Books to be struck from HS reading lists!

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Books to be struck from HS reading lists!

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1kathleenmdyer
Maio 9, 2007, 12:17 pm

WHY do we continue to subject young minds to The Scarlet Letter? To hell with Hester the doormat and her cast of moldy dullards. Utterly mind-numbing. I also think nobody should ever have to read The Old Man and the Sea or Lord of the Flies.

2AngelaB86
Maio 9, 2007, 12:24 pm

Oh, Lord of the Flies...I had to read that in my 9th grade English class, and at the end of the year when I moved to a new school (Army family, hence the name) guess what was on my new English reading list?? In the 9th grade we read a variety of books, but at my 10th grade school, Lord of the Flies was all we read all. year. long.

3Nichtglied
Maio 9, 2007, 12:49 pm

I enjoyed reading Lord of the Flies in high school English but couldn't imagine spending an entire year on it.

49days
Maio 9, 2007, 12:51 pm

I'd cast my vote for Tom Sawyer. In HS, this had to be the most groaned-about book. Although I'm also with you on The Old Man and the Sea.

5kperfetto
Maio 9, 2007, 1:57 pm

I had to read Death of a Salesman not once, not twice, but three times: two lit classes, one acting. I like Arthur Miller, don't get me wrong, but that's a bit much.

6AnnaClaire
Editado: Maio 9, 2007, 2:04 pm

Oy, vey! Three times! That is a bit much!

7lampbane
Maio 9, 2007, 2:40 pm

Anything by Herman Melville.

8littlegeek
Maio 9, 2007, 3:08 pm

I second Scarlett Letter. Modern readers are just too sophistocated not to pick up right away who the father is. So antiquated.

I vote for two short stories, which I had to suffer through several times in Jr & Sr High: The Most Dangerous Game and The Lottery. I know, everyone loves Shirley Jackson, but sorry, to me both these stories are just too gruesome, too reliant on shock value. I will never understand trashing Bugs Bunny for being too violent, and then teach these stories as great literature.

9readafew
Maio 9, 2007, 3:16 pm

littlegeek > that's funny those are 2 of my favorite stories I had to read in school.

10reading_fox
Maio 9, 2007, 3:46 pm

Although I didn't read them as required school books, I was about your High School age when I read Tom Sawyer, old and the sea and Lord of the flies. Whilst they aren't on my list of alltime greats, they are definitely worthwhile books.

Cider with Rosie wasn't so good. Midnight fox I think also.

Some lucky classes got to read Wizard of Earthsea and then they had the gall to complain about it. I was stuck ploughing through another William shakespeare play and would have swapped pretty much anything to have read Wizard.

11Nickelini
Maio 9, 2007, 10:33 pm

I enjoyed Lord of the Flies in high school, but I thought that the Old Man and the Sea was going to kill me. I couldn't believe anyone would print it and think they'd actually turn a profit. I wonder if I'd still hate it if I read it now.

12NocturnalBlue
Maio 10, 2007, 1:21 am

Agreed about Old Man and the Sea. I also think Ethan Frome was some English teacher's idea of a joke. I mean, Edith Wharton has written so much better.

And The Pearl. How can I forget that monstrosity? That is the one book that I not only told my brother it was ok for him to find the Cliff Notes, I actually printed them out and gave them to him because I didn't want him to inflict that book on himself, class assignment or not.

13Seajack
Maio 10, 2007, 1:43 am

Army #2: We had to Read Lord of the Flies for two different grades in HS, too. I avoided it, faking my way through as the book was so awful. We also read Catcher in the Rye twice, but I didn't mind that.
I hated Ethan Frome as did most kids. Old Man and the Sea I recall as having been a real yawner. We read no Shakespeare whatsoever in school.

14SJaneDoe
Maio 10, 2007, 7:52 am

The majority of the Shakespeare we studied (we had to do a different one each year of HS....) Especially A Midsummer Night's Dream and Taming of the Shrew. *scream* "Here, class, let's read this unfunny, irritating, sexist "comedy" and then discuss how sexist it is." How about we just don't read it at all?!

I hate Shakespeare's comedies....

15Scaryguy
Maio 10, 2007, 8:43 am

I didn't like The Old Man and the Sea when I read it in high school, but re-read it recently and liked it. I liked The Pearl too, but I'm one of the few who likes Steinbeck.

I liked Ethan Frome (when I was a teenager) but I found it more of a horror novel - that's why I liked it. The turmoil between Frome and his wife and the woman he loves is gut wrenching! I think Wharton portrayed well the dire emotions of being stuck in a dreadful relationship while not being able to do much about it. The Age of Innocence bored me to tears.

I have never gotten joy from reading Shakespeare. I always found it tedious and overly dated. I don't mind watching it in a play though. I think plays are meant to be seen and not read.

Never had to read Lord of the Flies. I'll get around to it one of these days.

16inkdrinker
Maio 10, 2007, 9:10 am

I don't know that I agree entirely with the concept of striking books from HS or college reading lists. You or I may not see the value of something (especially in HS or as an undergraduate) but it still may very well be there. That said I could certainly name some books I would put on a list of those I really didn’t enjoy and still to this day haven’t found real value for me in them. I would put Scarlett Letter on the list of books I would rather have never read, I disagree with Lord of the Flies. LOTF was one of my favorite HS reads. I loved that book from start to finish. Scarlett Letter on the other hand I avoided finishing in both HS and in a college course. Old man and the Sea I was never required to read but I did read it as an adult and enjoyed it very much. (It might have something to do with my age at the time.) I would add Huck Finn to my personal list. I don't say the book has no value but I couldn't get through it in HS or in college. (Oddly enough, I read both Huck and Scarlett Letter for the same HS class and the same college class.) One that I thought I was going to hate for a college class was All the King's Men. The first 50-100 pages were grueling for me, but by the time I finished it, it was one of my favorite books of all time. This goes to show that we may not always know what is good for us.

17prophetandmistress
Editado: Maio 10, 2007, 9:27 am

The problem with The Old Man and the Sea is reading it in high school, 95% of the students can't relate to Santiago's experience of wrestling with a huge and overwhelming obstacle. I think the reader needs to have some real life experience under his/her belt before that book holds any meaning and you can begin to understand Santiago’s struggle and subsequent defeat.

I also think To Kill a Mockingbird has too many subtle points and details to be taught and tested in a classroom. Is it an important book that everyone should read? Yes, without a question. (And I guess the only way to make sure everyone does read it is to assign it.) However, oversimplifying characters like Atticus as a Christ-like figure and Boo as a man-child don’t do the book justice and leave out the vast grey area that is modern race relations in the US.

And let's face facts, most books used in high schools aren't chosen because they are interesting or because they inspire a large percentage of the students to read. They are chosen because are easy to test. It's not like you can test on the impact a book has on someone's life or how it made them see the world differently, but if the language is simple enough for all students to read, you can test them on plot points and character traits.

Conversely, there are other books that should only be read in high school. The Catcher in the Rye is a book for adolescence. It is an amazing read when, like Holden, you are 16 and full of anger and hormones. But read it when you are in college and he appears to be a whiney, spoiled brat who you just wanna tell, "Hang on one more year, graduate high school, and things will improve dramatically." Or at least it would have gotten him out of a lobotomy.

18suge
Maio 10, 2007, 10:00 am

15--> Scaryguy, maybe you're not so scary after all... hehehe).....that is exactly how I feel about Ethan Frome!

In H.S. I couldn't stand it because it was soooo depressing! I felt that their lives were filled with such desperation and misery!.... ugh! All I could think was "please don't let my life turn out like that.... please!"

I re-read it recently, and absolutely looooved it. Maybe some books are better left for more mature minds, to be fully appreciated.

I also read Lord of The Flies in HS, but it was for an Economy class. It made me a little sick, but I liked it!

The Scarlet Letter? ewww! Vomit.... vomit! I'm not even gonna give that a second chance!

19lampbane
Maio 10, 2007, 11:18 am

I also think To Kill a Mockingbird has too many subtle points and details to be taught and tested in a classroom. Is it an important book that everyone should read? Yes, without a question.

I actually really, really loved To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it in eighth grade (thus predating high school). Of course, I read it for a book report so I did have some choice in the matter...

I think the reader needs to have some real life experience under his/her belt before that book holds any meaning and you can begin to understand Santiago’s struggle and subsequent defeat.

It's funny you should mention this, since a few weeks ago, South Park had an episode where the kids were forced to read The Old Man and the Sea and write a report about it over the weekend, but they paid off some Mexicans to do it instead. The Mexicans were very touched by Santiago's struggle (but they botched the report-writing part).

20AngelaB86
Maio 10, 2007, 11:22 am

I think I would have a different attitude towards LotF if I hadn't read it for school, or if the first teacher I had read it with had been even remotely interested in teaching it. The second English teacher (who taught the book all year long) was really passionate about it, and I learned a lot about the book, I was just burnt out on it.

I can't think of any books to add to this list, because the only other book I remember being assigned was Of Mice and Men, which I enjoyed.

21reading_fox
Maio 11, 2007, 9:38 am

If US HSs are teaching that "Atticus is a Christlike figure" then I'd prefer if you didn't read to kill a mockingbird at school and waited until you could understand it on your own.

to me that's a really bizarre treatment of a wonderful book.

22verbafacio
Maio 11, 2007, 12:23 pm

I hated Ethan Frome with a passion, just didn't see the point. Actually, I didn't care for most of the books we read in high school -- we seemed to be on a strictly depression and gloom plan. The Scarlet Letter was a high point, as was Pride and Prejudice. Other books I hated: A Separate Peace, Their Eyes Were Watching God (I know, a classic, but it just didn't work for me). And #14, we never got to read any of Shakespeare's comedies for class -- only tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Julius Caesar, and MacBeth.

I guess the logic was that high school was a tough time, and teenagers are morbid, so they'll appreciate all of these miserable books. But it was really the opposite -- it was impossible to get excited about a book when all we ever read was just depressing...

23gautherbelle
Maio 11, 2007, 12:36 pm

Funny, but the books that made the greatest impact on me were not those assigned in school. I can barely remember what was assigned in School. (It's been a looooong time since HS).

When I was about 12 I was rambling around in my great grandmother's 'junk' room when I found a box of books. I loved to read but we didn't have much money so books were few and far between. Anyway in the box were Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Black Boy.

It was my first inkling of race. I'd always lived in black neighborhoods, gone to black schools and churches but had never considered why. These two books changed my life.

24lampbane
Maio 11, 2007, 12:57 pm

Wow, other people had to read A Separate Peace? Oh, the torment!

Though it isn't high school, my 8th grade English teacher also made us read The Pigman. You're right, what is it with teachers assigning depressing books?

The worst had to be Death Be Not Proud. Maybe it was supposed to be a lesson in itself - stop griping kids, you could always be dying of a brain tumor.

25mummimamma
Maio 11, 2007, 1:00 pm

I was always jealous of the British and American schoolchildren who got to read Shakespeare, we had to read Henrik Ibsen. Not cheerful in any way.

We also read The Lord of the Flies in English class, it may be a good book, but I still feel nauseous when I think about it.

I often feel that they choose the wrong book (or play, or poem) of a certian writer to present in high school. Teachers (or whoever decides) think "This is a classic", not "this is something the average 17-year olds can read, understand, like and decide to read more of later".

26zweiundzwei
Editado: Maio 11, 2007, 2:33 pm

I was just assigned to read Lord of the Flies in my English class and this thread just fills me with joy! :D

A really, really, really unnecessary book is "The Land of their Fathers" (since there isn't any touchstone available it seems like no one here owns it - good for you!) . It's about some Native Americans and someone dies and they want to go to the place they originally lived at to bury him there. It always seems like the real, interesting story starts with their travel there, but after 39 pages of conflict with all sorts of people from the government that prevented them from going at first, the book ends.

That must have been one of the most unsatisfying reads ever assigned to an English class.

Admittedly, it was only a pseudo-book that was supposed to give us the impression that we were actually reading proper books in English now and to make us learn some useful vocabulary, but it had the potential to make people never touch a book again, anyway.

I agree with the depressed book thing teachers seem to have (it's international!). I like to complain about it, too, though I probably shouldn't because I do enjoy reading depressing books in my free time.
But talking for weeks about situations that gradually get worse and always seem to end in death does not do me any good at 7:45 in the morning...

27heinous-eli
Maio 12, 2007, 3:16 am

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This is the fifth time I've read it for school. I'm done with it.

28icantmakeme
Maio 25, 2007, 8:55 am

I've found that the 2 books I hated reading in high school were only on the list because they were Australian (I am too.).

One in particular was Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. About a year after all the analysis sucked any pleasure out of it I read an interview with him where he complained about his book being on the list. He said it was sad because now an entire generation would hate him!

So at least we can take comfort in knowing living authors are aware of what required reading does to teenagers. I had to dislike it less after that :)

29bibliolatrist
Maio 29, 2007, 7:21 pm

I have to disagree, prophetandmistress, when you write that:

And let's face facts, most books used in high schools aren't chosen because they are interesting or because they inspire a large percentage of the students to read. They are chosen because are easy to test. It's not like you can test on the impact a book has on someone's life or how it made them see the world differently, but if the language is simple enough for all students to read, you can test them on plot points and character traits.

As someone in the educational field, I can say that's not entirely true. Teachers are often limited by what is appropriate material for the classroom (thus "good" books which feature sex or profanity may not be allowed by a particular district, while those "tried and true" classics that feature nothing too inappropriate are deemed okay).

At the same time, teachers struggle to find works that are both relevant AND challenging AND that will force their students to think critically. It is difficult to find a "good" (read: entertaining) book that is both age-appropriate and challenging. So that might be why works like The Scarlet Letter or Lord of the Flies are still being trotted out today.

Although I do agree, reading ANY work 2+ times in high school is just plain silly, indeed.

I think sometimes it's not so much about the book but what the teacher does with it. I've had teachers make even the most boring book compelling, and vice versa.

30lucien
Editado: Maio 29, 2007, 10:45 pm

I feel petty, but it always cheers me to see people loathe A Separate Peace.

I didn't like Lord of the Flies, but I can why people would feel it's a good candidate for a high school course. You can certainly use it to start some classroom discussions.

I didn't see it mentioned, but I could have done without any Flannery O'Connor.

