Curriculum structure
CBSE English Elective prescribes Woven Words (short stories, poetry and essays), The Old Man and the Sea, and Arms and the Man, with reading, writing and seminar assessment. Check the official curriculum for the complete course requirements.
Verified syllabus units (23)
The Lament
A grieving cab driver struggles to find someone willing to listen after the death of his son; the story examines loneliness and the need for human attention.
A Pair of Mustachios
Mulk Raj Anand uses a dispute over a moustache style to expose status, pride and social hierarchy in a village community.
The Rocking-horse Winner
D. H. Lawrence’s story follows a child who tries to satisfy a household obsessed with money; consider the cost of equating luck with material success.
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
Sherlock Holmes uncovers a scheme hidden inside an unusual inheritance puzzle; follow clues and distinguish evidence from the criminal’s story.
Pappachi’s Moth
A memory from childhood explores family power, resentment and the way an unrecognised discovery can shape a household’s emotional life.
The Third and Final Continent
A migrant’s movement across continents and gradual adjustment to a new life are told through ordinary routines, independence and human connection.
The Peacock
A speaker’s close observation of a peacock turns nature, colour and sound into a concentrated lyric experience.
Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
Shakespeare presents steadfast love as something that endures change and time; examine the extended metaphor of a fixed navigational star.
Coming
Philip Larkin captures the arrival of spring through sound and a feeling of renewal that is both observed and inward.
Telephone Conversation
Wole Soyinka uses irony and dialogue to expose racial prejudice encountered during an ordinary rental inquiry.
The World Is Too Much with Us
Wordsworth criticises material absorption and the loss of connection with nature; note the contrast between commerce and the natural world.
Mother Tongue
Amy Tan reflects on language, identity and the different forms of English used across family and public life.
Hawk Roosting
Ted Hughes gives a hawk a commanding first-person voice; examine how diction and perspective construct power and domination.
Ode to a Nightingale
Keats contrasts human mortality with the imagined permanence of the nightingale’s song, moving between sensory richness and uncertainty.
My Watch
Mark Twain turns an unreliable watch into comic criticism of mechanical precision and the owner’s attempts to repair it.
My Three Passions
Bertrand Russell reflects on longing for love, knowledge and compassion for human suffering as forces shaping his life.
Patterns of Creativity
The essay considers creativity as a process shaped by practice, ideas and ways of seeing rather than a mysterious gift alone.
Tribal Verse
The selection draws attention to the voice, imagery and cultural world of tribal poetry; read it with attention to speaker and context.
What Is a Good Book?
The essay asks what makes reading worthwhile and how literary value depends on sustained engagement and the reader’s response.
The Story
A reflection on narrative considers how stories are shaped, communicated and connected with the experience of telling and listening.
Bridges
The essay uses the idea of bridges to explore connection across places, people or ideas; trace how the central metaphor develops.
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway’s novella follows Santiago’s solitary struggle with a marlin and his return with the remains. Analyse endurance, skill, pride and the difference between defeat and loss.
Arms and the Man
George Bernard Shaw’s comedy challenges romantic ideas about war and heroism through mistaken expectations, practical experience and changing relationships.