939
This Won't Hurt a Bit by Dave Barry - 1996
Tragedy and the Common Man by Arthur Miller - 1949
Transsexual Frogs by Elizabeth Roye - 2003
Tribute to the Dog by George Graham Vest
The True Story of American Soccer by Dave Eggers - 2006
The Truman Doctrine by Former U.S. President Harry S. Truman - 1947
Turbulence by David Sedaris - 2005
Twenty-Seven Articles by T. E. Lawrence - 1917
Two Ways to Belong in America by Bharati Mukerjee - 1996
Uncle John's Farm by Mark Twain
The Undertaker's Racket by Jessica Mitford - 1963
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948
Waiting for Salmon by Barry Lopez - 2005
Walking by Henry David Thoreau - 1862
War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges - 2002
A War I Opposed and Despised with a Depth or Feeling I had Reserved Solely
for Racism in America Before Vietnam by Bill Clinton - 1969
War Message by Former U.S President Woodrow Wilson - 1917
Watching TV Makes You Smarter by Steven Johnson - 2005
Water in the Waterwonderland (pdf) by Priscilla Dziubek - 2004 (located on pages 15 & 16)
We Are Family by Change-Rae Lee - 2003
We Are Not Immune by Ronald J. Glasser - 2004
We are the Patriots by Gore Vidal - 2003
Wears Jumpsuit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husbands Last Name. by Deborah Tannen - 1993
We Choose to Go to the Moon by U.S. President John F. Kennedy - 1962
What Adolescents Miss When We Let Them Grow Up in Cyberspace by Brent Staples - 2004
What is an American? by Harold Ickes - 1941
What's Wrong with Animal Rights? (pdf) by Vicki Hearne - 1991
When School Is Out, Getting Food In by Jane E. Brody - 2007
Where I lived, and What I Lived For, Chapter Two of Walden by Henry David Thoreau - 1854
White Guilt and the Western Past by Shelby Steele - 2006
The White Man Unburdened by Norman Mailer - 2003
Why Don't We Complain? by William F. Buckley, Jr. - 1961
Why Johnny Won't Read by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky - 2005
Why Men Don't Last: Self-Destruction as a Way of Life by Natalie Angier - 1999
Why Women Have to Work by Amelia Warren Tyagi - 2004
Will We Figure Out How Life Began? by Steven Jay Gould - 2000
Woman as an Athlete by Arabella Kenealy. M.D. - 1899
Women's Brains by Stephen Jay Gould
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - 1892
Yes, This Is About Islam by Salman Rushdie - 2001