31lampbane
Editado: Maio 29, 2007, 10:05 pm

I wanted to bring this up before, no better time I guess. During Junior year my English teacher really did try something different, but thinking about it, it really wasn't all that of a new idea, since it fell into the same trap of "adolescents love reading about depressed adolescents" that most school lit seems to fall into:

Black Ice

Granted, it did deal with some of the things I had to deal with in real life, but overwhelmingly, I couldn't relate to a poor black girl who gets a scholarship to a ritzy boarding school and then proceeds to get utterly screwed (both figuratively and literally - what a depressing scene).

32EclecticEccentric
Maio 30, 2007, 12:23 pm

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Hated it with a passion. Red Badge of Courage even worse.

As some have said, I have to wonder if reading either of these two novels now would disgust me the way they did then. Many have told me they feel I would have a greater appreciation for the works - but I don't want to "have an appreciation" I want to enjoy books.

http://eclectcentric.blogspot.com

33pandammonia
Maio 31, 2007, 12:04 am

Definitely The Catcher In The Rye , the most poorly written piece of trollop i have EVER read. I struggle to see how it achieved the status it did. Quote from the book - "I'm quite illiterate but i read a lot".(?) I think JD Salinger was illiterate, as this book is so poorly written. It annoyed me so much to read it, and i read it voluntarily.

34Scaryguy
Maio 31, 2007, 6:37 am

Hi Pan:

I didn't love Catcher but I did find it to be an amazing representation of a screwed up teen. When you look at the book that way and see yourself on the hormonal corkscrew of this kid's life, it's a wild ride.

About your quote: since when do teenager's make sense? ;) LOL. I've heard the gambit in real life.

35MrStevens
Jun 3, 2007, 8:54 pm

Gee, I enjoyed reading The Old Man and the Sea in HS. I based one of my short story assignments on the book. I agree with everyone else about The Scarlet Letter though. What a painful read. It was probably great and edgy for it's time but far outdated now. There are other books that could probably fit the bill better.

36keren7
Editado: Jun 5, 2007, 1:01 pm

I had to read Joseph Conrad's The heart of darkness in highschool - I love reading usually and this book was torture. The writing was bad and the story was awful to my 17 year old mind.

I also had to read The lord of the flies and really loved it - Ilove the scene where beezlabub is talking to Simon - still sends shivers - havent read that book since 9th grade.

I also agree that some of these classics are better left for when people are older. I am often surprised when people voluntarily read Joseph Conrad for instance. I think some books got ruined for me because I had to read them too young.

37Aerodynamics Primeira Mensagem
Jun 5, 2007, 3:13 pm

I, for one, loved reading Heart of Darkness in HS. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it more than any other assigned reading during those four years.

The book that really ought to be striken from the reading lists is My Anonia by Willa Cather.

38geneg
Jun 6, 2007, 9:13 pm

I read Heart of Darkness about every 6 - 8 months. But then it never grows old, it just gains layers and layers of meaning as I read it more and more. Of course it helps to know something about what was going on in the Belgian Congo at the time. This is probably my all-time favorite book.

Another book I read more than twice a year is the story of Philip Nolan, The Man Without a Country. This is very short, even the slowest reader can knock this out in an afternoon, but anyone who can read this through and not be reduced to tears at the end has no soul.

The book that put me off contemporary fiction is Looking for Mr. Goodbar. I didn't read any contemporary fiction for fifteen years after this book.

39greendragongirl
Jun 6, 2007, 11:49 pm

I actually enjoyed most of the books I had to read in school (many of them I had already read on my own, so picking them apart in class really wasn't tortuous, also I was in AP classes so I got to skip many of the books already listed)
The two books I was forcded to read and hated were Billy Budd by melville and Candide by Voltaire. They were both excruciating for me, sadly I had to read them both in the same year. Ugh.

40legoretrout Primeira Mensagem
Jun 21, 2007, 8:58 pm

I have to agree with Lali about The Jungle, it was a pretty torturous summer read...but I'm pretty sure the book report I wrote was almost more so. It was a book I was totally unable to get into which was only worsened by the fact that it was too. darn. long.

I guess I'm in the minority with this one, but I actually liked The Scarlet Letter, I didn't find it as hard to get into once I started. If I could have scratched something from my HS memory? Pride and Prejudice, hands down. It's not an awful casual read, but to study I found it to be a waste of time.

41perlle
Jun 24, 2007, 2:02 pm

Moby Dick comes to mind. I read that one a few years ago, and it did not seem appropriate for high school reading. However, I know a lot of people who did have to read it in high school.

I don't think teenagers are sophisicated or mature enough to get anything out of it. If anything, it just turns them off to reading classics down the road.

42lilisin
Jun 25, 2007, 6:26 pm

The books I could have done without in high school were:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
It was painful to read Mark Twain. People tell me "oh, you probably couldn't get past the way he wrote the dialogue" but that was probably the easiest part. I just don't like his style and am tired of hearing about this story.

Scarlet Letter
Yes, it's a good book to point out the use of metaphors, analogies, motifs, etc... but my god it's mindnumbingly dull. Was anybody forced to watch the movie as well? Ugh! Although, it probably wasn't the smartest idea to save the notation of the whole book to the car ride back from an exhausting soccer tournament the day before it was due. ^^;;

The Old Man and the Sea
I'm just not a fan of Hemmingway. Period.

I know there were more but obviously I've taken the time to forget about them. I didn't grown and moan with A Separate Peace and The Chosen but considering the fact that I can't remember what they are about at all certainly says something.

43lilisin
Jun 26, 2007, 5:52 pm

I remember now! One of the books that I despised in high school and would never want to inflict that pain on anyone else.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Surprisingly no one has mentioned that one. Ick ick!

44barney67
Editado: Jun 26, 2007, 8:06 pm

Yeah, I don't get this thread. Melville, Shakespeare, Conrad, Salinger, Coleridge, Hawthorne, Hemingway -- this is all great stuff. It's a shame some lame teacher ruined them for you.

Catcher may be too negative, essentially too sophisticated, for today's teens. Too many of them identify with Holden, and I don't think that was the point, esp. considering he ends up in a mental hospital.

As I recall my own public high school years, most of the students were too stupid and lazy to appreciate any classic literature, particularly Shakespeare. Maybe they should stick to learning grammar. Maybe they shouldn't read at all.

Finger painting, maybe?

45lilisin
Editado: Jun 26, 2007, 9:18 pm

Deniro, the reason I didn't like the books was for their story, their style, their narration, the topic, etc... Personally, I had wonderful English teachers who were very well spoken and well learned. I just flat out didn't enjoy those books.

But I do read classics all the time:
Hugo, Zola, Balzac, Kundera...

And then classics according to the actual country such as Japan:
Inoue, Oe, Tanizaki...

I certainly can't be classified as one of the "stupid and lazy" high school students that may or not be out there. Personally, I think they were mostly in the regular English III and IV classes while people who showed a bit more respect and interest in books were in the AP classes. (Hmm... my use of tense is making me sound like a high school student. I'm actually a graduate student, though.)

But AP or not, I did not enjoy the books I listed at all!

46lampbane
Jun 26, 2007, 9:30 pm

I didn't have to read The Scarlet Letter, I chose it for a book report because I figured it would be acceptable and figured I should read it eventually anyway. I hated it.

I like Shakespeare and was forced to read it in school, and I still liked him, BUT the read-alouds in class were pure torture.

Just because you've reached a line break doesn't mean you're supposed to pause that long! Dammit, just read it normally. ::weep::

47pandammonia
Jun 27, 2007, 2:01 am

#45 - deniro - "Catcher may be too negative, essentially too sophisticated, for today's teens. Too many of them identify with Holden, and I don't think that was the point, esp. considering he ends up in a mental hospital."

I don't think this book holds any form of sophistication, in what way do you think it is sophisticated? Definitely not the writing style. And isn't the point of a coming-of-age novel that you should be able to identify with the characters, this is what makes a good book. Also, i don't recall Holden ending up in an institution (though perhaps he should have been) at any point in the book. In the end, he went home, and the last page is talking about whether he wants to go back to school. Did you even read this book?

48momom248
Jun 27, 2007, 9:34 am

I wish they would get rid of Siddhartha and Metamorphosis. Read both in HS and hated both of them to this day!! Also Of Mice and Men--read in HS and am reading now w/ my daughter who has to read for HS and I still hate it!

49lampbane
Jun 27, 2007, 9:46 am

I'd probably toss out Steinbeck entirely if I could. I can't believe how many times I had to read him in school, starting in junior high school:

The Pearl (meh)
The Red Pony (ugh!)
Of Mice and Men (sigh)
The Grapes of Wrath (uh, actually kind of liked this one)

Four books. With so many "classic" authors in the world, why so much focus on one author? If the kids didn't like him the first time around, don't force more down their throats, it's not going to help.

50Nichtglied
Jun 27, 2007, 11:02 am

People would probably like Steinbeck more if they assigned Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row in school instead of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men.

51barney67
Jun 27, 2007, 11:18 am

#47 -- Wrote my thesis on it, Pedro.

52barney67
Jun 27, 2007, 11:24 am

(ch. 26)

"I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here…

A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here…"

53geneg
Editado: Jun 27, 2007, 11:57 am

Nichtglied,

I was thinking the same thing. Except I would replace The Pearl and The Red Pony with those two. I count myself fortunate in that Tortilla Flat was my introduction to Steinbeck, after that I read everything by him I could get my hands on.

A couple others by him that would be good for high school students: Cup of Gold, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, The Short Reign of Pippin IV, and my particular favorite, In Dubious Battle.

In the same vein but different, why can't our kids read The Sea Wolf by Jack London, stories by Ring Lardner, I think The Haircut is one of the best short stories ever written. How about stories by O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi, another iconic short story. Classic American stories of the west by Bret Harte The Outcasts of Poker Flat, The Luck of Roaring Camp. How about the Hogben stories of Kuttner and Moore. If students can read A Midsummer's Night's Dream they can certainly read about the Hogbens.

There is so much wonderful literature out there that it is pointless to keep trotting out the same old exercises in style and works written for more mature minds that I read in high School. Give 'em adventure. Something to hold their interest while teaching them something about writing.

Edited to correct numberous error.

54lilisin
Jun 27, 2007, 12:48 pm

geneg,

Jack London and O. Henry were books I read in middle school English classes. I can´t imagine having to do those in high school. They are thrilling when you are young but I would have felt that the teacher was underestimating our potential if I had been assigned those two writers.

Personally I´d think it´d be nice if high schools stopped focusing on just American and British works. It´d be nice for them to introduce more european, hispanic, asian lit, african lit, etc... If anything would expand a student´s mind it would be exposing it to other cultures at a younger age. Too bad the AP people can´t understand that although I do understand it would make the curriculum more difficult to teach.

Luckily I read all that kind of literature on my own.

55lampbane
Jun 27, 2007, 1:02 pm

Well, there's a reason that English classes focus on English and American lit... because those books were originally written in ENGLISH. Books from Africa and Asia are great, but they generally have to be translated into English, and translation can alter a lot in the work, such as use of language which the teacher may want the kids to study.

There's also something to be said that exposing kids to English and American lit teaches them about the culture that produced the language they are studying.

56lilisin
Jun 27, 2007, 3:38 pm

I certainly understand that. But it'd be nice if their was a project where students could choose some literature from another country and perhaps compare styles in similar time periods or whatnot.

Translated or not, you'll still have metaphors, similes, allusions, motifs, etc... And THAT can still be studied within an English class. (Which to me was always just "literature" class with a few vocab quizzes stuck in.)

But thanks for the input. ^o^

57keren7
Jun 27, 2007, 4:45 pm

#47 The very first pages of the book - he also says and im paraphrasing - i will tell you how I got here - you wouldnt say that if you were at home.

58katie0817 Primeira Mensagem
Jun 27, 2007, 6:39 pm

I have read "Death of a Salesman" both in high school and college and enough Arthur already. Not to discredit his writing buut the book's point can be gotten in one class room setting. As well, Hemingway is so overdone. I find it painful to read, in fact. Anyone else agree? I'd love Fitzgerald in lieu of Hemingway in the classroom but that's my opinion. I've also read "Tom Sawyer" both in high scool and college, however, I didn't truly see the deeper layers in that novel until the college course. So perhaps there's some merit in having it taught repetitively throughout schooling?

59pandammonia
Jun 28, 2007, 4:44 am

#52 Fair point, i suppose i was too busy hating the book ( not to mention author) to have actually noticed that. By about half way through the book i stopped reading 2/3 of the words on each page, in an effort to make it end quicker, and i can't say it made much of a difference except for that one useless tidbit, that like the rest of the book, was of no great value to the story.

#57 No, you probably wouldn't. But in narrating a story of your life or certain events, one possibly would.

60misskate
Jul 3, 2007, 4:45 pm

I'd like some feedback on "The giver". I found it upsetting when I first read it and I wonder what others think about it. It was on our book list for 9th and 10th grade summer reading

61barefeet4
Jul 5, 2007, 3:44 am

My teacher read "The Giver" to us in the 5th grade and I loved it. I have since read it almost yearly and more recently read her two newer books that are pseudo-sequels to "The Giver"-"Gathering Blue" and "Messenger" I think anything by Lois Lowry is worth reading while you are young and rereading when you can more fully grasp the social implications.

62AngelaB86
Jul 5, 2007, 9:35 am

I read "the Giver" in middle school, and it's one of my favorites. I haven't read "Messenger" yet, though I have it. I know many people on LT have said they found "the Giver" upsetting or even disturbing, but that doesn't surprise me. It was meant to be upsetting. People who walk away from it unaffected would worry me.

I agree with Barefeet. Lowry's other book, Number the Stars, is also one of my favorites. It's not just historical fiction (about the holocaust/nazi resistance), but (IMO) a lesson on one's moral responsibilities.

63lampbane
Jul 5, 2007, 2:34 pm

I LOVED Number the Stars. I actually read it on my own first, because I was a big fan of the Anastasia Krupnik books.

64quilter1950
Jul 5, 2007, 8:15 pm

I read Number the Stars as an adult, and I did love it. My husband read The Giver to his middle school kids for many years (special ed kids who didn't do much reading themselves) and they liked it. When I went to school, there were really lame books to read, although we had our share of Lord of the Flies and Scarlet Letter. I was such a reader in those days, I found them all good, although I didn't eat sausage for a long time after The Jungle. I think the point is to expose kids to literature. If they're never going to read as adults, at least they've read some of the best authors the US has to offer.

65lampbane
Jul 5, 2007, 8:58 pm

I think the point is to expose kids to literature.

Yes, but literature doesn't have to suck. There are plenty of good books out there that can really engage a teenager and get them to read more. Unfortunately, not too many of them are taught in school.

