Students read a bit of everything in the Valpo Core, including classic and contemporary literature, film, memoirs, stories from the Bible and other religious traditions, philosophical works, historical documents, works of oral history, essays and letters. It won’t be a textbook, that’s for sure.
FALL 2008
Creation and Birth
1. Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B”
2. Native American creation accounts
3. Genesis 1-4 and Job 38-41 (in HarperCollins Study Bible)
4. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
5. Film: Gattaca (dir. Andrew Niccol)
6. Doris Lessing, “Debbie and Julie”
7. Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Coming of Age and Education
1. Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis
2. Plato, “Allegory of the Cave,” from Republic, Book VII
3. Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
4. Simone Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the
Love of God,” from Waiting for God
5. Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle: A Memoir
6. LeAlan Jones, Lloyd Newman and David Isay, Our America: Life and Death on the South
Side of Chicago
7. Film: Good Will Hunting (dir. Gus Van Sant)
Citizenship and Service
1. Plato, Apology and Crito (in The Trial and Death of Socrates)
2. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
3. Sophocles, Antigone, trans. Richard Braun
4. The Gospel According to Matthew, chapters 5-7 (The Sermon on the Mount) (in
HarperCollins Study Bible)
5. Film: Promises (dir. Carlos Bolado, B. Z. Goldberg and Justine Shapiro)
6. Elias Chacour and David Hazard, Blood Brothers
7. William Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
8. Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who
Would Cure the World
SPRING 2009
Love
1. Paul, 1 Corinthians 1 and 12-13 (from HarperCollins Study Bible)
2. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pilgrimage To Nonviolence” (from Stride Toward Freedom
3. Euripides/Ted Hughes, Alcestis
4. Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage (selections)
5. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
6. Film: Chocolat (dir. Lasse Hallström)
7. Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
Work and Vocation
1. Studs Terkel, Working, “Who Built the Pyramids?” (Mike Lefevre’s story)
2. Film: Luther (dir. Eric Till)
3. Martin Luther, “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate” (excerpt)
4. Karlfried Froehlich, “Luther on Vocation”
5. Film: Billy Elliot (dir. Stephen Daldry)
6. Bowe, Bowe & Streeter, eds., Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs (selections)
7. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
Life and Death
1. The Passion narratives according To Mark, Matthew, Luke and John (from HarperCollins Study Bible)
2. C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
3. Film: Wit (dir. Mike Nichols)
4. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
5. Studs Terkel, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (selections)
6. Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow, The Last Lecture
