These are works of fiction or nonfiction that people tend to study during their education. These are usually to be works that are considered cultural or historically significant, and thus important for students to learn about. They're also often used because they allow students to practice specific analytical skills. These works can serve as an introduction to concepts that might otherwise be difficult for students to understand, and therefore they tend to be broadly accessible and not overly experiment or avant-garde, especially for works taught at primary and secondary levels.
See also Small Reference Pools, as these works form a pool of well-known works.
Compare Lit. Class Tropes, which is about tropes you'd most likely study at school. Also compare From Entertainment to Education, for works that are used as educational material for other disciplines.
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- Fun Home: Common in classes studying LGBT issues.
- Maus: Notable for being used in increasingly more history and literature classes despite being a graphic novel.
- Persepolis
Films — Animated
Films — Live-Action
- 12 Angry Men
- 12 Years a Slave: One of a few biographical films used in US History classrooms.
- 8½
- Alexander Nevsky
- Amarcord
- American Beauty: Why? Because of its influence on post-2000 arthouse and mainstream films alike.
- American Psycho
- Annie Hall
- Apocalypse Now
- L'Avventura (The Adventure, 1960)
- The Battle of Algiers
- The Battleship Potemkin
- The Bicycle Thief
- The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
- Blade Runner
- Blow Up
- Breathless, along with other French New Wave movies, in film classes. Advanced knowledge of Jean-Luc Godard's filmmaking is mandatory to get in French film schools, even.
- Brother Future
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
- Casablanca
- Cyrano de Bergerac, in France, to complement the study of the play
- Un Chien Andalou
- Many works by Charlie Chaplin, typically:
- Citizen Kane
- Contempt
- Il deserto rosso, especially for its use of colours.
- Dillinger è morto
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- La Dolce Vita
- Do the Right Thing
- Dr. Strangelove
- L'eclisse
- Fight Club
- The 400 Blows
- Gattaca
- The General
- The Godfather and/or The Godfather Part II
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Gone with the Wind
- The Grand Budapest Hotel and other works by Wes Anderson are commonly studied in film classes for their art direction and other elements.
- The Great Train Robbery
- Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, such as:
- The Jazz Singer
- Kes
- Koyaanisqatsi: if you've seen this film, you're probably either a film student or a big fan of Philip Glass (who wrote the score)
- Most of the works of Stanley Kubrick
- 2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps the most notable.
- Der Lauf der Dinge
- Magnolia
- The Matrix: Particularly for its philosophical influences (e.g. Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Buddhism).
- Meshes of the Afternoon
- Metropolis
- Mon Oncle
- Moonlight
- My Cousin Vinny: Often shown in law school due to it being one of the most accurate depictions of the legal profession in film, despite it being a comedy.
- La Notte
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Usually as a complement to the book.
- That Obscure Object of Desire
- The Outsiders: Usually as a complement to the book.
- The Passenger (1975) is a less common film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni of Blow Up fame.
- Playtime
- I pugni in tasca
- Several of the earlier works of Quentin Tarantino for insight on indie filmmaking. These include:
- Rashomon
- Rebel Without a Cause
- The Rules of the Game
- The Searchers
- The Servant
- The Seventh Seal
- Show Me Love: Has been used by middle and high school teachers trying to teach their students about homophobia and tolerance of LGBT people.
- Super Size Me: Used as part of human biology courses at the high school and college levels, as well as in film courses to teach about documentary filmmaking.
- Fast Food Nation is often suggested as an alternative.
- Threads
- To Kill a Mockingbird - Usually as a complement to the book.
- Touch of Evil
- Triumph of the Will
- Vivre sa vie
- The Wave
- William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet: For both its modern-day Setting Update and the fact that, in spite of such, it is one of the most faithful film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, especially in its dialogue. As a result, high school English teachers often use it to get kids interested in the material.
- The Wizard of Oz
Literature
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, often quite controversially due to people mistaking Mark Twain's point for its exact opposite. Perhaps for this reason, Twain includes a facetious foreword threatening readers who look for meaning in it.
- The Aeneid. Reading and translating it is a rite of passage for Latin students.
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- All Summer in a Day
- Amelia Bedelia: A popular selection for elementary summer reading lists
- An American Tragedy
- Anabasis for students of Ancient Greek
- The Analects of Confucius: Mainly for Chinese Language students in the Sinosphere.
- Animal Farm note
- Anna Karenina
- Anne of Green Gables, especially for Canadian students.
- Arabian Nights
- Anything by Jane Austen, the most common being Pride and Prejudice
- The Art of Racing in the Rain
- The Awakening
- A Bag of Marbles
- The Ballad of Mulan: At least in Hong Kong secondary schools, usually in Secondary 1note .