I didn't hate every book I read in high school. But this group is about Awful Lit, not "Lit That Was Enjoyable."

66heinous-eli
Jul 5, 2007, 8:58 pm

#55 --- there are plenty of writers out of the ex-British colonies who write in English. It's a shame, especially when it comes to the Indian writers, that schools don't assign more of their work. Rohinton Mistry and Arundhati Roy come to mind. Also, Marquez should definitely be taught. Most people I knew in school hated Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Marquez is a much better example of magic realism.

67gregtmills
Jul 5, 2007, 10:11 pm

In Ethan Frome, I was cheering for the sled.

68NocturnalBlue
Editado: Jul 7, 2007, 1:49 pm

I read Beloved in college, but anytime I hear someone read it in high school I get a little surprised because from what I remember, it was really graphic in terms of rape and violence. Not that I think an AP English student would have trouble with it, but I'm surprised the parents in the district didn't pitch a fit. Same thing whenever I hear someone reading The Color Purple.

Maybe that's part of the problem. Certain authors such as Ian McEwan, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison write excellent books, but they are the equivalent of an R-rated movie. Plus you have books that are more PG-13 such as The Master and Margarita, but are so irreverent towards Christianity that I could imagine certain districts would be upset if such a book was taught.

Perhaps that's part of the reason a lot of high schools stick with the old standbys (The Great Gatsby, Steinbeck, Scarlet Letter, etc.). When you have to worry about purchasing enough copies of a novel for however many students are in you high school and whether or not it would be worth it to spend that kind of money on controversial novels, it must be a lot easier to take the path of least resistance.

And for what it's worth, I had some pretty good English teachers but very few books survive the classroom treatment for me. Sometimes I try to reread the book at a later date, but usually I don't bother. There are so many other potential good books out there that it makes more sense to give those a shot.

Also, gregtmills, I hated Ethan Frome in high school and stayed away from Edith Wharton for the longest time because of it. Shame because I discovered The Age of Innocence and thought it was wonderful. And became much more convinced that Ethan Frome was just a nationwide joke English teachers like to play on their unsuspecting pupils for some reason.

69Kira
Jul 7, 2007, 7:07 pm

I don't think Lord of the Flies should necessarily be struck from high school lists, though I think the analysis of it should be. Nitpicking every possible sentence to be filled with hidden significance is ridiculous, and that's all we really did when we read it. Mostly I don't object to reading classics, because even if they are bad they are worth having read once, but I hate spending so long on trivial parts that you only get to read one or two books in the whole semester.

On the other hand, having read The Old Man and the Sea and The Catcher in the Rye I would definitely say I would not want to read those books for a high school class. The only thing they have going for them is that they are short, which sadly convinces a lot of people to read them rather than better books.

When I read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school I really enjoyed it. Although I did read it before it was officially assigned just in case the assignments were going to ruin it for me.

70xmaystarx
Jul 7, 2007, 8:31 pm

Looking back, the books I remember most painful to read in high school were most always summer reading. Moby Dick and Ivanhoe stand out the most. I've looked at local school lists for this summer and it seems they are offering choices that include more modern works.

71gabriel
Jul 25, 2007, 5:01 am

Looking at this message board, I see a pattern- many American authors disliked, few English authors disliked. Let's take the logical conclusion. (Not that there aren't great American authors- just that the "classic" ones have been massively overrated).

I disliked Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and I suspect it was on the syllabus for Canadian content. All Quiet on the Western Front was utterly pointless and a hideous read.

I didn't care for 1984, and I don't consider it to be a great work of literature, but I know and respect the reason why it is included.

72perlle
Jul 25, 2007, 8:02 am

The books mentioned here might not be appropriate for high schoolers to read, but I'm not sure that the books themselves are overrated.

Maybe the students reading them are not motivated to read them. Or perhaps their minds are not mature enough to even be interested. Their attention spans might be too short due to our changing technological landscape. Just many reasons.

The high school reading curriculum in the U.S. needs an overhaul...but I guess we all know that to be true of high schools in general.

73varielle
Jul 25, 2007, 11:27 am

Perhaps the objective of high school teachers is to expose the students to really bad, over-rated, tedious, senseless writing so they will be able to recognize something good when they find it. On the top of my worst list from high school days is Tess of the D'Urbervilles closely followed by Moby Dick and The Catcher in the Rye.

74gregtmills
Jul 25, 2007, 2:04 pm

A book that SHOULD be taught in High School is Nabokov's Pnin.

It's not particularly tricky, it's pretty funny and emotionally rich.

What other books should be on the High School list but aren't?

75ellevee
Editado: Jul 25, 2007, 4:01 pm

I tend to like most of the classics. However, for a Women In Literature Class:

Nevada Barr, and
The Red Tent both made me seriously consider going on killing sprees.

Edit: Oh, and I LIKED the following books:
Catcher In The Rye - seriously saved me in HS
1984
Lord of the Flies
The Old Man and The Sea
Of Mice and Men - still makes me cry

I just graduated from college, so I recall all these books very well. I think I liked them because I made a point to read them before we discussed them in class. I got kicked out of English over a fight with a teacher about Catcher in the Rye. Heinous witch.

76JDHomrighausen
Jul 25, 2007, 5:52 pm

I LOVE english class but I never got The Great Gatsby. It was too subtle and incomprehensibly vague. Nothing had any meaning, it was all just some rich people sitting around and worrying about their pathetic social lives.

77ambushedbyasnail Primeira Mensagem
Ago 4, 2007, 11:09 am

When I read Lord of the Flies (ninth grade), all I could think was that if it had been kids from a girls' school stranded on that island, rather than running around killing each other, they would have been screwing each other like nobody's business. All I did was long for it.

I certainly wasn't impressed by The Mayor of Casterbridge, although it might be worth going over again now that I'm older.

And if I ever, EVER have to read The Odyssey again, I will shoot someone. I mean, yes, great, classic literature, a must-read... but I think I've had to read it five or so times throughout middle school, high school and college.

78clarkmanda Primeira Mensagem
Ago 4, 2007, 10:18 pm

I think that many a problem arises not from the literature itself but from the teacher. The teacher is only allowed to select from a list that someone else deemed appropriate for that grade and if they would like to introduce something new to the list it must get approved (at least this was the case at my high school.) Thus, the teacher must teach the same boring stuff that they have always taught and that must get tedious year after year. Also, just as in any field, there are English teachers that have no right to be English teachers. I actually had an English teacher that spoke the worst redneck backwards grammer that you could imagine-and that was at a private school that my parents paid big bucks for. That being said, Heart of Darkness was absolutely the worst thing that I was forced to read. I hate that book, I know I should probably pick it up now and try again but the thought of doing so makes me want to stick something sharp in my eye.

79ambushedbyasnail
Ago 4, 2007, 11:28 pm

On #78:

Yeah, we ran into the "grade-appropriate" problem too, particularly in middle school. Our eigth grade teacher was wonderful, but she was working with an underfunded department, ancient books, and a class that had a lot of gifted kids, a lot of special needs kids, and very few normal kids to average it out. She assigned us the first two chapters of The Giver over a weekend. When we got back, she asked how we liked it so far, and I raised my hand and said, really apologetic, "Uh, I finished it. I couldn't help it." Another kid raised his hand and said the same thing. After this happened with several books, and after a few kids mocked the life out of Summer of my German Soldier, she gave up and just let us choose our own books, as long as we were reading.

(Incidentally, this teacher introduced me to both J.D. Salinger and Tom Robbins. Neither, of course, made the eighth grade reading list.)

80randomarbitrary
Ago 7, 2007, 12:58 pm

Along with the appropriate books list, I wonder how many teachers keep teaching the same books because that's all they have. Textbooks and those English Lit books full of short stories are expensive, plus textbook companies create books that are acceptable to the largest number of school districts -- they can't or won't print books that will be acceptable to more liberal/progressive school districts because they can't sell them in more conservative ones.

My kids' high schools -- one small non-traditional, and one that issues laptops instead of textbooks -- don't have the resources to buy dozens of novels, so they expect kids to buy or borrow or share books (my son is reading several this year that we already own -- how handy!), or they had out a list of books around a theme (Asian authors are the ones on my son's current list), and the kids can check them out of the library, because the kids are not all reading the same book at the same time.

Old Man and the Sea was one I hated in high school and have not read since. Pride and Prejudice, To Kill A Mockingbird, I love, and loved from the moment I read them. Those are probably the two books I have read the most times.

81kaileigh Primeira Mensagem
Editado: Ago 9, 2007, 1:30 am

I'm going into grade 11 this year and I love the books that we have read in English. We've read to kill a mocking bird, the merchant of venice, othello, catcher in the rye, a separate peace, and I loved them all. It was my grade 9 teacher that got me to really get into reading books. The reading we have done in school, helped encourage me to read more books. I read The Handmaids tale by Margaret Atwood, and the scarlet letter, and I liked them both.

82januaryw
Ago 9, 2007, 7:55 am

I loved reading as a child and all through middle school, but HS required reading almost put me off of reading altogether. Some of the stuff was over my head and some of it was just boring like The Old Man in the Sea. I find it interesting that the books I suffered through in high school I actually enjoyed as an adult. To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Catcher in the Rye and Shakespear.

83lizvelrene
Ago 9, 2007, 10:00 am

I had no idea how much I would later love Hemmingway based on my high school exposure to The Old Man and the Sea. I don't know if it was the book or the way it was taught (picking out each! individual! metaphor! including probably a lot of unintended ones) but it took me a long time to pick up another. Why couldn't schools teach The Sun Also Rises or For Whom the Bell Tolls? The language may be easier in Old Man, but kids can't relate to it at all.

Actually there are a lot of classic authors on whom the syllabus just INSISTS on teaching the wrong book for. Like Ethan Frome instead of The House of Mirth or Age of Innocence. And for goodness sake, how many times did I get stuck reading Great Expectations?

A Separate Peace - there's just no excuse. In all the history of literature there are SO many better books even just in the private boys' school genre.

84ellevee
Ago 9, 2007, 10:08 am

#83 Hey, my friend is STILL looking for a guy like Phineas. She considers that book to be the beginning and end of American literature. She's a bit sick, actually.

I liked that book immensely, but I read it one summer before we looked at it in school.

85littlegeek
Ago 9, 2007, 3:53 pm

New HS Reading Lists

I'm all for fresh titles, but Angels & Demons?!??!??

86ellevee
Ago 9, 2007, 4:06 pm

I think Dallas has the best one. Atlanta's is good as well.

The Lovely Bones?! *vomits*

Only in Jersey. Although Hitchhiker's DOES make things better.

87januaryw
Ago 10, 2007, 3:39 am

lizvelrene (message #83), I had forgotten about A Separate Peace! I HATED that book in HS! Maybe I'll try it again as an adult.

88lampbane
Ago 10, 2007, 3:18 pm

How many classics are there in the "private boys' school" genre? I remember having to read A Separate Peace as well, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

89theizz Primeira Mensagem
Ago 11, 2007, 1:06 am

Why! Ethan Frome, why!! Do they WANT us to hate reading?

I also detested The Mayor of Casterbridge, though I missed Tess, and my friends said was worse.

I fully agree with all those who nominated The Scarlet Letter.

One I haven't seen on this list is Uncle Tom's Cabin. Now of course it's historically significant, but the writing is terrible!! It's melodramatic, trite, and felt sooooo long. It must be at least 30,000 pages long. Give or take a few. By all means lets learn about the history, but leave the book alone.

Now, I LOVE Shakespeare, but I can sympathize with those who had a less than good experience with it in English. It really works best in a drama class. when you out it on it's feet it becomes modern, vibrant, and relevant.

90fikustree
Ago 11, 2007, 1:23 am

When I saw the title of this thread I instantly thought of the Scarlett Letter, its great to see I'm not alone. I also didn't care for Catcher in the Rye although at least it was a quick read.

I am so excited that many mentioned The Pearl I forgot how much I truly hated that book. My friends and I wrote a sequel called Coyotito's revenge. I don't remember the details but I know we were still making fun of it four years later after graduation.

91JDHomrighausen
Ago 13, 2007, 1:42 am

fikustree -

Why did you hate The Pearl? I remember it being quite good!

92albusisonholiday
Ago 19, 2007, 6:56 pm

Despite loving Tom Sawyer, I have to agree that it doesn't have a place in high school lit classes. It would be more appropriate for grade- or middle-schoolers, in my opinion.

I have to admit I did like The Pearl, although it's definitely not my favorite Steinbeck.

How about The House on Mango Street? Awful, awful, awful. A pretentious prose poem.

93kaelirenee
Dez 16, 2007, 1:52 pm

Just going through old posts, so I thought I'd add a few to this one...

Most of the books I hated from highschool came from one class-one teacher who didn't need to be teaching any more-American Literature. Seriously, if I can make an A on the test for The Scarlet Letter after reading less than one chapter, that is a book that is too predictable and WAY too easy to test on. To this day, the very idea of Ethan Frome turns my stomach and I can't even give books like To Kill a Mockingbird or anything by Mark Twain a second chance (though I'm sure I should).

The absolute worst, though, was Main Street. I can't really blame this one on my English teacher, though (the one my senior year-best I've had by far)-it was for UIL. I kept wanting something to happen. Anything. Nope. The plot was as paralysed as the husband in Ethan Frome. (Yes, I know that joke is in bad taste.)

Amazingly enough, I had some teachers teach literature so well that I went back to read the books later, only to wonder what on earth was so great about them, like A Separate Peace. And though I love it, I am thouroughly burned out on Romeo and Juliet-again, it was really well taught in school. But between theater and lit classes, I must have read that play a dozen times!

94mokelley
Dez 16, 2007, 6:29 pm

I had to read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand in high school. And we had to read it during the summer before we began 11th grade. Imagine spending your summer reading a book that's about 1000 pages and makes no sense to an adolescent mind. Pure torture.

95raggedtig
Dez 16, 2007, 7:59 pm

I too had to read Beloved in college and I loved my English classes, but why subject anyone to that book???? Yes, it may have been well written, but I was disgusted and bored with that book.

Someone mentioned The Lottery and I was kinda shocked. I loved that story although yes, it was a bit frightening and gruesome. I still remember that story to this day and I read that book in my senior year (1989).

96mamachunk
Jan 20, 2008, 8:57 pm

There Eyes Were Watching God has got to be the most annoying book I've ever read in High School...I hated it....the constant use of slang drove me nuts...

mamachunk

97TeacherDad
Jan 21, 2008, 12:33 am

oh, 93 & 95, bashing two of my all-time favorites, Beloved and Mockingbird... I'd say they both deserve a second chance...

