Here is a list of my favorite literary works of length to teach:
- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
- The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
- The Crucible by Arthur Miller
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
What are your favorite pieces of literature to teach?
The Doc Is In 
My favorite, HANDS DOWN, is Frankenstein. Follow that up with A Christmas Carol, Hamlet, Morrison’s Beloved and Silko’s Ceremony and you’ve got a pretty kickin’ lit class, methinks!
I almost added A Gathering of Old Men as well–just love that story and the storytelling technique of the shifting perspective.
I teach ESL, and it’s very hard to hook my kids into reading books in English for the first time. I like very accessible books with themes related to immigration or other countries, and I like only contemporary language, particularly in the first books. I favor The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and I recently taught Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt to a college class.
I also like The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith for its simple language, intelligence, and subtle humor.
A really great book about immigrants is Christ in Concrete by Pietro diDonato, though the language is a little rugged for my students.
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Thank you very much!