School: Years 11–12 (Grundkurs)
List of entries
This coming-of-age autobiography by award-winning author Maya Angelou features a memoir of racism, trauma, identity and hope. The title refers to the first line of the third stanza of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy” (1899), which reflected the perspective of a caged bird’s longing for freedom and its wish to escape its prison. As Dunbar’s […]
Here, four of Shakespeare’s most famous plays are rewritten for a younger audience: Twelfth Night, Macbeth, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They are shorter and told from the perspective of the side characters Malvolio, Banquo, Caliban, and Peaseblossom. I, Shakespeare might be useful if you want to avoid reading the longer originals but […]
These two one-act plays by award-winning author Drew Hayden Taylor on belonging, identity, hope, tradition and modern life examine the past, present and the future of the Canadian First Nations from a teenage perspective. Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock follows teenage boy Rusty to the spiritual place of his ancestors. While sipping his beer at Dreamer’s Rock, he […]
This empowering play about power, masculinity and femininity explores roles and opportunities for woman in modern society. Set in London during the early 1980s, the play follows Marlene, an ambitious, career-driven businesswoman who made irreversible sacrifices for her success. Dishonesty, aggression and manipulation are her weapons against the oppressive patriarchy. She finally got the promotion […]
This award-winning play offers five perspectives on alienation, forced assimilation and removal, hope and the struggle to find one’s identity. It explores the stories of five Aboriginal children that were taken away from their parents by the Australian government. As part of the Stolen Generation, Sandy, Ruby, Jimmy, Anne, and Shirley have lived very different […]
This short, modern play explores the importance of language for communication, alienation, love and imperialism. Set in 1833 in a fictional village in county Donegal, the play follows several English and Irish characters, which meet but often do not understand each other. The story develops around a love triangle, the English Yolland and the Irish […]
This early 18th-century satire novel was supposed to parody the popular genre of travel literature. It juxtaposes physical and moral strength, the power of knowledge and differences of societies and state structures. English surgeon Lemuel Gulliver leaves England again and again for travels to far-off lands. The countries and societies he visits are fictional and, […]
In this award-winning biography about the fight for justice, Lee Lawrence tells a story sadly no less relevant today than 30 years ago. When Lee was 11 years old, he witnessed his mother being shot by a police officer, resulting in her paralysis. This event shaped the political climate at the time, acting as the […]
This award-winning, young adult drama novel featuring racism, injustice, violence, isolation and loneliness follows a 16-year old boy who awaits his murder trial. Steve Harmon is in prison, maybe for life. They say he murdered someone; tell him he’s a monster. Is he? Or was it a case of being in the wrong place at […]
A poem from the Romantic period that explores the effects of industrialisation, social injustice, poverty and responsibility. It portrays London in 1794 through the eyes of the speaker, who walks the streets and describes the sight: crying chimney-sweepers, governmental oppression and the restriction of freedom. The poem, which is in the public domain, is useful […]
An epistolary Gothic novel, which describes the most popular vampire hunt, also exploring the fields of mental health, religion and the occult, love and seduction, as well as the relationship between life and death and what might be in-between. Transylvania in the late 1800s: Count Dracula wishes to buy a house near London and asks […]
This science fiction short story explores the power of and the utter dependence on technology as well as the importance of nature. At some point in the future humans have lost the ability to live on the earth’s surface, life is taking place underground using a global machine. Every individual has their separate section and […]
This prequel to the successful “The Hunger Games” trilogy or the movie adaptation by the same name tells the story of Coriolanus Snow’s rise to power – a story of friendship, betrayal, manipulation and oppression. For those who have read “The Hunger Games”, you might recognize the name Snow as a villain rather than a protagonist. But like all […]
This dystopian comedy movie explores the power of media, commercialism and simulated reality. Truman has the all-American life: A loving wife, kids, a house complete with a picket fence… Then he starts noticing the occasional oddity. Whether it be his wife sounding like an infomercial or the people around him doing everything in their power […]
This Gothic novel explores the duality of human nature, crime and prosecution and the importance of the Victorian standard of reputation. When a new villain terrorises London’s citizens and causes a great stir, lawyer Utterson faces a great riddle which keeps him awake at night. He discovers a connection between the violent misdeeds of the […]
Beloved is a Postmodern historical fiction novel about slavery, motherhood and community. 1873, it is the time just after the Civil War and the former slave Sethe lives with her 18-year old daughter Denver in 124, a haunted house on the edge of Cincinnati. The novel explores the lives of the two after they escaped from […]
Robinson Crusoe is the unreliable narrator of this travelogue from Restauration and Enlightenment referred to as the first English novel. The protagonist decides to go to sea against his father’s will and becoming quite a successful merchant in the colonies abroad. One day, he is shipwrecked and finds himself on a lonely island where he […]
This classic gothic crime story about murder and vindication, guilt, and insanity starts in medias res: The unnamed, unreliable narrator describes in retrospect that he was haunted by the idea of murdering his old landlord. After committing the murder, he cleverly hid the body underneath the floorboards, praising himself for committing the almost perfect crime […]