98kaelirenee
Jan 21, 2008, 11:22 am

>97 TeacherDad: Giving books like To Kill a Mockingbird a second chance was part of the point I was trying to make. By teachers assigning books that are so terrible and berating them for not liking it, you run the risk of alienating readers from an entire group of books. Were I provided with a reading list that I go to choose books from (and this was an AP class, so it's not a crazy suggestion), I could have taken an active role in my reading and maybe, just maybe, been more open to selecting more books from American Lit. Instead, every time I curl up with an American "classic," I have flashbacks to Mrs. Grego and immediatly turn to Dumas for sollace.

99lisalouhoo
Jan 21, 2008, 11:43 am

Well at least these are classics by well known authors. I had to read some book written by a local author about this bunch of kids who for some reason were stuck in this motel with their teachers. I don't remember much about it, but making kids read something just because you know and want to support the author seems to be sinking very low for an english teacher. It was horrid. Ridiculous plot, poor writing.

100lisalouhoo
Jan 21, 2008, 11:45 am

Oh, and the book that I truly hated the most, loathed, was Treasure Island. I still have refused to reread this, though I admit that I possibly could find some merit in it now.

101geneg
Jan 21, 2008, 12:55 pm

I don't know that Treasure Island is anything more than a good adventure story for boys and men. I don't see much opportunity for girls and women to identify with it, unless their goal in life is to be a pirate.

I look at Treasure Island as a kind of Little Women for boys.

102TeacherDad
Jan 21, 2008, 1:18 pm

Hopefully most people interested in reading quality literature can seperate themselves from the hormone-addled, puberty-confused, teenage angst-driven brain that once controlled their lives... but then again, there are some terrible teachers out there that can ruin the gift of good books for hundreds of people...

103Medellia
Jan 21, 2008, 1:20 pm

#98 It's too bad that you didn't have a reading list. In my AP class, in addition to the books assigned as class projects, we had a "your choice" reading list. Every so often, we were required to pick something and read it outside of class--then write a short paper, or give an oral report, or take a quiz on it.

Of course, you can't make an entire curriculum out of this--there need to be assigned books with class discussion. I usually enjoyed these discussions, even for books that I didn't enjoy reading (and there were definitely some of those).

104lisalouhoo
Jan 21, 2008, 2:14 pm

#101
Thanks. I agree with the idea that Treasure Island is like Little Women for boys. My husband would agree, as he had to read Little Women in college, and detested it. Whereas I read Little Women dozens of time in during my childhood.

I certainly had no pirating leanings.

105amark1
Jan 21, 2008, 4:36 pm

a Christmas Carol by Dickens...I understood that the administration wanted us kids to read a Dickens work, but it was completely a waste of time for our reading level.

106Kplatypus
Jan 22, 2008, 12:53 pm

Re: #98: "By teachers assigning books that are so terrible and berating them for not liking it, you run the risk of alienating readers from an entire group of books."

Yes! I hate that. I don't have a problem with teachers assigning classics, even ones that a 16 might not like or understand, but why do so many teachers insist that the students should like the books?! I read several books in high school that I disliked then and liked when I reread them at a later age, but the whole reason I was able to go back to them with an open mind is that my teacher never demanded that I like the things in the first place. As a teacher-of-sorts myself, I tell my students that they have every right to hate a classic, and can freely bash it in my class, so long as it's relevant, obviously, and they can defend their point of view. Just "it's boring" won't cut it- why is it boring? Explain yourself. The kids love it, and it Gets Them Talking About Literature. Which seems to be the whole point, to me. Aargh.

107NemesisClaws
Jan 29, 2008, 4:57 am

Lit that I hated...hmmm..

Moby Dick...the minute I saw this huge volume, and tried to wind my way through the first chapter, I knew instantly that the movie version would be the only way to go for moi...still hated the story by the way...

Loved The Color Purple though....but had a teacher who I felt graded me harshly on the book report because she was not keen on my choice of picking this...trust me, it was a lot more interesting than the books she was assigning to class...

The Lord of the Flies...read this in one sitting while riding home on the bus one day...freaked the heck outta me...found it really depressing and wished I never read it...

Romeo & Juliet were overdone frankly...I must have read this play a dozen times before I ever graduated from high school. In general, I do not get into Shakespeare at all. Too freaking long with their monologues, and frankly, he could've gotten to the point a heck of a lot sooner...

108TeacherDad
Jan 29, 2008, 1:04 pm

Lord of the Flies freaked me a lot too, even as an adult going back for a re-read thinking "it couldn't have been that bad" but getting the heebie-jeebies all over again...

109barney67
Jan 29, 2008, 4:20 pm

Anthem

Teenagers already know how to be selfish.

110heinous-eli
Jan 29, 2008, 5:00 pm

#109 -- True, and plus any of Ayn Rand's works turns people into douches for at least a month afterward.

111Nickelini
Jan 29, 2008, 8:13 pm

#107: Did you really have to read Moby Dick in high school? Isn't that expecting a bit much, considering it's like 800 pages long? Isn't that a bit cruel? (No slight against Moby Dick--I just think it's way too long for an assigned reading). They never assigned us anything long back in my day . . . no one would have finished the book. Everything I had to read was fairly short. Painful, but short.

112AnnaClaire
Jan 30, 2008, 11:25 am

The only excuse for assigning a student an 800-page book is if it's a textbook -- as in a science or math or history textbook.

Even 400 pages is pushing it -- and that's with a straightforward writing style. (Needless to say, the more difficult the style, the shorter the book should be, especially if the students assigned the book aren't even in college.)

113angelhair45
Jan 30, 2008, 12:10 pm

We read The Old Man and the Sea in 7th grade and I HATED it. I've always loved reading, but there were quite a few books throughout Jr. and Sr. High that I couldn't bear to read. Being the smart kid I was I just scanned most of them and faked my way through.

I think my 5th and 6th grade teachers ruined me. We read quite a few good books so I expected that to continue in Jr. High when I was then subjected to stuff didn't like.

I didn't actually read The Scarlett Letter it was unbearable, I just faked it. I think I read half of Watership Down. I faked The Great Gatsby too. One novel I actually liked in highschool was To Kill a Mockingbird which is still a favorite of mine. I also liked the play The Crucible very much.

114Phantasma
Mar 14, 2008, 3:48 pm

Death of a Salesman should be shot.

I could have done without reading the WHOLE Iliad. Maybe selections? Or an abridged version?

The Scarlet Letter

and Age of Innocence were some of my least favorite high school forced reading

AND I DESPISED Daisy Miller which I didn't even manage to finish (and nealry failed a test on). It was SO short but I couldn't manage ONE MORE PAGE of pastoral descriptions.

And, my least favorite book of all time (which I actually read as a rising 8th grader): The Red Badge of Courage

115AnnaClaire
Mar 14, 2008, 4:08 pm

I didn't mind The Scarlet Letter much when I read it in 10th grade. I didn't much like it, mind you, but it wasn't all that bad, really.

I did find Romeo and Juliet incredibly boring in 8th grade, however. I'd probably have liked Much Ado About Nothing well enough at that age; I can't be too certain about an 8th grader's opinion of King Lear (if we are obligated to read a tragedy), but at least it's short, and Lear's Fool has some good one-liners. ("Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.")

116medievalmama
Mar 17, 2008, 9:44 pm

Actually, I think Catcher in the Rye is a perfect book -- for 30-something (or 40-something) parents of preteens!! It's much funnier from the adult side -- poor, poor adolescent angst. And his mess of a sister -- uhgh!

117geneg
Mar 21, 2008, 1:12 pm

Anyone teaching below the level of college specialty who teaches Henry James should be shot. His is some of the most important literature of the age. While not well understood by most adults, few sub-20 somethings can possibly understand it. Given the level of sophistication in reading required to "get" Henry James all teaching him to Jr. High, Middle School, or High School is a crime against literature. James requires a level of concentration that many Americans, and I daresay 99% of school kids would be hard pressed to drum up, thus making a very boring read.

I don't know why we insist on children reading books obviously written for adults, sometimes quite well educated adults.

118Kplatypus
Mar 22, 2008, 1:08 am

While not well understood by most adults, few sub-20 somethings can possibly understand it.

Although I agree that most of James' work would be inappropriate for high school kids, a lot of my students here in New York not only read but actually enjoy Washington Square. (Just for the record, I'm not the one assigning the book, so don't come hunting for me!) Several of them have used it as an example in essays during the last few months, and most seem to have a pretty good grasp of the story and characters.

Now, if you're talking Wings of the Dove, on the other hand, I completely agree.

119kaelirenee
Mar 22, 2008, 10:48 am

An excellent point, gene. I think many teachers are so despirate to make sure their students are exposed to great literature and they know that once the students leave school, they'll never touch literature (for the most part), that they pile on books that may be wonderful, but not to a teenaged brain.

120perlle
Mar 30, 2008, 9:46 am

I might have made this point before, but in my high school we did not really have assigned reading for classic books (only for short stories.) So I was able to read the classics that interested me, and I think I have avoided all the angst you guys seem to have experienced with your high school reading. Maybe if you had discovered these books on your own without being forced to read them you would have been more ready for them and would not think them awful. True, I never read a lot of the books that a lot of other kids had to read like The Catcher in the Rye, The Old Man and the Sea and Of Mice and Men, but I'll get to those in due time. (I am highly appreciative of my high school's approach to teaching English at this moment.)

121emaestra
Mar 30, 2008, 11:11 am

I am very glad someone posted to this thread today as I was not a member of this group in March. I love reading all your gripes and comments. I am an English teacher.

In defense of English teachers, most of us have absolutely no choice in what we teach. I have a curriculum list that was last updated in 1994. This list was created by teachers who have no doubt retired by now. Most districts also are required to buy textbooks. I use my textbook very rarely. My sophomores have to read Antigone and Julius Caesar. Other than that, we don't even touch the textbook because what is there is so random. Our novel collection diminishes every year as students swipe copies of books. Money we could use to buy more current and more interesting novels has to go to replacing the books that are lost or stolen.

Given all that, your experience of a book is greatly influenced by the teacher. One of the books I am supposed to teach is A Separate Peace. I absolutely hate this book and it shows. (It doesn't help that at some point my students say, "Oh, they are so gay." Once they focus on that, it is hard to steer them elsewhere.) Another example of a teacher killing a book comes from when I was in high school. I had gotten behind reading Julius Caesar and took the book home. I read it over the weekend and then was forced to hear about it for two months afterward. A college professor once gave me very sage advice: When we dissect something, we necessarily have to kill it. Unfortunately, many teachers don't realize this and students don't get the chance to just enjoy a piece of literature.

So at the end of my very long post, I have to say that everyone has different tastes and it is just part of the educational system that we are required to read books together. Good teachers do what they can to make the best of this and to change what they can.

122TeacherDad
Mar 30, 2008, 12:29 pm

"When we dissect something, we necessarily have to kill it."

excellent point...

123Phantasma
Abr 8, 2008, 11:21 am

121: I went to Catholic school where we had to purchase all of our books. I found we still read pretty much the same things as public schoolers, only a little ahead of them.

I did appreciate the chance to help choose the books that we would read throughout the school year, though. Most teachers didn't bother with that, but the few who did have a very special place in my heart

124Joles
Maio 23, 2008, 1:03 pm

Interesting...I suppose I had it good in school or that I had it good according to my tastes. I enjoyed a great number of books that have been mentioned here. The ones that I haven't read I've been intrigued to read for a while.

My WORST two were:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald even the movie version of this book stank. I mean really, who gives a rat's behind? (Honestly, I didn't force myself to read this...I just kind of caught on with the discussion in class because I couldn't bring myself to do it.)

AND

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
I'm not sure why. Maybe it was just too out there with the Lilliputians and all that jazz, but as much as I enjoy fantasy I couldn't stand this book.

The time in school when I read these, I was going through a phase. That's when I came to realize that when we talk about symbolism how many authors actually write with that idea. It may have tainted that year's set of books.

125elenalda
Maio 23, 2008, 7:58 pm

Gah! #124, you have run me through with a fondue fork! It makes me terribly sad that you didn't give The Great Gatsby a fighting chance. It's not even like you'd be miserable for that long; it's under 200 pages. I find it a really stunning novel and really enjoyed the chance to read it. And about the dissecting thing (#121)--at first I was bothered by the deconstruction we did every day in English, all of the picking-apart. But at the end of the day I felt I was more interested in the novel, almost more attached to it.

We had to read Middlemarch the summer before senior year--I convinced myself that I could read the last 250 pages on a 12-hour flight the day before school, tried and failed miserably. Every time I tried to read it I just heard some snippy English woman narrating: "Doroth-ee-a wolked through the field wotching the graoss GRaze heh ankles" and saw the characters' actions as even more trivial.

126Joles
Maio 23, 2008, 9:15 pm

#125--I definitely did give it a fighting chance. I just didn't connect with or care about the characters. After we read the book we saw the movie, which I also couldn't stand. Which is funny because I really like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Go figure!

127lampbane
Jun 9, 2008, 3:29 pm

I stopped reading The Great Gatsby with about 30 pages to go. I *know* it's only 30 pages, but I spent like 2 months with only 30 pages to go, so I realized it was time to just let it go and get on with my life.

128SweetAmber
Jun 9, 2008, 4:09 pm

I was never forced to read any book. In my school(s) we had a long, long list of books to choose from, some where classics, but some were slightly more modern. I don't remember picking any bad books, or books that just didn't seem to fit me at the time.

129readergirliz
Jun 9, 2008, 4:46 pm

Hated The Lion in Winter and Becket. They were each less than 150 pages and they were horrible.

130thekoolaidmom
Jun 9, 2008, 5:56 pm

I think a point needs to be made that reading specific books, ie Scarlet Letter, Lord of the Flies, and anything Steinbeck among others, is not for the pleasure of the HS student, but for the expanding of his/her ability to think. I don't think a fluffy book is going to do that.

1310bazooka0
Jun 16, 2008, 12:46 pm

First post here. I've been an avid reader all my life and I can find something good about almost any book. I was given a reading list for a history class in 11th grade and told to read one book. The only book on the list I hadn't read was The Great Gatsby. I hated it with every fiber of my being. I hated the characters, I hated the story, I hated the writing. I also don't see how this added to my understanding of United States History. I didn't learn anything from that book except hot much I loath F. Scott Fitzgerald.

