Although our fields are vastly different, I suspect the actual work flow process between you coder guys and me - I'm a writer - is pretty similar. (Incidentally, I have to edit and proofread drafts and final versions with as little noise - music or otherwise - as possible. I find getting absorbed in the music DOES distract me in this one particular instance, and to do my job well, I have to be absolutely focused on the prose.) Lots of hammering on a keyboard, going back, revising, rereading, proofing, and so on - and I just want to chime in that I have an enormously difficult time writing without music. I tend to integrate the music with my work process; sure, I might focus on the music when a particular segment I love comes up, but after that I am energized and my writing has much more fire and flavor to it. When I don't have music, or the ambient music is boring, my work reflects that - it's dry, concrete, and uninteresting. Feel bad for you, man - drop that place as soon as you can find somewhere else to work. A manager that doesn't understand that music can motivate people to work harder is a manager that's just going to make things worse all-around.

(This is coming from the perspective of a rhetoric and literature graduate student) Your focus shouldn't be on the individual titles, but what you hope students will get out of those titles - and what those focuses demonstrate to the student about this form of literature. For example, a major theme in science fiction is paranoia and a fear of the government; a number of works exemplify this, although my personal preference is towards Philip K Dick novels. You might also consider a section of "utopic/dystopic" visions: Asimov's Foundation series, contrasted with, perhaps, Gibson's Neuromancer. These works are both rife with great conversational pieces - "Is there any symbolism in Molly's mirrored eyes? How come the Foundation had to be on the other end of the Universe?" Are the dystopic/utopic visions socially-based [in equality, evolution, etc.], or are they based on technology [the net, AI, etc]? Further, what do these authorial choices reflect about the author themselves? (Technology suggests man cannot attain salvation himself; social, that he can[in a Utopic setting]) You can even extend these into the realm of fantasy, with perhaps Tolkien's work being utopic and the Malazan series by Steven Erikson pulling in for dystopic (fantasy is not my strong suit). Some of those ideas might be a bit much for a high school-level course, but this type of discourse is more or less the standard at university - may as well prepare them early! I'd also really consider, towards the end of the semester, trying to break down genre lines. Plenty of works exist that are both contemporary fiction and science fiction, even while blending fantasy elements - Gibson's Pattern Recognition is great for this. This might also help fend off the literary genre elitist trolls that you are no doubt to stir up.