Crime and Punishment

Why it’s on the list: Dostoevsky’s novel of a destitute former student who convinces himself that extraordinary men may step over the law, murders a pawnbroker to prove he is one of them, and is destroyed by the proof. The twelfth-grade text on the theory that some people are exempt — read at eighteen, the age at which the theory is most attractive.

Where I heard about it

• Founders Classical Academy — on the twelfth-grade reading list at this classical school in Lewisville, Texas, posted by the Classic Learning Test in September 2026 as an example of a classical curriculum. The full eight-year sequence is on Founders Classical Academy Reading List.

Connections

• Founders Classical Academy Reading List — the curriculum this came from; 56 unique titles across 5th through 12th grade.
• Classical Education — the movement whose canon this list is.
• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Literature