132gregtmills
Jun 16, 2008, 5:27 pm

Question to the forum, re: Separate Peace, The Chocolate War, Catcher in the Rye et al.

Why is the public school fascination with private schools?

Whenever I read any of those book in public school, I would invariably start comparing the oak lined rooms in the books with the waterstained acoustic ceilings and dead lawn of my public school, and suddenly have very little sympathy for whatever pain was bourn by the little twerps in their blazers.

133lampbane
Editado: Jun 17, 2008, 12:05 pm

Hey, let's not forget Goodbye Mr. Chips.

The question is, can anyone think of a really good book set in a public school?

(Oh, and before anyone from overseas gets confused, we're using the American definitions here, "public" being a government-run school and "private" being a school that runs itself and charges tuition.)

134gregtmills
Jun 17, 2008, 4:05 pm

Fast Times at Ridgemont High is actually a pretty good book. Other than that, the only public school books I can think of right now are various Judy Blumes and City Boy. That's sad, I know, but I really can't think of any "literature"-type books that use public school as a thematic device.

135Joles
Jun 17, 2008, 6:09 pm

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt is a good one. But it's really about the teacher not the kids. So it isn't something they'd have you read in school.

136elenalda
Jun 17, 2008, 8:29 pm

Tons. Mostly YA of course, but Speak and Crooked spring to mind. I think most YA books that are set in school are set in a public one, actually.

137kaelirenee
Jun 18, 2008, 11:56 am

I can think of a few that are set in public schools, but never ones that show public schools in a good light. But boarding schools are nice and insular-you don't have to worry so much about the influence of the parents or family members (maybe that's why there are so many orphans, too). It's all peers, all the time. Plus, public schools are comparatively new, so the people writing "literature" probably wouldn't have gone to a public school. As schools start assigning more contemporary lit, maybe there will be more representations of public schools.

I was facinated by boarding schools when I was growing up-I used to look longingly at their ads all the time as a kid because of how much they featured in books, so I liked reading about them in class too. I knew the education there just had to be better than what I got in public schools.

138karenmarie
Jun 19, 2008, 11:50 am

My daughter's Honors English Class (10th grade) has to read The Kite Runner over the summer. Sure beats some of the stuff I had to read.

She's a pretty mature almost-15 year old, so I'm not adverse to her reading it. I must admit I paused for just one teeny minute when I remembered some of the action in the book..... but never with the idea of preventing her reading it.

139thekoolaidmom
Editado: Jun 19, 2008, 2:00 pm

8-O 10th- grade is a bit young for that, the sexual stuff, suicide attempt, and violence of it, not to mention the language... wow. Do they have a PG-13 volume?

140karenmarie
Jun 19, 2008, 2:19 pm

Don't know of one. They read Romeo and Juliet, Animal Farm, and The Odessey last year - some of the same themes but not so explicit.

Jenna's an only child and we've always let her watch pretty mature-themed stuff with us (BSG, Buffy/Angel, Alias...). We gauge her reactions and answer her questions. None of this is anything "new" to her exactly. Possibly some of the sexual stuff's explicitness, but more probably not. You'd be amazed at what high schoolers talk about - and she only shares SOME of what she hears and they discuss. Plus she watches TV news with her Dad - awful stuff that I avoid like the plague.

I'm not worried about her exposure to this book. If she were a different teenager than she is perhaps. We shielded her from so when she was younger, but as she's gotten older she's been exposed to so much that I cannot control from school and just the TV channels that we let her watch. At least I can talk with her about this. My guess is that she'll love it, go "ewwwww" at some of the more explicit stuff, and most of it will roll off her like water off a duck's back.

141Bookshop_Lady
Jun 19, 2008, 8:53 pm

Whew! Here I thought there had to be something wrong with *me* because I found The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, and Heart of Darkness to be unbelievably painful reading.

Shakespeare is tough reading for sure. Fortunately, I did have a high school English teacher who loved Shakespeare, and she really put a lot of effort into making it interesting to a group of 16- and 17-year-olds. Still, seeing the plays is so much better than reading them. Those of you in the UK have the opportunity this summer to see "Hamlet" at the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart (remember Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek Next Generation?) as Hamlet's treacherous uncle. Now THAT would be a performance worth seeing.

142geneg
Jun 20, 2008, 11:46 am

When you read Heart of Darkness would it have been more interesting if you were familiar with the context? One problem we have is that yes, these books are timeless classics, but like the Bible, when read out of context the lessons are lost. I love this book and think it one of the five or ten most important books written in English. I read it about every six months and it is still revealing its secrets to me, but I have also read several non-fiction books about the personal fiefdom of Belgium's Leopold II, the setting of the novel. I would recommend King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa for starters. Read this, then read Heart of Darkness again, it may not make it easier to read, but it should change your perspective.

I am an evangelist for this book.

143RachelfromSarasota
Jun 20, 2008, 12:21 pm

I'm glad I found you guys. I am (ahem, cough, cough, cough, ducking head to avoid rotting tomatoes) a high school teacher (gasp). While I agree with almost all of your comments, I have a challenge for you. Help my colleagues and I make high school literature courses BETTER.

Here's the deal, my book-loving friends:
1) Most kids stop reading after 6th grade (don't take my word for it -- there are numerous studies and plenty of anecdotal evidence out there).
2) while national and state assessment test scores are going UP in science and math, they are steadily decreasing in reading comprehension.
3) even the bright and articulate students feel that reading is a waste of time.

Now -- given that all of the above is a fairly gross generalization, and thus allows for individual exceptions, I have found that most of the above holds true in all 6 high schools I have taught in, in two different states (both north and south).

So. . .what do we do about it? With the ease of the internet, it is all too easy for kids to fake book reports -- and please don't tell me about the miraculous sites that allow teachers to spot plagiarized work w/a click of the button -- most teachers are aware of those, but they cost $$ to use and down here budget crunches are on, big-time. Besides, any high school teacher worth her/his salt can spot a plagiarized paper, or even a cut-and-paste paragraph easily -- the problem is sometimes proving it to the administration's satisfaction.

In an ideal world, the literary canon would be taught by teachers who themselves are avid and fluent and perceptive readers, who enjoy reading these books, and can engage kids in interesting and substantive discussions about these works. (And what color is the sky in your universe, Rachel? And do unicorns amble around cropping the roses in that world?)

In reality, my dear friends, I have found an appalling dearth of teachers, whether lit. teachers or not, who themselves read ANYTHING for pleasure. Particularly at the high school level. I couldn't begin to tell you about how many of my colleagues wander into my American history classroom, glance around at the hundreds of my own books lining the shelves, and ask, "do you read all this stuff?" To be fair, most of my younger colleagues were themselves taught by teachers who didn't read for pleasure, and had parents who didn't read for pleasure, and so the cycle continues.

Now, how in the world do you expect kids to get enthused about reading or books when no one in their immediate universe views reading as anything but a chore? And if teachers themselves don't understand the books they are required to teach, how can any substantive understandings be passed onto our kids?

When I became a high school English teacher, I had not read most of the books that were in my curriculum. So, before I taught those books, I had to first read them myself, then find whatever reference materials I could on those books (on their authors, the historical context of the works, etc.) so that I would know as much as possible about what I was to teach. Not a problem for me, as I figured that this was what the school board was paying me to do. And since I grew up in a home where one parent, at least, viewed reading as a valuable activity, it was not a difficult task for me to do this.

But too many high school teachers find it difficult even to keep up with the textbooks they're assigned, much less the ancillary novels they need to teach. And too many of my colleagues down here have never been taught to read analytically, or to place the books they read in any kind of meaningful historical context -- so much of the meaning of these books are lost to our kids.

I became a teacher, and particularly an English teacher, b/c I had suffered through too many English classes taught by teachers who openly admitted that they hated what they were teaching. I actually had a teacher say she hated Shakespeare, but since she had no choice about including it in the curriculum, she expected us to shut up and just suffer through it as she did. And she was by no means alone. I shudder when I remember that year.

It's a truism, but worth repeating, that what a society values it pays for. And in our society, we do NOT, I repeat, NOT value a liberal arts education or most purely academic pursuits. My school's Academic Olympics team is so underfunded it's pathetic -- but we have no problem raising money for our LaCrosse team. And it's even worse in most public high schools -- in my county alone, I am almost the only high school history teacher who has a degree in history, and is NOT an athletic coach. The most common question I was asked in interview after interview was what sport I played or was willing to coach, NOT what was the last book I read. Pathetic.

Forgive my diatribe -- but I writhe when I read articles about the failure of our schools b/c these articles almost always ignore an important part of the problem -- undereducated and ill-read teachers -- who can't pass on needed skills b/c they themselves don't have these skills. Don't believe me? See if you can pop into your local high school and sit in on an average English class (w/o previous notice).

So. . .given the economic and societal values of the US of A, what do we do to fix this problem?

And, just so you know, I think ANY subject and ANY book can be made attractive and interesting to students if the instructor is knowledgeable and engaging.

Suggestions welcome -- but keep it real, guys.

144jlmaclean
Jun 27, 2008, 12:27 pm

I'm a big Shakespeare fan but I had King Lear forced on me three times...

145beatles1964
Editado: Jun 27, 2008, 12:38 pm

I remember I had a 12th Grade English who loved Shakespeare and was real enthusuastic about him when she would read him to us. We even went to the University of Maryland on a Class Field Trip to see the plasy Macbeth performed which was a lot of fun I miight add. It was either go with her and the rest of the Class to see Macbeth or stay behind and do some busy work Class Assignments needless to say almost everyone in my Class went to see the play. a couple of kids stayed behins because they didn't want to see the play performed. Some of the other kids in Class had a nickname for her, they called her "Bubbles" because of her bubbly enthusiasm about Shakespeare.

beatles1964

146keywestnan
Jun 27, 2008, 12:37 pm

Re. suggestions -- I read a lot of the classics in school (tragically, I may never appreciate that great American novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because I think I had to read it four times between junior high, high school and college). I remember really liking to read memoirs, like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. (Maybe that's not "real" -- I attended a private high school.) We also read The Color Purple in high school and that was a good read for that age. Surely there must be some more recent memoirs and novels that would be easier going down than those all-too-depressing classics. (My personal one for the ban list: The Red Pony by John Steinbeck.)

147keywestnan
Jun 27, 2008, 12:42 pm

Also, I'm not saying that high school kids should only read YA or avoid challenging stuff in general -- but an awful lot of these books weren't intended for adolescents and adolescents just don't have the life experience to relate. I read To the Lighthouse as a 20-year-old in college and just didn't get it. When I re-read it for a book group at 30, it made a lot more sense.

148beatles1964
Editado: Jun 27, 2008, 12:45 pm

In one of my reading assignments for that 12th Grade English Class I decided to read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood which I really liked but considering it was based on actual events it was kind of depressing too. I think some of the other choices we had to chose from was something like Moby Dick and The Grapes of Wrath and I think a few other Classics too so I just picked In Cold Blood. Also in my High School l Library we had two copies of the book Roots where there was a long waiting list to read the book because of the mini-series that was due to becoming out at the time. I put my name on the list and had to wait awhile before one of the copies became available to me to read.

beatles1964

149geneg
Jun 27, 2008, 2:40 pm

> 143 Kill Joy! How can you think of injecting personal experience and facts into a discussion rife with opinion, ideology, and a sense of frustration.

You're right when you say societies pay for what they value. It should be plain from this that most Americans don't value reading, for all the lip service they pay it.

I suspect by the time you get these children they have been turned off to learning in general and reading specifically. How to change this?

I would start by convincing parents that TV is reprogramming their children's learning styles in ways we don't understand and on the surface don't seem fruitful. This is not a content issue, but an input processing issue. Once we have children dedicated to using their own imaginations to make sense of their world, rather than being told what and how to think about the world through children's TV programming, it will be easier to teach them how to think. BTW, good luck with this, but, the real question becomes how much are we willing to sacrifice for our children. Not enough, at least in this regard.

It might be useful to spend a week or so with a book before the students crack the cover. Go over things like genre, typical tropes to look for, maybe diagram (remember that) some of the sentences that have interesting constructions, going into why the author may have constructed a sentence in that manner at that point in the work. This can also be useful in comparing works that don't require a lot of unpacking and are real page turners, and others that work on several levels and are slower reads. This would give teachers opportunities to examine the work you will be reading from the standpoint of complexity and simplicity. Of course all of this is contingent on your students being able to construct intelligible sentences themselves, recognizing parts of speech, and being aware that the work ahead of them has something to teach them. I guess that pretty much precludes what I just said.

As the read gets underway, have them pick out two passages in what they read the previous evening (homework): one they really liked and one they didn't care for. Ask them to explain to the class why they did or didn't like the passage. Get the students into discussions about what they read.

This is in no sense an exhaustive list, obviously. Just a few suggestions from someone full of opinions, ideology, and sense of frustration who has never had to teach our current crop of children anything. Completely devoid of experience and facts.

The central problem you are faced with is that by the time they come to you, they are already lost. Why read when one can watch?

150geneg
Editado: Jun 27, 2008, 3:18 pm

Profiles of each student's learning styles and personality type can help the teacher know which approaches might be successful from student to student, especially when teaching basic concepts.

Pour it on. If they learn something, it might help by expecting them to step up and do the work. If they don't, well treat them as you do now, but make the work something they have to "work" for. The ones who get it will value it much more if it doesn't pop out of a daydream. Those who don't, won't. They don't get it now, so what's the diff?

But I would say knowing something about each student is as important and probably more important in terms of structuring your overall program than anything else you can do. Anyone who simply cannot be taught does not belong in school anyway.

Unfortunately, teaching requires one to find the right water to bring the student, not just lead the student to the general trough. Public schools in America have lost touch with the fact that humans are not one size fits all. I am more inclined to think the way we teach our children from start to finish is in dire need of an overhaul.

More opinion.

Oh, P.S. Remove without hesitation or prejudice any and all students who are intentionally disruptive. Stand up to their parents and tell them maybe their child would learn more in a more structured setting, such as jail, rather than school. With that said, boys need to spend at least part of the day outside whenever and wherever possible. We used to require physical education, I don't know if we do now or not, but we should. Have the boys read a novel about a sport and take them outside once a week and play that sport until they are tired and hot and sweaty. Boys are much more docile and open when they are sweaty, just one of those things. Not being a girl I'll let you, Rachel, figure out how to open the girls up. Require every able bodied student compete in a varsity sport. Require the coaches not only to accept them, but play them. Wear 'em out. I suspect testosterone related problems will be reduced to a minimum.

