# William Shakespeare — books assigned in US schools

**10** books by William Shakespeare appear in the US-school assigned-reading canon. Sourced from state ELA standards, AP/IB syllabi, and Common Core exemplar lists.

**Grade span:** 8–12
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/author/william-shakespeare
**Wikipedia (entity):** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## Recurring themes

- betrayal (3)
- love (3)
- power (3)
- deception (2)
- madness (2)
- marriage and class (2)
- aging
- ambition
- civic violence
- colonialism

## Genres

- Drama (7)
- Tragedy (2)
- History / Tragedy

## Every William Shakespeare title on file

- [Romeo and Juliet](https://readinglist.school/book/romeo-and-juliet) _(Grades 8–10 · 1597)_
- [Julius Caesar](https://readinglist.school/book/julius-caesar) _(Grades 9–11 · 1599)_
- [Much Ado About Nothing](https://readinglist.school/book/much-ado-about-nothing) _(Grades 9–12 · 1599)_
- [A Midsummer Night's Dream](https://readinglist.school/book/a-midsummer-nights-dream) _(Grades 8–12 · 1600)_
- [Twelfth Night](https://readinglist.school/book/twelfth-night) _(Grades 9–12 · 1602)_
- [Hamlet](https://readinglist.school/book/hamlet) _(Grades 11–12 · 1603)_
- [Othello](https://readinglist.school/book/othello) _(Grades 10–12 · 1603)_
- [King Lear](https://readinglist.school/book/king-lear) _(Grades 11–12 · 1606)_
- [The Tempest](https://readinglist.school/book/the-tempest) _(Grades 9–12 · 1611)_
- [Macbeth](https://readinglist.school/book/macbeth) _(Grades 9–12 · 1623)_

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_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. JSON API: https://readinglist.school/api/author/william-shakespeare · HTML view: https://readinglist.school/author/william-shakespeare._