Core Knowledge Foundation Presents
Grade Level Recommendations
| Selection | Recommended Grade Level (Should be taught at the grade level indicated or above. Selections marked with an asterisk (*) are in the Core Knowledge Sequence. |
|---|---|
Unit 1 |
|
| The Origin of African Proverbial Wisdom | 1* |
| African Proverbial Wisdom | 3 |
| "All Stories Are Anansi's" | 2 |
| "How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have?" | K* |
| "The White Man and the Snake" | 4 |
| "Tug of War" | K* |
| "Talk" | 2* |
| "Great Hymn to the Aten" | 8 |
| from Sunjata | 8 |
| "My Early Life," from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano | 7 |
Unit 2 |
|
| "Horrors of a Slave Ship," from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano | 7 |
| from "The Confessions of Nat Turner" | 8 |
| from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | 5* |
| "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" | 7 |
| from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl | 6 |
| "Ar'n't I a Woman," speech at the Akron Convention | 4* |
| from Reminiscences by Francis D. Gage of Sojourner Truth | 6 |
| Letter to Thomas Jefferson | 7 |
| "The Knee-High Man" | 1* |
| "Tar Baby" | 1* |
| "The Headless Hant" | 3 |
| "The Signifying Monkey" | 4 |
| from "An Address to Phillis Wheatley" | 8 |
| "On Being Brought from Africa to America" | 8 |
| from "To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works" | 8 |
| "Bury Me in a Free Land" | 6 |
| "The Slave Auction" | 6 |
| "Self-Reliance" | 7 |
| "The Slave Auction," from Clotelle: a Tale of the Southern States | 8 |
Unit 3 |
|
| "The Flight," from Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad | 5 |
| "The Struggle for an Education," from Up from Slavery | 5 |
| "Autobiography: A Sketch" and "Good Manners," from Reminescences of School Life | 6 |
| from "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases" and A Red Record | 8 |
| "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," from The Souls of Black Folk | 8 |
| "Address to the Country" | 8 |
| Telegram Sent to the Disarmament Conference" | 7 |
| Selected Quotations from the Speeches and Writings of Marcus Garvey | 7 |
| Preface to The New Negro | 8 |
| "The Negro Digs Up His Past" | 8 |
| "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" | 7 |
| "We Wear the Mask" | 6 |
| "Sympathy" | 6* |
| "The Creation," from God's Trombones | 5 |
| "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" | 6* |
| "The Awakening" | 5 |
| "The Banjo Player" | 6 |
| "White Things" | 6 |
| "Keep Me, Jesus, Keep Me" | 4 |
| "I Sit and Sew" | 5 |
| "The Heart of a Woman" | 5 |
| "The Black Finger" | 5 |
| "If We Must Die" | 7 |
| "The Tropics in New York" | 6 |
| "Outcast" | 7 |
| "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" | 7* |
| "Mother to Son" | 6* |
| "Dream Variation" | 3* |
| "Dreams" | 4* |
| "April Rain Song" | K* |
| "Jazzonia" | 5 |
| "The Weary Blues" | 4 |
| "Harlem [2]" | 7* |
| "Daybreak in Alabama" | 4 |
| "Song for a Dark Girl" | 8 |
| "I, Too" | 5* |
| "Heritage" | 7* |
| "Fantasy" | 6 |
| "Incident" | 8 |
| "Heritage" | 8 |
| "Yet Do I Marvel" | 6 |
| "A Song of Praise" | 6 |
| "Scottsboro, Too, Is Worth Its Song" | 7 |
| "November Cotton Flower" | 8 |
| "Cotton Song" | 5 |
| "Magalu" | 7 |
| "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem" | 7 |
| "Ma Rainey" | 7 |
| "The Day-Breakers" | 7 |
| "Southern Mansion" | 6 |
| "A Black Man Talks of Reaping" | 6 |
| "The Bouquet" | 6 |
| from Their Eyes Were Watching God" | 8 |
Unit 4 |
|
| from The Autobiography of Malcolm X | 8 |
| from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | 8* |
| from "Letter from Birmingham Jail" | 8* |
| "I Have a Dream" | 8* |
| "Speech at Tulane University" | 7 |
| "Frederick Douglass" | 8 |
| "Those Winter Sundays" | 7 |
| "Homage to the Empress of the Blues" | 8 |
| "Booker T. and W. E. B." | 5 |
| "For My People" | 5 |
| "The Ballad of the Free" | 6 |
| "For Malcolm X" | 7 |
| "We Real Cool" | 8* |
| "Rudolph Is Tired of the City" | 2* |
| "Tommy" | K* |
| "Narcissa" | 5* |
| "The Bean Eaters" | 5 |
| "Ka'ba" | 7 |
| "I Am a Black Woman" | 6 |
| "By Myself" | 3* |
| "Harriet Tubman" | 2* |
| "for our lady" | 7 |
| "to Kenny" | 6 |
| "WE CAN BE" | 5 |
| Selected Haiku from Love Poems | 5 |
| "Life Doesn't Frighten Me" | 4* |
| "Woman Work" | 7* |
| "Knoxville, Tennessee" | 3* |
| "Nikki-Rossa" | 4 |
| "The Drum" | 4* |
| "in the inner city" | 4 |
| "for deLawd" | 4 |
| "Parsley" | 8 |
| "Br'er Sterling and the Rocker" | 8 |
| "Use Trouble" | 8 |
| "Che" | 8 |
| "Season of Phantasmal Peace" | 8 |
| "A Far Cry from Africa" | 8 |
| "Map of the New World: I Archipelagoes" | 8 |
| "Benjamin Banneker Sends His Almanac to Thomas Jefferson" | 7 |
| "The Man Who Saw the Flood" | 7 |
| "The Richer, the Poorer" | 8 |
| "Everyday Use" | 6 |
| "Geraldine Moore: the Poet" | 5 |
| "Raymond's run" | 5 |
| from Beloved | 8 |
| A Raisin in the Sun, Act I | 7 |
| "lady in blue" | 8 |
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