Oh, there are so many things wrong. . .

I know these things are not useful to you now, but keep them in mind when the subject comes up in schoolboard/faculty meetings.

151RachelfromSarasota
Jun 27, 2008, 11:17 pm

I sent a long (and I do mean LONG) reply privately to geneg about the problems in public education today -- but decided NOT to post it here, b/c it is really off topic.

The two worst books I remember struggling through in high school were MOBY DICK and A SEPARATE PEACE. Both were "taught", if you can call it that, by teachers who didn't seem to have read the books themselves. Neither teacher even liked the books, and that is a poor way to teach, in the first place.

I was very lucky when I was teaching English. I was given a choice of either teaching A SEPARATE PEACE or OF MICE AND MEN -- and I unhesitatingly chose OMAM. I had read it, I loved it, and I felt I could use it to enhance my students' knowledge of both American history and the struggle of those who care for the emotionally and mentally disabled to protect them from society.

And I believe I was able to do both, and well (oops, I just strained my arm giving myself a pat on the back!). Anyway, I had kids who bragged that they hated English, and hated reading, come up to me during and after our OMAM unit to tell me how much they'd loved this book. Of course, the expletives Steinbeck deliberately laced the book with didn't hurt!

152cefeick
Editado: Jun 27, 2008, 11:45 pm

I concur that The Old Man and the Sea was terrible. Personally, I find Hemingway totally overrated in general. My literary nightmare in high school - the recurring nightmare others described - was Great Expectations. I hated it the first time, and hated it more the second time I had to read it. Both times were during my freshman year. I switched schools midway through, so I got to experience it twice. Yippee! I turned to Cliff's Notes the second time around.

I also never connected with The Great Gatsby. I remember my teacher telling me I didn't get it. Yeah, I didn't.

153karenmarie
Jun 28, 2008, 7:27 am

#149 geneg. I couldn't agree more with you about how TV is reprogramming how we learn and process information. I have a book called Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. It scared me in 80s and scares me today. We are so passive when we watch TV.

I also just finished The Assault on Reason by Al Gore and he doesn't look at it from a biological process like Mander does, but expresses concern about the control of content and the shallowness of content of TV. This affects our ability to make decisions - we lose the ability to be critical of ideas we can't discuss and debate. The information just comes at us.

154pajaski
Editado: Jun 28, 2008, 9:35 am

I'm sorry to hear a person had to read a piece of literature all year long in school. Unfortunately, those teachers can spoil literature for young adults. However, there is nothing wrong with reading a book more than once since most people usually catch some subtle details during the second reading that they missed during the first reading.

155geneg
Jun 28, 2008, 7:55 pm

Some books must be read at least twice, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is like that. You don't find out important information until much later in the book than when it would have been useful to know, especially regarding the sections on Luster. You read it once, yeah you can say, "I read the Sound and the Fury", you read it twice, and you're on the road to, "Yeah, I read the Sound and the Fury, what would you like to know about it".

156NerdAlert
Jun 29, 2008, 10:54 pm

Rachel, it's teachers like you who are going to keep books alive. Getting a high school kid psyched about literature is about as difficult as it is to get my dog to defecate in a toilet AND to wash his paws when he is finished. However, you know as well as I how important it is to teach kids how to use their minds to their full potential. It's a noble battle you're fighting.
I think you are right in that expletives will not hurt to catch and (more importantly) to sustain a teenager's attention. Booze, fornication, war; I say, expose them to it all, as long as it is done so by means of good old fashion paper and print.
Sorry to be off topic, but your post caught my attention

157elenalda
Jun 30, 2008, 1:15 am

It's really interesting to read people's suggestions as somebody who's just finished four years of high school English (and has tutored it for the last sixth months). The TV vs books argument is interesting--I actually think it's pretty easy to wean someone off of TV, but much harder to acclimatize someone to reading frequently. The passivity of TV really comes into play when people don't have anything else--anything else easy--to do. Just as people are passive in the act of watching TV, choosing to watch it is largely passive, unless somebody wants to watch a show in particular. Therefore just unplugging the TV (good for energy because TVs are phantom power-suckers) can make people reconsider watching it.

Making anybody want to read, be it a classful of teenagers or even yourself, requires the same kind of thought process. What would make it easy for me to read over other things? Can reading be incorporated into my life without adding extra time? (in babysitting, for lots of teenagers, or the sucky kind of front-desk job I have) Straight brainwashing also works--when I was in third grade, we were assigned 20 minutes of reading before bed each night, to be verified by a parent. We got in trouble if we didn't have a parent slip. That assignment grew into habit, and I continued it throughout my life. I now cannot sleep without reading for twenty minutes. I am Pavlov's dog. See me woof; see me read.

158Kplatypus
Jul 15, 2008, 2:48 pm

I am Pavlov's dog. See me woof; see me read.

That cracked me up. Just so you know.

I think, though, that you have a good point with regards to the passivity of watching television in general. My boyfriend always jokes that he has to turn the tv off when he leaves or I'll find myself watching it all night. Wouldn't think to turn it on, but once it's on, I don't always think to turn it off. Of course, I grew up not watching television, so my behavior is not really the norm, but still.

I don't think, though, that tv is the dread cause of all evil that so many people believe it to be. My boyfriend is from a family that constantly has the tv on when at home, and yet he often chooses to read. True, he had to develop that habit later in life, but he did choose to do so.

While I think that tv (and more importantly, our culture of passive entertainment and intellectual mediocrity) is a problem, I think that the answer to Rachel's question has a lot more to do with how we view teachers in our culture. She mentioned how many teachers are uneducated and uninterested in their own subject matter, and my experience largely confirms that. I'm a teacher too, but for a private company. In my little world, being well-educated and well-read is the norm, but when I step into a regular classroom, more often than not, I'm horrified by what I see, and I include the teacher's attitude in that.

Not so long ago, I considered becoming a regular teacher myself- help fix the system, save some babies, you know, the works. I only got one semester into the credentialling program before I dropped out. If I had continued, I would have taken a 50% pay cut, a significant drop in social status, doubled (or more) my work load/hours, and, most importantly for me, ended up working within a school's bureaucracy, with other teachers. Scary, right? People talk a lot about teachers being underpaid, and I agree that the good ones are. However, I think the problem is so much more deeply rooted than that. We don't value our teachers, which is why we underpay them, and don't encourage our best and brightest to go into that field. The only way we're going to get teachers that are well-educated, excited about their field, and willing and able to get young people equally excited about learning is if we, as a culture, learn to respect the profession of teaching, with all that that entails. Sadly, I doubt that is going to happen, at least any time soon.

Anyway, enough rambling/ranting. Oh, and I actually HATED Of Mice and Men when we read it in high school, but liked A Separate Peace. Just to keep this post on topic and to be contrary. To be fair, though, I think I was alone in my class on that one.

159BritZombie
Jul 15, 2008, 4:15 pm

There were quite a few I was not happy with and that bored me out of my mind Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Cry,the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, and The Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain. I think I lost brain cells to these books.

160Leseratte2
Jul 22, 2008, 7:02 pm

I had an English teacher who loved, loved, loved Moby Dick. I wasn't feeling the love and wrote a paper on something else instead. (Teacher was amused but not enough to give me better than the well-deserved F.) I've tried a couple times over the years to go back and see what I missed, but I still can't get interested in Melville's Magnum Opus. Can't even make it to Chapter Two.

161benuathanasia
Editado: Ago 15, 2008, 6:30 pm

I agree 100%. Two of my favorite stories.
regarding Message 9: readafew
Most Dangerous Game and The Lottery

162d_perlo
Set 13, 2008, 6:29 pm

I was not interested in The Pearl, but the book/play I really did not like in MS/HS was Our Town by Thornton Wilder. The lack of action and the sense of going nowhere really bugged me. On the other hand, that's kind of what the play was about.

Re: raising HS students' interest in reading: Have an adult who is good at reading aloud, read to the class for 10 mins once a week a book that the students are not required to read in class. It can be a volunteer, the teacher, or anyone else from the community. It is good downtime and introduces literature in a pretty painless way. Plus you can use fun books that coincide with the curriculum. You may find students checking copies out of the library to read along.

163RachelfromSarasota
Nov 11, 2008, 11:13 am

Re #162 d_perlo: I recently finished taking two classes on raising the literacy rate in our schools, and both courses suggested doing read-alouds to all students, from nursery school on up through high school. Your comment on the need for a fluent and vocally gifted reader is well taken! Too many adults and students, even teachers, read aloud so POORLY, so haltingly, so monotonically, that the experience becomes an exercise in torture rather than a delight. Problem I'm finding is that too many teachers think they are good readers and want to read aloud to their students -- but they are in reality god-awful! Reading aloud should be a performance, complete with gestures, appropriate and dramatic vocal intonations, and requires a high degree of fluency. Much like teaching itself, come to think of it.

164benuathanasia
Nov 11, 2008, 1:34 pm

Amen to that Rachel!!!
One of the teachers in my mother's school actually got reprimanded by her principal for acting out the parts she was reading from (and it's not like it was the Iliad or Lady Chatterly's Lover). It was very PG and appropriate, but apparently any animation while reading is now forbidden in school.

165neverlistless
Nov 11, 2008, 4:15 pm

Rachel: you sound like an awesome teacher! I'm so jealous of your students :p

I always tell the story of my 9th grade English teacher: Mr. Wrinkle. We didn't read anything in his class, but every Monday we watched his recording of Touched by an Angel from the night before (that's small-town Texas for you). I've found myself yearning to catch up on all that I've missed, but it's so difficult because I don't feel that I have the skills to adequately analyze and understand many of the novels. I always feel like I'm missing something, if that makes sense.

I love the ideas of spending a lot of time on the historical context and of learning as much as possible about the author him/herself. I can't describe how helpful all of that information would be for me today!

166Hermee
Nov 13, 2008, 3:27 pm

#33 - Couldn't have worded it better, Pandommonia. Catcher in the Rye definitely takes first prize in the worst literature category. Forced myself to read the whole thing since it's so widely read. Figured I just had to get past the boring part first, which came, finally, in the way of a period after the final word. Read somewhere that it took the author 20 years to write it. Must have kept nodding off. I sure did. :D

#73 - So that was their tactic. Ha! Now I know why I had to endure endlessly depressing books with tragic outcomes.

Sorry for the late response. Only just discovered this thread. Am still going through your responses.

Has anyone read The Oaken Throne by Robin Jarvis by any chance? Am interested in opinions on the outcome at the end. Loved it right up to that point when I almost threw the book out the window, which is tragic in itself considering the fact that I loved the first one so much that I rushed out and bought a whole collection by him (secondhand). Now they're sitting on my shelf gathering dust because I'm wondering if they will have me scratching my head at the end as well. It felt like the author had just had the worst day of his life so sliced his story to ribbons.

It's the only story where I've felt I had to make up an alternative ending in my head to get past it. I loved the story that much.

167demurejen
Jan 12, 2009, 1:20 pm

Henry David Thoreau and the whole Walden Woods thing. 11th grade english circa 1986. Worse even than Hemingway and his silly fish. Ugh.

168TeacherDad
Jan 12, 2009, 5:02 pm

163 -- excellent point, and if their oral reading voice/skills are so poor, just imagine the lack of quality when they read to themselves and attempt to comprehend and/or enjoy -- we are our own worst critic, and the cacophony of frustration and doubt inside their struggling head must be deafening, and very defeating...

169anna_in_pdx
Jan 12, 2009, 5:04 pm

I went to HS in the 80s. At the time we did not read a lot of the stuff mentioned here. The books I had to read and disliked include The Red Badge of Courage and The Scarlet Letter. I enjoyed The Crucible and I read a whole bunch of the above mentioned works on my own:

(all the Steinbeck books - my parents had most of them in their bookcase)
The Old man and the Sea (I loved this and For Whom the Bell Tolls and I hate all other Hemingway)
1984 and Brave New World (and Looking Backward, I went on a kick about utopia/anti-utopia)
Catcher in the Rye (never would they have assigned this in high school. Now, my son had to read it for HS and I was glad, because he had read it before and hated it, and reading it in the HS setting actually helped him analyze it a lot better.)
I only wish we had read something interesting like the Sea Wolf. I read London by myself (Call of the Wild/White Fang) as a pre-teen though and agree those books are better for middle school.

What an interesting thread!

170d_perlo
Jan 12, 2009, 9:33 pm

#167.

I loved Thoreau and the other philosophers of that time when I was in high school. I believe that a lot of teenagers are going through a political awareness/activist phase at that age and those works can really hit home with some students. On the other hand, some students just don't like them.

171khyron1144
Editado: Jan 13, 2009, 2:44 am

These were middle school, not high school, but the two worst books I had to read for a class were:

Where The Red Fern Grows and The Giver.

I don't care about some boy and his hunting dog.

And The Giver by Lois Lowry just didn't work for me. It had a good premise. I think the main problem was rather like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, it has a speculative fiction premise that exists only to make a comment on modern social issues and it's written by authors who mostly don't do speculative fiction.

I liked most of my high school reading list:
Animal farm, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Crucible all were fun and taught me interesting things about humanity.

I even liked Thoreau, if nothing else, because he said:
Men have become tools of their tools.

172Macophile
Editado: Jan 14, 2009, 6:52 am

Oh God! I had blocked out The House on Mango Street it was so awful! And every copy of that book owned by the kids my class (and they were all brand new, bought from different places) smelled funny... like they were trying to sent them of mango's and failed miserably.

I also hated Red Badge Of Courage and A Separate Peace. Not to mention All Quiet on the Western Front and Candide.

I did however quite enjoy Shakespeare, The Scarlet Letter (Although this one did take some "getting into"), The Crucible, and East of Eden.

173benuathanasia
Jan 15, 2009, 12:14 am

Mensagem removida pelo autor.

174Brimmel
Jan 23, 2009, 2:26 am

I had to read both A Movable Feast and A Farewell to Arms last year year. We basically spent the entire year analyzing the heck out of them. Absolutely torturous! I don't understand all the hype about Hemingway, and I found it all to be extremely dull.

Also notable for me would be Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Things Fall Apart, both of which I had to study twice because I switched schools. I really tried to enjoy them, but they just didn't do anything for me.

I doubt I will ever have the desire to read those books again.

175kabrahamson
Jan 23, 2009, 1:39 pm

#174: It's not just you. My English class read Things Fall Apart in my junior year of high school. People quickly started referring to it as "the wife-beating yam book".

