Students will need to obtain the following texts, either from a library or a bookseller:

Civil War Edition: Choose one of the following:

• Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser

Contemporary Edition: See the lesson entitled The Memoir for an overview of text choices and choose one of the following:

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• A Work in Progress: A Memoir by Connor Franta
• The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida
• The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
• I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafza
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Student Edition: See the Checklist lesson for an overview of text choices and choose one of the following:

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
• Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Warmth of Other Suns by Isabell Wilkerson
• Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
• The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown