American Literature: Three Books Project

Thematic Study

|Growing Up| |Deception| |Ethnic Identity| |Traveling Through America| | |War| |Women|

In a theme study students read books that were originally published in three different time periods but which have a common theme. They analyze commonalities and differences.

These themes have been approved for the Three Books Project. If you have an idea for another title or theme, please come and talk to me about it. The same title may appear in more than one theme.

Theme: Ethnic Identity

For this topic there are two options. Regardless of the option you choose, you will look at what the writers tell us about the experience of being a minority in America.

Option One: Select three works from the same ethnic group but different time periods. These may be fiction, nonfiction, or a mix.

    Early

    • The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African by Olaudah Equiano
    • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
    • Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
    • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

    Middle

    • God Sends Sunday or other books/plays by Arna Bontemps
    • Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. DuBois
    • Their Eyes were Watching God or other works by Zora Neale Hurston
    • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
    • Home to Harlem by Claude McKay
    • The Ways of White Folks or works by Langston Hughes
    • The Living is Easy or works by Dorothy West
    • Black Boy by Richard Wright

    Recent

    • Fences, Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, and/orTwo Trains Running by August Wilson (three plays = one novel)
    • Song of Solomon, Beloved or other works by Toni Morrison
    • The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman or other works by Ernest Gains
    • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
    • Roots or Queen by Alex Haley
    • The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
    • Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
    • The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
    • Kindred by Octavia Butler

Option Two: Select three works from different minority groups. Compare and contrast their experiences.

    • A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines (African-American)
    • The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (Chinese-American)
    • The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (Chinese-American)
    • The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (Hispanic-American)
    • Davita's Harp or The Chosen by Chaim Potok (Jewish-American)
    • Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (Indian-American)
    • House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (Native American)
    • A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris (Native American)
    • Love Medicine or Tracks by Louise Erdrich (Native American)
    • Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (Native American)
    • Grass Dancer by Susan Power (Native American)
    • Moccasin Thunder by Lori Marie Carlson (Native American)
    • The Absolutely True Autobiography of a Part-Time Indian or The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (Native American)
Updated February 22, 2009.