176TeacherDad
Jan 23, 2009, 1:49 pm

she was beat with a yam?!?!? that does not get it on my TBR stack...

177snarkhunting
Jan 24, 2009, 12:51 am

#130: "I think a point needs to be made that reading specific books, ie Scarlet Letter, Lord of the Flies, and anything Steinbeck among others, is not for the pleasure of the HS student, but for the expanding of his/her ability to think. I don't think a fluffy book is going to do that."

Thank you for that. In reading these threads, I too wonder if perhaps some people are missing that point.

I also cringe every time I see someone using phrases like "everyone should read" and "people shouldn't read," especially in conjunction with a discussion about books they were "forced" to read as children. I hope those words aren't meant to carry as much weight as they seem to.

Interesting thread this is.

178benuathanasia
Editado: Jan 24, 2009, 11:44 am

#130: I read Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies in HS and loved them both. I generally dislike "realistic" fiction (much prefer fantasy and sci-fi), so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I liked them.
I think the biggest problem with HS curriculums is that they force you to read stuff, and most HS's just throw you into a random, generic class.
I think they should have a choice or two, so it's not so forced, like a class for historical fiction, a class for sci-fi, or something similar.
If you force a HS student to do anything, most will rebel. Some books I positively despised because I was forced to read them (Beowulf for instance), but when I read them again I loved them.

179Joles
Jan 26, 2009, 12:02 pm

>177 snarkhunting:
While I understand that there are books that help to expand the mind (I'm a teacher after all) it doesn't mean those books have to be horrible to get through.

Now, some of this is the teacher's fault (and I'm not one to blame teachers). Even the most boring information can be conveyed in interesting and catchy ways.

I loved most of the ways the required reading was taught. But still hated Gatsby. Mostly because outside of my dislike of the book in general we didn't do anything fun with it and/or didn't have discussions that I found to be meaningful. We weren't prompted in a way that made me care what happened to the characters.

Yet there are plenty of books on here that people think should be banned that I loved, mostly because of the discussions it led to in class.

(And of course, who knows what would have happened if I weren't forced to read it.)

180snarkhunting
Jan 27, 2009, 8:46 pm

See, the thing is that just about any book can be used to expand the mind given the right reader under the right circumstance. A book is only horrible, useless, or (use whatever derogatory adjective you'd like) when it doesn't match the reader and the reader's situation. What a person takes out of a book is the product of who they are and when they read it.

You'll find diversity in any group of readers, classrooms included. Keeping that in mind, how should a teacher assign required reading? Books don't come in one-size-fits-all. (And thank goodness for that.)

I agree that teachers can make a difference in how a book is received, but the "burden" of reading that book still falls on the shoulders of the student. No teacher is going to force a student to take something out of a book; no teacher is able to.

Even if a child takes nothing out of a book directly, they can still be taught to appreciate the hard work it takes to earn something like a good grade. Am I implying this happens frequently? Of course not. As children, we expect to be constantly entertained and to have everything handed to us. We expect instant gratification. We expect to be able to blame others for our shortcomings. And far too often, parents, teachers, and mentors indulge these expectations.

But here we are, as adults, complaining about what we were forced to read as children, still just as belligerent, stubborn, and demanding. Perhaps if we took the time to read a few of those "bad" books more thoroughly and critically, we'd be able to take something out of them, even if just a better understanding of what made us dislike them so much. I don't feel like most people challenge themselves enough in this regard.

One of the reasons I cringe is because I see people shooting down books, and instead of explaining what made these books so "awful," they just say something like, "Don't read it. I was forced to read it, and it's terrible."

It's disappointing. I don't know about you, but I'm not much more inclined to read something just because everyone else is reading it. Nor am I disinclined to read something just because everyone else seems to hate it. If you can't tell me why a book stands out as either "good" or "bad," then your reviews and recommendations are essentially worthless to me, sorry.

I think posts like this also illustrate an important concept that was mentioned earlier in another thread: people should be able to articulate why something affected them the way it has.

I'm not suggesting that, as adults, we should waste our time on books we're obviously not in a place to appreciate. But as students of any age, we have plenty to learn. All we have to do is quit whining and seize the opportunity.

181Vanye
Editado: Jan 27, 2009, 9:17 pm

I agree that reading a selection of the books that are on the lists used by schools/teachers for High schools students are there to help 'humanize' young people who frequently have a very narrow experience of the world. Teenagers from affluent, middle-class or impoverished backgrounds Frequently have no real knowledge of the reality of the lives of the other groups. Also many kids do not know what life was like in other times or in other cultures. Some books on these lists seem to be nearly universally disliked by high school students & of course all readers have preferences in what they read, so perhaps some leeway should be allowed but only one or two substitutions per customer.

I read Wuthering Heights voluntarily in grade school or jr. high & i kept telling myself it was going to get better so i kept reading even tho i wanted to quit. I kept reading (don't like to not finish anything), it didn't get better , but i finished it anyway. 8^)

182Joles
Jan 27, 2009, 10:14 pm

I think it's been mentioned before in here, but I find the reviews of people who didn't like a book to be much more telling and descriptive than those of people who really enjoyed a book.

183snarkhunting
Editado: Jan 27, 2009, 11:24 pm

Some positive reviews for George Orwell's 1984:

"This is a great dystopian book that will make you think deeply about society. Its based in a utopian setting London. I was forced to read this for my english class, and I would gladly read it again and again. The message that the book conveys is one that will stay with you, and it will make you think about what you would do in this situation and how easily the human mind is swayed." -silverwing2332 (five stars)

"The movements of the book from longing to conventional fulfillment, to physical destruction, and to mental emptiness are my favorite part of this novel. The second part fools you into hoping. The let down hurts, but rocks." -rebeccler (five stars)

"This is one of those books that I have read at least three times, this most recent time being the third, I think. This image is actually the edition of the book that I own. It's so different from some of the others, especially the more modern editions. This is the 1984 edition, which is meaningless, because the book was not a prediction for where we would be in 1984. I just find it interesting.

This is absolutely one of my favorite books ever. It's funny how you can read a book like this and remember things that seem so important to the story, you wonder how you forgot them. Even though I've read this book twice before, I still kept having, "Oh yeah!" moments. The story of Winston Smith and his comrades of the Party, of Oceania and Big Brother, is so compelling, so intricate, it should be read by everyone.

One thing that I wanted to discuss about this book was the fact that in the various prefaces, forwards, afterwords, etc in the different editions they always talk about how Orwell did not mean for the book to be a prediction or prophecy, but a warning. But I think that even more than a warning against the future, he meant it as a warning to open our eyes to the present. So many of the aspects of the control that the Party has over the people of Oceania are things that we experience now. Doublethink is alive and well, but that is only important if you acknowledge it for what it is, and don't let it fool you. Orwell could not have known about the war on terror, but that is exactly the kind of war that the Party wages against its "enemies" Eurasia and Eastasia. An unending war, whose purpose is to create an economy (supplies and weapons), give the people an enemy to hate, and give the government permission to take away freedoms. There are so many other details that you will notice as you read this book - it really is a matter of reading to open your mind. If you've read 1984 before, read it again; and if you've never picked it up, now is a good time." -jessicawest (five stars)

Some negative reviews for George Orwell's 1984:

"I must NOT be as bright as others. I did not like this book. I did not think it was great. I would not recommend it. Classic or not...it was slow and boring. Maybe someone can tell me what is so wonderful about it." -brainlair (three stars)

"A classic that if the former Soviet Union was still around might still resinate with the reader. Without the knowledge of this past this book seems hollow. This was a especially tough read that loses whatever flow that it had in the middle. This inclusion was unneccesary and the book would have been much better without the book in a book." -foof2you (one star)

"I had high expectations for this book and they were not met. I was glad to finally understand all of the "big brother" references, but overall I found this book depressing and un-re-readable. This book has its merits, but it's not for me." - bear08 (two stars)

I'm sorry, but I don't concur.

184Joles
Jan 28, 2009, 3:01 pm

Wow...I could go pick out the appropriate positive and negative reviews to argue this point but I'm not going to do that because looking at the ones you've picked yourself, the positive comments don't make ME want to read the book. I never said that my comment had to apply to YOU!

And funny enough, the negative responses you chose WOULD make me want to read the book. Way to go! (Although, I've already read 1984.)

Of course there are always reviews that are positive that make me want to read a book, but if I had to pick either the positives or the negatives to read....I'd definitely look at the negatives!

185snarkhunting
Jan 28, 2009, 5:55 pm

Without a doubt, I'm sure you could find multiple examples to confirm your point of view. The difference between searching for information to confirm an idea and searching for information to falsify an idea is another discussion for another time.

In your original statement you said, more or less, that you found negative reviews to be much more telling and descriptive than positive reviews. I picked out a few examples that aren't consistent with your point to have a discussion around and to illustrate why I can't agree with such a simple remark. That is, I chose positive examples that were much more descriptive and telling than the negative examples I picked out. Have you ever had the opportunity to teach your students about sweeping generalizations?

In short, what you said made very little sense to me. Did you really mean to say that someone who hated a book is more apt and eager to write a better review than someone who loved that same book? Or perhaps you just meant that those who are more critical of a book are likely to be more honest in reviewing it? Do you feel that a person can't be critical of a book he or she enjoyed? What?

I was hoping you would expound more, but your reply strikes me as defensive. And now, in the middle of the discussion, you're trying to alter your original remarks to suit some argument you're trying to make. A "telling and descriptive review" doesn't automatically translate into "I want to read this book," as you've already pointed out, probably without realizing how it affects what you're saying. How was I supposed to know that a review like, "I did not like this book. I did not think it was great. I would not recommend it." would make you want to read 1984? Is that just because it's a negative review? It's certainly not very descriptive. If you can take something out of it, good for you. But like I won't read a book just because everyone else commends it, I won't read it just because everyone else is rebuking it, either.

I've already expressed my frustration with people who are unable (or, more likely in your case, unwilling) to elaborate upon an assertion. Of course your opinions don't have to apply to me, and my intent wasn't to offend you. But I'm not sure what made you think I'd let a vague reply like yours go by without a challenge.

186Joles
Jan 28, 2009, 8:56 pm

Typically, when people have a real problem for a book they don't merely write that they didn't like it. Usually, they mention why they didn't like it.

If I could find the thread on his group that mentioned negative reviews I would post it, but I don't need to go through the threads to find it just to appease you.

And I'm sorry that I wanted to write a short post instead of a long, drawn out one that dances around the idea.

By the way, the 2nd and 3rd negative reviews there ARE much more telling to ME than your chosen positive reviews. The positives tell me that the book left something with the reader and that there was contemplation involved in reading it. While the negatives let me know that parts of this may not make sense if I'm not familiar with the issues in the past with the Soviet Union. And that there are references in the book about "Big Brother."

I wasn't trying to have a "sweeping generalization" about reviews. Instead, I was hoping someone on here would have read the thread about it to elaborate more on the topic. And, "generally", for ME, negative reviews give me a better idea if I want to read the book.

It's easy to get wrapped up in a book when you love it. But when you hate it you're more apt to go on about the many things you didn't like. (Otherwise, you have a mediocre feel for it.) It's the passion of highly disliking or hating a book that tends to make a more thorough and colorful review.

187snarkhunting
Editado: Jan 29, 2009, 1:09 am

"If I could find the thread on his group that mentioned negative reviews I would post it, but I don't need to go through the threads to find it just to appease you."

Listen, if you really want to have a rational discussion about something, then you can present the information that supports your point of view. It has much less to do with appeasing anyone, including me, than with expressing your ideas and being clearly understood. Nobody else can assume that responsibility for you. When you present unclear, incomplete, or incorrect information and get defensive when somebody questions or challenges your stance, it seems like all you care about is being heard. It's like all you want to talk about is YOU and nobody else or nothing they have to say matters. You've emphasized that enough, I think. I don't see how this type of behavior keeps people interested in a conversation.

As a matter of fact, I'm getting bored.

"It's easy to get wrapped up in a book when you love it. But when you hate it you're more apt to go on about the many things you didn't like. (Otherwise, you have a mediocre feel for it.) It's the passion of highly disliking or hating a book that tends to make a more thorough and colorful review."

I wish you would've just said something like this to begin with. The way you state it here is much more elucidative than in your previous attempts. And it's hardly what I'd call dancing around an idea. It's more like getting to the point.

I want you to know that I do respect your point of view even if I'm not sure I agree with you. But all I can do right now is reiterate what I've already said and ask again questions I've already asked. I can't force you to listen or answer. I'm sorry we can't have a conversation about this. The topic did interest me.

(Edit to correct a statement made based on something I misread.)

188Joles
Jan 29, 2009, 11:26 am

I'm sorry it was taken in the wrong way and that I didn't elaborate when I initially responded. It was merely a point that was being thrown out there and I think we both blew it out of proportion. (I've been particularly emotional lately because of family in the hospital which definitely influenced my semi-incoherent response. Things aren't better, but I've had time to breathe since then.)

Which questions are you referring to?

189snarkhunting
Jan 29, 2009, 10:36 pm

My condolences go out to you and your family.

It's especially easy to misinterpret tone and context in a typewritten discussion. Don't worry about it. Things happen.

I think I'm still confused about whether the point you're trying to make is quantitative, qualitative, or both. And in any case, I'm still not sure why you feel the way you do.

You said it's easy for people to get wrapped up in a book they love. But why does that make you feel like they're less apt to divulge relevant and useful details about the book? Or do I have this wrong? Do you feel that a person can't be critical of a book he or she enjoyed?

I don't favor either positive or negative reviews. But I'll definitely pass up inarticulate and uninformative reviews in favor of those with more succinct and pertinent information. This desirable tendency to me seems balanced over positive, negative, and neutral reviews. For that reason, I like to read at least one of each.

I went to Orwell's 1984 mostly because it's a familiar book with a lot of controversy surrounding it. I tried to pick out a few different reviews to talk about.

Jessicawest's is clearly the most detailed, except the details in her review don't really tell us a lot about the book. She drops a few names, but her entire review can be summarized in two sentences. She liked the book, though it wasn't particularly memorable. And regardless of the author's intent, the book reminds her of things going on in the world today.

That was a positive review that did much less than captivate me.

Foof2you's review told me a little more about the book. He suggests there are a few things to understand before reading the book. He claims that the book gets more difficult towards the middle. And he tells us something about the way the book is written.

This negative review might not have captured my interest, but it told me a few things about the book that I might base my decision to read it on.

