Below you will find a list of some of the classic literature we will be reading this summer, and in some cases, links to excerpts from these great essays, documents and poems. However, while we encourage parents to take a look, we hope our students don't feel they need to prepare for camp. In fact, we would like them to arrive with a fresh set of eyes, ready to open themselves to sudden and spontaneous ideas.

• Frederick Douglass, "Learning to Read and Write"(link)
• Virgil, The Aeneid (link)
• William Shakespeare, The Tragedies (link)
• William Carlos Williams (link) and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (link)
• Henry David Thoreau, "Why I Went into the Woods" (link)
• Plato, The Trial of Socrates (link)
• Benjamin Franklin, Concluding Address at the Constitutional Convention (link)
• E.B. White, "Once More to the Lake" (link)
• Michael Kroll, "The Unquiet Death of Robert Harris" (link)
• Harriet Jacobs, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" (link)
• George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (link)
• H.L. Mencken, "The Penalty of Death" (link)
• Alice Walker, "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self" (link)
• John Locke (link)and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (link)
• Raymond Carver, "Cathedral" (link)
• David Walker, Walker's Appeal (link)
• Jack London stories (link)
• Cornel West, Race Matters
• Sarah Vowell, "Shooting Dad"
• Jhumpa Lahiri, "Indian Takeout" (link)
• Richard Rodriguez, "Heading into Darkness Once Again"
• Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
• Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
• Brad Manning, "Arm Wrestling with My Father"

If you'd like to take a look at our reading list from last year, just go here.

In addition to our regular curriculum, all campers will also be able to take one literature elective per week, participating in four focused seminars on a specific topic of interest. Below is a small sample of possible offerings.
Electives still in formation to include:

• A Look at Screenwriting
• The Russians
• American Revolutionary Pamphleteers
• Indie Film
• Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
• Performance Art
• Marxism and Literature
• Contemporary American Poetry
• Short Stories of Franz Kafka
• The American Dream
• Epics
• Ancient Greek Comedy
• Native American Literature