English 1302 Online Readings 

In order to better understand the works, check out the literary databases, especially Bloom's. To access the ACC online literary databases, click here. Search by Subject, Literature and Literary Criticism. At some point, you will be prompted to type in your ACCeID and password. If you need help, Ask a Librarian.

You are not required to read any of the author, YouTube, audio, or video links. 

Required Short Stories

Tim O'Brien: "The Things They Carried" (YouTube: Part One; Part Two)

Willa Cather: "Paul's Case" (YouTube audio)

Amy Tan: "Two Kinds" (YouTube audio)

Kate Chopin: "Story of an Hour" (YouTube audio)

ZZ Packer: "Brownies" (pages 1-16); (YouTube audio)

John Updike: "A&P" (YouTube audio with short intro)

Ursula K. Le Guin: "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas" (audio)

Kevin Broccoli: The Boy in the Pink Tuxedo(YouTube audio) --might not be a good author for Paper Two

Required Poetry (for Paper Two)

Optional Short Story Readings 

“With the Beatles” by Haruki Murakami

Edwidge Danticat: "Night Women" (YouTube audio--begins at 3:27

"The Shawl" by Cynthia Ozick

Anzia Yezierska: “America and I” 

Martha Salinas: "The Scholarship Jacket" (don't use for Paper Two)

Joyce Carol Oates: "Where are you Going, Where Have You Been?"

“Sweetness” by Toni Morrison 

"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara


"The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdrich


"This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona by Sherman Alexie


"Judy in Her Good Robe" by T Kira Mahealani Madden

“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

"To Room Nineteen" by Doris Lessing

"Say Yes" by Tobias Woolf

Alice Walker: "Everyday Use"

Zora Neale Hurston: "The Conscience of the Court"

"My Escape from Slavery" by Frederick Douglass

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

Kate Chopin: "Desiree's Baby”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Ralph Ellison: "King of the Bingo Game"; "Battle Royale" 

William Faulkner: "Dry September" 

Edgar Allan Poe: "Cask of Amontillado" (YouTube audio)

Optional Protest Poetry (for Paper Two only)

Nikita Gill: "They Will Ask Us in the Future How it Happened"

Harryette Mullen: "We are not Responsible"

Salena Godden: "This Poem"

Blas Manuel De Luna:"Bent to the Earth"

Matthew Olzmann: "Letter Beginning with Two Lines"

Nikki Giovanni: "Rosa Parks"

Juan Felipe Herrera: "Poem by Poem"

Patrick Kavanaugh: "Conflict"

Allen Ginsberg: "America"

Maya Angelou: "The Caged Bird"

Langston Hughes: ""Freedom Train""I Look at the World"

Lorna Dee Cervantes: "Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway"

Derek Walcott: "A Far Cry from Africa"; "the Glory Trumpeter"

William Blake:  "London"

P. B. Shelley: "England in 1819"

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "The Cry of the Children"

Frederick Joseph  (see below)

Protest Songs (for Paper Two only)

Fifty of the Greatest Protest Songs 

Twenty of the Best Protest Songs in History

Country Protest Anthems