Library of America’s LOA in the Classroom initiative places free copies of essential American writings in the hands of teachers to enhance their work with students. Through a partnership with book-donation distributor First Book, we are able to provide definitive editions to a nationwide network of Title One schools and under-resourced community centers that might otherwise be unable to afford these vital learning resources.

Each year, LOA in the Classroom selects two definitive editions to enhance classroom discussions. During the 2023–2024 school year, the initiative provided the groundbreaking and eye-opening anthology Black Writers of the Founding Era to expand students’ understanding of our nation’s past; and Rachel Carson’s landmark Silent Spring, the book that sparked a revolution in environmental consciousness, to ground students’ passionate concerns about climate change with eloquent writing on the critical importance of unbiased science and collective action.

During the prior six years of the project, the following editions were sent free of charge to educators:

• The Essential Hamilton: Letters & Other Writings
• American Speeches: Political Oratory from Patrick Henry to Barack Obama
• Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938-1946
• The Essential Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches
• James Baldwin: Collected Essays
• Richard Wright :The Man Who Lived Underground
• American Democracy: 21 Historical Answers to 5 Urgent Questions
• African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song
• Henry David Thoreau: Walden, The Maine Woods, Collected Essays & Poems

Since its inception, LOA in the Classroom has provided over 12,000 copies of classic American writing to schools nationwide.

LOA in the Classroom is part of Library of America’s broad mission to connect readers of all ages with the words and ideas that have shaped our nation. With your continued support, we can bring scrupulously edited and annotated primary source texts to more teachers and their students—free of charge.

• Titles Frequently Adopted for Classroom Use

  Among the Library of America books most often adopted for courses in colleges and high schools are:

  • American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
  • Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays
  • Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works
  • James Baldwin: Collected Essays
  • Raymond Carver: Collected Stories
  • American Poetry
  • Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography
  • Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches & Writings
  • William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems
  • Writing New York: A Literary Anthology
  • Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology

  For adoption orders, Library of America is distributed by Penguin Random House, 1-800-733-3000. For inquiries regarding a book’s content please see the information available in our online catalog (under BOOKS, above), phone Library of America at 212-308-3360, or e-mail us at info@LOAacademic.org.

  To request desk or exam copies, please see the instructions posted by our distributor, Penguin Random House.

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• Teacher Resources

  In addition to making America’s greatest writing available to all, Library of America develops instructional resources and professional development initiatives that facilitate educational applications of this writing.

  In 2013, in partnership with Common Ground Environmental High School; Scholastic, Inc.; and the Gould Family Foundation, Library of America launched an education initiative for American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau to help teachers deepen students’ reading skills and comprehension while expanding their understanding of environmental issues. Edited by acclaimed environmentalist Bill McKibben, with a foreword by Al Gore, American Earth gathers the visionary American writing that has changed how we see the natural world and our place in it.

  Our free American Earth Teacher’s Guide aligns the rich texts in American Earth with Common Core standards and equips teachers to incorporate the texts into English, Language Arts, History, and Environmental Science courses.

  We are currently preparing a professional development program centered around this Teacher’s Guide that will train a national network of master educators to teach American Earth at the secondary school level.

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• Exam Copies and Adoption Orders

  To request desk or exam copies, please see the instructions posted by our distributor, Penguin Random House.

  For adoption orders, Library of America is distributed by Penguin Random House, 1-800-733-3000. For inquiries regarding a book’s content please see the information available in our online catalog (under BOOKS, above), phone Library of America at 212-308-3360 or e-mail us at info@LOAacademic.org.

  Close