- Banaag at Sikat
- The Bell Jar
- Beowulf
- Berlin Alexanderplatz
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is common in the UK
- Brave New World
- Bridge to Terabithia
- Works by the Bronte sisters, such as
- The Brothers Karamazov
- Burmese Days
- The Butterfly Revolution
- Cannery Row
- The Canterbury Tales
- Casabianca
- Cat's Cradle
- The Catcher in the Rye
- The Cay
- La Celestina in Spain.
- Anything by Charles Dickens
- The Clifford the Big Red Dog series
- Commentaries on the Gallic War
- The Cone Gatherers
- Confessions
- Crime and Punishment
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
- Daisy Miller
- Dear Mr. Henshaw is common in elementary schools.
- Dead Stars
- Dekada '70
- Desiderata
- The Devil's Arithmetic
- The Dispossessed
- The Divine Comedy
- The Diviners (1974) Either the Diviners or The Stone Angel are common studies in Canadian classrooms.
- Don Quixote, in schools across the Hispanic world.
- Doña Barbara, in Venezuela.
- Anything by Edgar Allan Poe
- Edward Thomas, in Britain
- Ender's Game
- Effi Briest, in Germany
- Also always there: The works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. The rest is rotating, but they are very, very hard to miss.
- Karel ende Elegast (in Flanders and the Netherlands)
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Ethan Frome
- Eugene Onegin and many other works by Alexander Pushkin in Russian middle schools (equivalent to American high school)
- The Faerie Queene
- Fahrenheit 451
- A Farewell to Arms
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven
- Florante at Laura
- Flowers for Algernon
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- The Forgotten Door
- Frankenstein
- The Gift of the Magi and, to a slightly lesser extent, other works by O. Henry (William Sidney Porter) such as "The Ransom of Red Chief," "A Retrieved Reformation," and "The Cop and the Anthem."
- The Giver
- Go Ask Alice
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Great Expectations
- The Great Gatsby
- Gulliver's Travels
- The Handmaid's Tale
- Harrison Bergeron
- Hatchet
- Heart of Darkness
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces
- Het recht van de sterkste (in Flanders)
- The Histories of Herodotus, for students of Ancient Greek.
- Holes
- Homer's epic poems,
- Anything by Victor Hugo in France, most notably:
- Les Misérables
- The Contemplations (poems)
- The Last Day of a Condemned Man as civic education about death penalty
- Invisible Man
- Johnny Tremain
- Julie of the Wolves
- The Jungle
- Anything by Franz Kafka
- Karakter
- Kindred
- The Kite Runner
- Life of Pi
- The Little Prince
- Looking for Alibrandi in Australian schools
- Lord of the Flies
- Lost Girls
- Lolita
- The Lottery
- The works of Lu Xun are widely taught in schools across China as he is considered a fundamental writer of modern Chinese literature. One of his storiesnote even showed up as a passage in the reading comprehension part of the Chinese Diploma of Secondary Education examnote in Hong Kong in 2019.
- Maniac Magee
- Mariken Van Nieuwmeghen in Flanders and the Netherlands
- The Martian: Used to get kids interested in science and teach various scientific concepts. Its author Andy Weir later wrote a "Classroom Edition" that removed all the swear words so it could more easily be used in classrooms.
- Guy de Maupassant's short stories and novellas in France. Le Horla is practically mandatory in high school.
- The Master and Margarita
- "May Day Eve" (Nick Joaquin)
- Miriam
- Moby-Dick
- The Last of the Mohicans
- Montana 1948
- Anything by Toni Morrison, but particularly Beloved or Song of Solomon
- The Most Dangerous Game
- The Mouse and the Motorcycle
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
- Never Let Me Go
- Night
- Nineteen Eighty-Four
- Nostromo
- In the Philippines, Ibong Adarna, Florante at Laura, Noli Me Tangere, and El Filibusterismo (the latter two by famous national hero Jose Rizal), are required reading for seventh through tenth grade, respectively.
- An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
- Of Mice and Men
- The Old Man and the Sea
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- On My Honor
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Oddly enough, author Ken Kesey objected to its use in classrooms because it wasn't "great literature" and guessed that teachers probably only used it because the sex and swearing could hold students' attention.
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit in the U.K.
- Orientalism
- Oroonoko
- The Outsiders
- Parallel Lives
- Paradise Lost
- Peter Pan
- The Pete the Cat series
- The Plague
- The Poisonwood Bible
- A Prayer for Owen Meany
- F. Sionil José's Rosales Saga
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
- Alexander Pushkin's works (Eugene Onegin, Dubrovsky, The Captain's Daughter, Boris Godunov)
- Rabbit-Proof Fence, Usually followed the film.
- Ayn Rand's works: Chiefly popular in schools in conservative areas of the US, due to her fervently anti-communist politics.
- We the Living, due to it being her most autobiographical work and based explicitly on the real-life USSR.
- Anthem is also used, as its sci-fi dystopia is more allegorical than her later novels.
