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My district has completely overhauled the required reading list for 9-12 this year. We've done away with some of the older books that were not being read and added some more modern novels, such as The Road, Speak, The Lovely Bones, No Country for Old Men, and others. I'm very excited about having The Road on the list. I'm planning to use it in my 10th grade honors class as part of a unit on anarchy. It fits in nicely with Antigone and The Lord of the Flies. I also plan to use Speak in my 9th grade English class.

I plan on teaching my 9th Graders the novel, LOVELY BONES. I read it over the summer upon suggestion of a colleague and feel that it will be a great book for my students.

I am so jealous of the post about how your district did a complete overhaul of the older books...while some older books are indeed classics, there are so many newer books that are worth studying. My school requires that we teach A Christmas Carol for 10th grade and I hate teaching it! Oh well.

However, I'm going to be teaching AP English Language and Comp this year, so for summer reading we assigned Into The Wild which is relatively new, so I'm happy for that. I'm also excited to be teaching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for that class, which yes, is old, but is also awesome.