Text Exemplars (Grades 9-10) Lyrics

Stories

Homer. The Odyssey.

Ovid. Metamorphoses.

Gogol, Nikolai. “The Nose.”

De Voltaire, F. A. M. Candide, Or The Optimist.

Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons.

Henry, O. “The Gift of the Magi.”

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451.

Olsen, Tillie. “I Stand Here Ironing.”

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart.

Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird.

Shaara, Michael. The Killer Angels.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club.

Álvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies.

Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief.

Drama

Sophocles. Oedipus Rex.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House.

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie.

Ionesco, Eugene. Rhinoceros.

Fugard, Athol. “Master Harold”…and the boys.

Poetry

Shakespeare, William. “Sonnet 73.”

Donne, John. “Song.”

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.”

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Raven.”

Dickinson, Emily. “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark.”

Houseman, A. E. “Loveliest of Trees.”
Johnson, James Weldon. “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Cullen, Countee. “Yet Do I Marvel.”

Auden, Wystan Hugh. ”Musée des Beaux Arts.”

Walker, Alice. “Women.”

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “I Am Offering This Poem to You.”

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

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