Scottish Highers: The 2024 Reading List for students

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00:00Hello, my name is Amber Allitt, and I'm a journalist specialising in education.

00:05Scottish students studying towards their Highers qualifications probably have some idea of

00:09what their course is going to look like by now.

00:12And for those that have opted to keep studying English, they're in for a bit of reading.

00:16Just like at National 5 level, teachers can choose which books their class will study,

00:20but they do have to pick at least one work by a Scottish writer from a set list.

00:26Here are three of the most unique texts on the Scottish Highers reading list this year.

00:32The Slab Boys is a play by John Byrne, and is actually part of a trilogy.

00:36This particular play is about a group of young men working in a carpet factory in Paisley,

00:41particularly one who dreams of leaving to go to art school.

00:44It centres around a single Friday before a staff party, and explores themes of youth,

00:49ambition and class divides.

00:52One Set Song is a novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon that also appears on the list, and

00:57interestingly is also the first part of a trilogy.

01:00It tells the story of a young girl from a farming family after her mother's suicide,

01:04as her elder brother flees the country and her father suffers a stroke.

01:09It explores her connection to the land and what women's lives were like in early 20th

01:14century rural Scotland, the good and the bad.

01:18Poets Whose Teachers Choose Scottish Poetry will focus on six works by a single poet.

01:23One of these is perhaps the country's most famous poet, Robert Burns.

01:27The poems studied will include a poet's welcome to his love-begotten daughter, to

01:32a mouse, to a louse, and a red-red rose, part of a body of works themed around the strength

01:37of human emotions, the importance of creatures both large and small, and the appreciation

01:43of nature.

01:48For more information visit www.scottishpoetry.org