New and improved curriculum resources

We've updated our most popular vocabulary lists

Our curated lists make text-based vocabulary instruction easy.

We know educators rely on Vocabulary.com's ready-made, curriculum-aligned resources, so we've revamped our most frequently assigned lists. Explore these updated lists to prepare your students to tackle the most important and challenging vocabulary they'll encounter in these classic texts.

Novels

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Nothing But the Truth by Avi
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Tangerine by Edward Bloor
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Frindle by Andrew Clements
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Lyddie by Katherine Paterson
Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Cay by Theodor Taylor
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Short stories

The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

Plays

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Non-fiction

Twelve Days in May by Larry Dane Brimner
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Life Is So Good by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
Richard Nixon's "Checkers” Speech (1952)
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Night by Elie Wiesel
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

Shakespeare