- The Red Badge of Courage
- The Red Pony
- Reynard the Fox In Flanders and the Netherlands
- Rip Van Winkle
- Anything by Robert Frost
- Robinson Crusoe
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men are staples of philosophy lessons in France.
- The Scarlet Letter
- The Secret Life of Bees
- A Separate Peace
- The Shahnameh in Iran
- Slaughterhouse-Five
- Stone Fox
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- The Stranger
- The Sun Also Rises
- Suspicion (Germany)
- The Tale of Genji: In Japan, studying this is a standard part of the high school curriculum. A few anime have shown high school students wrestling with it.
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Tangerine is common in middle schools.
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles
- That Was Then... This Is Now
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Things Fall Apart
- The Things They Carried
- To Build a Fire
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Pledge, especially in German-speaking countries.
- The Yellow Wallpaper
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- Walewein in Flanders and the Netherlands
- War and Peace
- Without Seeing The Dawn
- The Woman Warrior
- The Satyricon, if your Latin Professor is feeling adventurous.
- Voltaire's works in France, most notably Candide and Zadig, as part of teachings on The Enlightenment.
- In Hong Kong, the works and philosophy of Zhuangzi is studied as part of the senior secondary school curriculum in preparation for the HKDSE public exams. More specifically, it's a section of "Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease".
Live-Action TV
- Bill Nye the Science Guy
- NUMB3RS
- The Prisoner (1967)
- Reading Rainbow for reading/English language classes.
- Roots (1977) in history classes discussing Antebellum America.
- The Twilight Zone (1959)
- Twin Peaks
- The Wire
Other
- Unix is widely studied in computer science classes, particularly those on operating system design.
- AsapSCIENCE has become a staple in middle and high school science classrooms. Especially popular is their Periodic Table Song.
Theatre
- Amadeus
- Art in France, to discuss the perception of modern art
- Blue Remembered Hills
- Blood Brothers
- Various plays by Anton Chekhov (his short stories as well)
- Pierre Corneille in France, most notably The Cid and his Oedipus.
- The Crucible is used in English classes to teach about McCarthyism.
- The Curious Savage
- Cyrano de Bergerac in France
- Death of a Salesman
- A Doll's House
- Equus
- Faust: First Part of the Tragedy
- The Field in Ireland
- The Good Person of Szechwan
- The Glass Menagerie
- Hamilton is used in some US History classes to teach about the Revolution, with additional clarification on its Artistic License – History
- The Importance of Being Earnest
- Inherit the Wind
- An Inspector Calls
- A Man for All Seasons
- Anything by Molière in France
- Oedipus the King
- Antigone
- Classical Civilisation students and Classics students (different subjects Explanation ) will study a variety of plays from this time. Playwrights such as Euripides, Aeschylus and Aristophanes are the more popular ones.
- Oleanna (depending on how deranged your high school drama teacher is)
- Our Town
- Various plays by Alexander Pushkin, particularly Boris Godunov and The Little Tragedies.
- Jean Racine in France, most notably Phèdre (Phaedra) and Bérénice.
- A Raisin in the Sun
- The Revenger's Tragedy
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
- Many a William Shakespeare play, usually in written (Literature) or televised form (Films), such as:
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in Australia
- Thunder on Sycamore Street
- Trifles
- Waiting for Godot
- Woe From Wit
Video Games
- Bioshock has been used to showcase the detriments of unrestrained capitalism, i.e. Ayn Rand's own ideology on capitalism and the individual.
- The Last of Us has been implemented in several textbooks for game narrative design and is making its way into writing classes.
- Super Solvers
- It's not uncommon to see Team Fortress 2 come up in lessons about video game character design.
Web Animation
- OverSimplified: Some comments on the videos have said that the videos are shown in their classes.
Web Videos
- Mr. Plinkett Reviews: The reviews of the Star Wars prequel trilogy are shown in film schools to teach students screenwriting.
Western Animation
- As part of drug education programs like D.A.R.E., many people who attended elementary school in the '90s were shown Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
- Schoolhouse Rock!: Made explicitly for this purpose in order to teach kids various concepts in the form of easily memorized song lyrics.
- Disney:
- In the late 1960's, six classic shorts were packaged into a series of educational reels for language arts and primary guidance courses. They were Three Little Pigs, The Tortoise and the Hare, Elmer Elephant, Little Hiawatha, The Ugly Duckling and Trick Or Treat.
- In the 1970's, Disney produced the What Should I Do? series, had a formula of a group of kids getting into an argument over something and exploring their thoughts, opinions and potential choices regarding on the matter. The films were open-ended so the discussion could continue in the classroom.
- It has become a bit of a cliche in many American schools to show Pocahontas, not because the film is historically accurate but because it's not — it's now a common film to use to teach students about how American history can be sanitized, Hollywood stereotypes about Native Americans, etc. as well as deconstructing a work of media more broadly.
