Teachers are worried as many districts respond to Common Core Standards reducing focus on poetry and novels. But the Common Core specifies literary work and includes poetry and fiction in its standards objectives and exemplar lists. Fiction is falling off the Scope and Sequence due to a lack of time to accommodate given non-fiction works, comprehension and reflection skills required.  Perhaps we simply need more time for language arts? Longer school days? A new way of scheduling?

Here is one of the actual lists so that you can evaluate the emphasis for yourself:

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time

Cooper, Susan. The Dark Is Rising

Yep, Laurence. Dragonwings.

Taylor, Mildred D. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Hamilton, Virginia. “The People Could Fly”

Paterson, Katherine. The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks

Cisneros, Sandra. “Eleven”

Sutcliff, Rosemary. Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad

Fletcher, Louise. Sorry, Wrong Number

Goodrich, Frances and Albert Hackett. The Diary of Anne Frank: A Play

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “Paul Revere’s Ride”

Whitman, Walt. “O Captain! My Captain!”

Carroll, Lewis. “Jabberwocky”

Navajo tradition. “Twelfth Song of Thunder”

Dickinson, Emily. “The Railway Train”

Yeats, William Butler. “The Song of Wandering Aengus”

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken”

Sandburg, Carl. “Chicago”

Hughes, Langston. “I, Too, Sing America”

Neruda, Pablo. “The Book of Questions”

Soto, Gary. “Oranges”

Giovanni, Nikki. “A Poem for My Librarian, Mrs. Long”

Adams, John. “Letter on Thomas Jefferson”

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

an American Slave, Written by Himself

Churchill, Winston. “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Address to Parliament on May 13th, 1940”

Petry, Ann. Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad

Steinbeck, John. Travels with Charley: In Search of America

United States. Preamble and First Amendment to the United States Constitution. (1787, 1791)

Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember

Isaacson, Phillip. A Short Walk through the Pyramids and through the World of Art

Murphy, Jim. The Great Fire

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist

Partridge, Elizabeth. This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie

Monk, Linda R. Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution

Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Macaulay, David. Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction

Mackay, Donald. The Building of Manhattan

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure

Peterson, Ivars and Nancy Henderson. Math Trek: Adventures in the Math Zone

Katz, John. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho

Petroski, Henry. “The Evolution of the Grocery Bag”

“Geology.” U*X*L Encyclopedia of Science

“Space Probe.” Astronomy & Space: From the Big Bang to the Big Crunch

“Elementary Particles.” New Book of Popular Science

California Invasive Plant Council. Invasive Plant Inventory