Counter Narrative Reading Lists and Texts

Counter Narratives Reading Lists and Texts

Please find linked below the required (bolded) and recommended texts for your project. 
OR you may link directly to the folders for each community on the Google Drive here

 

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Counter Narratives of Socioeconomic Class

LITERARY TEXTS

• “Shame” from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray
• “Looking for Work” by Gary Soto 
• “The Jacket” by Gary Soto
• “Fear" by Gary Soto
• “The Best Deal in America” by Bebe Moore Campbell
• “Panacea” by Dorothy Allison
• “Kitchenette Building” and "The Bean Eaters" by Gwendolyn Brooks
• "Grieving for a Lost Home" from Rachel and Her Children by Jonathon Kozol
• "Stereotypes" from Rachel and Her Children by Jonathon Kozol 
• "Seasonal Concerns" from Rachel and Her Children by Jonathon Kozol 
• Introduction to Growing Up Poor by Robert Coles
• from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• excerpts from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• Authors to consider: Maya Angelou, John Steinbeck, David Woodrell, Jonathan Kozol, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

• excerpt from Barbara Ehenrich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
• excerpt from Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation
• Malcolm Gladwell’s The Uses of Adversity
• Kristof and WuDunn’s The Way to Beat Poverty
• Jairo Gomez’s Nine People, One Bedroom: A Teen's Take on Life In Poverty (audio)

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Counter Narratives of Gender

LITERARY TEXTS

•  “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid
• “The Best Deal in America” by Bebe Moore Campbell
• “A Temporary Matter” by Jhumpa Lahiri
• “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen
• "a song in the front yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks and "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou
• "Minnows" by Naomi Shihab Nye
• "When Lovely Woman" by Phoebe Carey
• "Her Kind" and "Housewife" by Anne Sexton
• "I Died for Beauty" by Emily Dickinson
• "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" by Emily Dickinson
• "Two" by Linda Hogan
• Authors to consider: Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Alice Walker, Joyce Carol Oates, Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

• Anne Marie Slaughter’s “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and the response to this article
• Elizabeth Sweet’s “Guys and Dolls No More?: Gender-Based Toy Marketing Returns”
• Matt Rocheleau's "Sexual assault reports climb at area colleges"
• David Cox's "Gone Girl revamps gender stereotypes – for the worse"
• Robert Siegle's "In Film, Women's Stories Break Through At Fall Festivals"
• Laura Starecheski's "Can Changing How You Sound Help You Find Your Voice" 

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Counter Narratives of Race

LITERARY TEXTS

• Langston Hughes’ “One Christmas Eve,” “Thank You, Ma’am,” or “Red Headed Baby”
• Countee Cullen’s “Incident,” “Tableau”
• Audre Lorde’s “The Fourth of July”
• Langston Hughes’ Dream poems
• Langston Hughes' "The Weary Blues"
• Maya Angelou's "Million Man March"
• Veronica Chambers' "Mama's Girl"
• Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royale" from Invisible Man 
• Various Authors, "If I Were Trayvon Martin"
• Daryl Pickney's "The New Negro"
• Stokely Carmicheal's "Power and Racism"
• Claude Brown's "The Language of Soul"
• Bebe Moore Campbell's "Black Must Be Beautiful Again"
• James Emanuel's "Negritude"
• Ntozake Shange's "Pages for a Friend"
• Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July"
• Maya Angelou's "Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, and Mayfield"
• Linda Schor's "The Swimming Team"
• Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "The Lynching of Jube Benson"
• Farrell's "For White Men Only"
• Bissinger's "School Days" from Friday Night Lights
• Bissinger's "Black and White" from Friday Night Lights
• Bissinger's "Boobie" from Friday Night Lights
• Authors to consider: Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, Nikki DiGiovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

• Tannia Ralli’s “Who's a Looter? In Storm's Aftermath, Pictures Kick Up a Different Kind of Tempest” (media representations of race)
• Waiting for Superman (documentary on youtube)
• "10,000 Racial Slurs Are Tweeted Each Day." Time. February 7, 2014
• Racist Stereotypes in Advertising (youtube video)

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COUNTER NARRATIVES OF NATIVE AMERICANS

LITERARY TEXTS

• Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible”
• Sherman Alexie’s “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”
• Christine Welsh's "Voices of the Grandmothers"
• Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony" and Derek I.M. Gilbert's "Why I Would Never Buy a Jeep Cherokee"
• Reel Injun (documentary on Netflix)
• Authors to consider: Leslie Marmon Silko, N. Scott Momaday, Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

• Veronica Majerol’s “Insult or Honor?” (Native American mascots)
• Heather Williams and Tiya Miles’ “Tribal Rights or Racial Justice”Renee Montagne’s “American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many”

 

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COUNTER NARRATIVES OF IMMIGRATION

LITERARY TEXTS

• Roshni Rustomji's "Thanksgiving in a Monsoonless Land"
• Cisneros' "Mericans"
• Gary Soto's "Looking for Work"
• Tong Thao’s “Asian American” and Richard Olivas’ “I’m Sitting in My History Class”
• Judith Ortiz Cofer's "American History"
• Juno Diaz, "The Money"
• Authors to consider: Amy Tan, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Pam Munoz Ryan

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

• Ginger Thompson’s “Where Education and Assimilation Collide”
• Remade in America: A series about the newest immigrants and their impact on American institutions" 
• Hispanics often lead the way in their faith in the American Dream, poll finds." The New York Times.