Brainlair's negative review tells me more about brainlair than about the book. I'd have passed this review up in a second were it not for its usefulness in this discussion. Bear08's negative review isn't any better, except it mentions "big brother references."

Both silverwing2332's and rebeccler's positive reviews were helpful to me. After reading both of them, I feel like I have a better idea of what the story is about and why I might like to read it. They mention themes like a dystopia, flaws of the human mind, fulfillment and destruction, and false hope, all of which are interesting to me.

Questions I like answered in a review are: What is the book about? What is the author's intent? What ideas sustain the text? What is the writing like? What ideas are put to rest? How did the book make you react? Why did you react that way? (And others.) Not: Did you like the book? Did you like the characters? Did you like the way it was written?

I think any of those questions can be answered regardless of how a person feels about a book.

The other question I'm still interested in is, if we're all complaining about the way it works now, how should a teacher assign required reading? Vanye suggested offering choices to students and a limited opportunity to substitute books. What do you think?

What does everyone else think? I'd like to hear your ideas, too.

190Joles
Jan 30, 2009, 12:39 pm

Thank you, allthesepieces. I'm glad there are no hard feelings.

As for your questions. When it comes to getting wrapped up in a book...it's not that they can't be critical of it. Sometimes I feel that the reviewer doesn't necessarily know what to say about it, other than they liked it or why they liked it. (Granted there ARE some books that you just like, even though you don't know why.)

I, also, like to see those questions answered in the review, maybe with a little less emphasis on what the book is about (especially if the jacket blurb is on the site.)

And those questions can be answered if you liked or didn't like the book. It just seems that negative reviews grab me more. (Maybe I have weird taste in books?!?!) Ex. On another board someone posted that they didn't like a particular book because the setting was unbelievable and it was in verse (although, a prose piece.) Being the weirdo I am (I can admit it), I'd love to read it because it's in verse. (Had the person not hated the fact that it was in verse, it may not have been mentioned.)

Honestly, I try not to read reviews, too much unless I don't feel one way or the other about the book.

What should a teacher do???
I like Vanye's suggestion to offer choices. There are so many books out there that have a similar theme or can teach the curriculum that I would think at least 75% of the books required could have an alternate. Maybe have the class vote, or half and half read (then compare and contrast.)

When it comes down to it, I think the real world connections a teacher can make to a book (regardless of how God-awful it may be) can really help with the interest in reading it! Of course, this needs to happen for all of the texts you need to read, not merely one or two. (I had a great teacher that really pulled me in for Scarlet Letter and Brave New World, but I wanted to rip my eyes out when reading Great Expectations, Gulliver's Travels and Great Gatsby.....hmm....maybe I have a problem with "G" titles?)

Dare we bring up the topic of "textbooks"???

191snarkhunting
Jan 30, 2009, 9:58 pm

"Granted there ARE some books that you just like, even though you don't know why."

Sure there are, but in this case, why post a review? To do so would be pointless, not to mention redundant when there is a place on the site for rating books sans review.

There's nothing wrong with being either attracted to or repelled by a certain style of writing. The fact that a book is written in verse is a helpful detail to include in its review.

If a blurb is posted alongside reviews, then you're right, reading another person's plot summary can seem like a waste of time. But when a person does include a plot summary in their own words, it helps me understand how much thought they invested in reading the book. Consequently, it helps me judge how reliable their opinion is.

I just finished reading The Golden Compass. I'll use that as an example. (Stop reading if you're worried about spoilers.)

It's not a difficult book by any stretch of the imagination, but you might be surprised how many different answers you'd get if you asked people what it was about. I've heard so many things. It's about overthrowing religion. Or it's a fantasy about a girl and her friends and a compass that predicts the future. Or it's about growing up and defying authority. Or none of this. Or all of it and more.

None of the statements above are entirely correct. The Golden Compass may depict Catholicism unfavorably, but what many people don't pick up on is that the Inquisition is still going strong while the events in the main story are unfolding. The characters are catalysts, but the story isn't really about any one of them. Even at the end of the book, we still don't know for sure what makes the alethiometer (compass) work, if it is infallible, or what it actually does. Lyra (the girl) is definitely defiant, and she learns a lot through the story. But she's hardly grown-up at its completion.

By the way, do you think I'm going to rate the book positively or negatively?

(You can continue reading, now.)

So even after I've read the book, a person's plot summary tells me how well they were able to comprehend what they read.

Also keep in mind, the blurb only tells you what its author thought the book was about. And this discussion doesn't take spoken recommendations into account.

I'd like to see more choices offered to students, too. In addition to what you've already mentioned, it helps them play a more active role in their education. Think of how different this entire conversation would have been if people felt comfortable saying "I chose to read this book in high school" instead of "I was forced to read this book in high school." (Not that I believe the people sharing these sentiments were left without choice, but I think you understand what I'm getting at.)

192omafarmersdotter
Editado: Fev 6, 2009, 10:26 pm

I liked The Scarlett Letter it was actually assigned to my sister, who hated reading. She said it was good. Ironically, she never finished it!

The thing about Shakespeare I found difficult was that there seemed to be a lot of sex in it. I got really confused because no one acknowledged the double entendres so I thought I was missing something. I thought that because they were classics they couldn't really have sex in them. It never occurred to me to ask in HS, but my College professor made it clear. I hated Romeo & Juliet loved The Merchant of Venice and please, please never make me read Richard III again. Way too many Richards!

Also--they're plays; why do they always make you read before you see them. We'd all learn more if they did!

193omafarmersdotter
Fev 6, 2009, 10:35 pm

191
Seriously, you got to voice your opinion about what to read? No Way!

I liked the Golden Compass. It's definitely got some life lessons in it. There are two other books but I haven't gotten to them yet.

194omafarmersdotter
Fev 6, 2009, 10:59 pm

143

I can see what you mean...I've always been a reader so no one had to coax me. I loved Rumble Fish and we had a program in JHS that revolved around the Edgar Allen White nominees. We had to read a certain number of books but we got to choose. It included fiction and non-fiction. I'm not a big non-fiction reader but I still remember reading a really interesting book about bridge building.

One thing I do know is that the only reason I did well in my history classes was because of my love of historical romance. I certainly wasn't paying attention or taking notes--my calligraphy skills are still quite nice! Corn Laws are much more interesting and significant if the character you love is starving.

Also, why are the bulk of the "classics" written by men (no offense)? Currently 3/4 of fiction is written and read by women. (I heard that stat quoted somewhere, but I don't know how accurate it is--it feels right.) I find that there is a gender difference. Men tend to write more plot focused books and women tend to write more character focused books. We need to offer a balance of writers.

I'm so glad I found this list--I thought I was the only on who felt this way about "classics". I'm a rebellious soul and so have purposely avoiding reading anything that might be a classic since I finished HS. People can be judgmental regarding choices (typically non-readers). I say to them "Hey I make Medicare laws interesting for a living and still read 2-3 books a week. Come talk to me when you can do that!"

195snickersnee
Fev 7, 2009, 12:08 pm

Reading through the past 19 month's worth of messages, there seems to be a preponderance of "I didn't like" criticism. Fair enough, but what is supposed to replace The Scarlet Letter, Lord of the Flies, Death of a Salesman, etc. ? They'd really complain about reading Theodore Dreiser or Wyndam Lewis. (I saw a recently printed copy of Sister Carrie the other day, so look out).

It might be interesting to learn what English language books are assigned reading in English classes in France/Germany/India/Japan. The same basic list? Similarly derided?

I do have a question and a suggestion - from the posts from recent students it appears the common teaching method is still in-depth analysis of fairly short works King Lear, The Old Man and the Sea, etc. Is spending a month or two (albeit at an hour per day), the best way to teach books or plays which can be read in a few hours? My suggestion would be to encourage more reading, and less analysis. A book per per week instead of per month or quarter. (Easy for me to say, my bookshelves are overflowing, not so easy for someone who needs 30 copies of Wuthering Heights.)

(A personal anecdote: in year 10 (I think, it was long ago) we read The Secret Sharer. Heart of Darkness was not required reading, but was in the same book. I certainly got more out of Marlowe and Kurtz than I did from the unnamed captain and his stowaway. The point of the story: my English teacher mentioned he'd never read Poe's William Wilson. I had and gave to him an old paperback copy. Guess who got an "A". Students: give your teacher a book s/he has been wanting to read for years - it's much more effective than an apple).

My other question is also for teachers (You may not want to answer under your "real" names):
What percentage of your students are actually literate? I don't mean by standard test scores , but by your personal perception of literacy. Can students parse sentences? Do they understand nouns(subjectives), verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, sentence structure? Are they able to write a single coherent English sentence? Enough sentences for a paragraph? Enough paragraphs for an essay?

(I was thinking about words today. Anyone focused on numbers should feel free to jump in. That is certainly the other 1/2 if the problem.)

(Please understand I admire teachers greatly, but I wouldn't/couldn't do that job at ten times the price - the noise is just too overwhelming).

196plutarch
Fev 7, 2009, 2:50 pm

We have settled into teaching certain classics because of their firmly established analogies and metaphors of the human condition obvious within them. A teacher is comfortable with material that is well proven to convey a lesson they can stay in control of, and guide a conversation of.
Few and far apart are the educators capable of bringing us anywhere outside the tried and true box of academia. And yet, rays of light are coming through in modern literature and will become standard required reading as we formalize it.
However, as I age, the classics are speaking to me again. I find ideas and situations pertinent to my everyday life that are not expounded upon within the mounds of modern lit. And most of the good stuff today is a ripoff of a classic tale. I fear, being a victim of this myself, we are voicing the frustrations of a great dumbing down. What was once taught in highschool is now reserved for graduate studies.
What is acquired through analyzing these old tales is not an understanding of the book, but a deeper understanding of yourself and the screwball people around you. We need to invest this time in ourselves.
We need to have this classic literature as the basis of our body of growing personal knowledge.

197snarkhunting
Fev 7, 2009, 8:44 pm

#193: "Seriously, you got to voice your opinion about what to read? No Way!"

We got a bit sidetracked, but I was talking about why I think it's a good idea to include a plot summary when writing a review.

#195: "Is spending a month or two (albeit at an hour per day), the best way to teach books or plays which can be read in a few hours? My suggestion would be to encourage more reading, and less analysis."

Seems like a good idea, as long as we don't eliminate analysis completely. I'd be worried that some students would focus on how many books they've read instead of what they were able to gain by reading them.

#196: "What is acquired through analyzing these old tales is not an understanding of the book, but a deeper understanding of yourself and the screwball people around you. We need to invest this time in ourselves."

Hear, hear!

198snickersnee
Fev 8, 2009, 8:19 pm

#197
At some point, there may be some "critical mass" of reading which causes a student's critical faculty to develop spontaneously. (I hope.)

Another point I meant to make yesterday:
Instruction in the mechanics of silent reading - eliminating bad habits such as lip movement, finger following, re-reading, etc. - may be important. Bad habits do reassert themselves, so occasional refresher classes may also be useful. There's no reason a properly trained student with normal faculties can't read and comprehend at several thousand words per minute. That would certainly reduce the durations of the moans while reading Old Man and the Sea.

(Peripherally, I was also wondering about the lack of an apostrophe in "CliffsNotes" or ("Cliffs Notes" - the old name). De-apostrophising seems to be in vogue, perhaps a French influence.)

199snarkhunting
Fev 8, 2009, 11:44 pm

"There's no reason a properly trained student with normal faculties can't read and comprehend at several thousand words per minute."

That's something I'd have to see to believe. I can read (and comprehend) much faster than most people I know, and my reading speed is only between 650 and 700 words per minute. (250 is average.)

200plutarch
Fev 9, 2009, 12:01 pm

We must take into account the various learning styles.
Some folk, though no less intelligent, will never be avid readers. However, they may readily absorb aurally, at rates far beyond our visual limits. Also, to use a phrase I love- digital natives- may well have begun the transition to non-linear input and comprehension that will leave us all choking in their dust. We must also consider technological assistance that will most definitely become available for our use.

201snickersnee
Fev 9, 2009, 8:53 pm

#199
At age 15 I was doing at least 5000 wpm (the limit of our tachistoscope). That speed was due to lessons learned from a book I found in the local library (go libraries!). I don't think I read any faster than anyone else before I found that book. (I can't recall the author or title, but it did have a yellow cover and would have been in public libraries in 1975.

Question for teachers: do your students who read poorly. read slowly?

202snarkhunting
Fev 9, 2009, 11:55 pm

"At age 15 I was doing at least 5000 wpm..."

With what level of comprehension? You'll forgive my shock, I hope. I've never heard anyone make any similar claim.

203naastik
Fev 10, 2009, 12:30 am

Google search on speed reading brings up an interesting article by Tim Noah at Slate - The 1,000-Word Dash

204plutarch
Fev 10, 2009, 10:27 am

Reading comprehension is not merely understanding the words you are reading. There is a direct correlation to emotional intelligence. At fifteen this is limited. Re-read books from your youth and see how your comprehension level has changed... considering, of course, that you have changed. This is not about speed, it is about depth and breadth of knowledge, and being inundated with knowledge does not improve your ability to process it efficiently. It just gives you a fat head.

205Nickelini
Fev 10, 2009, 10:36 am

Naastik - Thanks for the link to that Slate article. Very interesting. I took a speed reading course once and the most important thing I learned is that I don't really want to read any faster, especially when I read for pleasure. Why turn a nice stroll through the park into a race through the park? No thanks.

206gregtmills
Fev 10, 2009, 8:33 pm

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." -- Woody Allen

207snickersnee
Fev 11, 2009, 8:26 am

If I was going to tell a lie in public, it would be about something other than my reading speed 20+ years ago.

Is there any reason to believe slower reading improves comprehension? How much slower must one go to achieve perfect comprehension? If one already understands the words and concepts in a book or article, why read slowly when at best you're just re-arranging thoughts you already had?

Bad reading habits are like bad nutritional habits and many other bad habits. It's easier to do nothing.

I'm not too concerned about those in the 19-100 age bracket. You'll have to live with what you've got. From the posts I've read, many don't believe they could read faster. I think most of you could.

Teaching the youngsters how to read is well worthwhile.

208Nichtglied
Editado: Fev 11, 2009, 1:19 pm

201 - Are you sure you weren't reading at 5,000 characters per minute? That would be much more believable than 5,000 words.

(See http://readerssoft.com/de/results.php )

209plutarch
Fev 11, 2009, 2:53 pm

That's about 83-84 words a second- the approximate size of message 207. Possible. Very possible. The Zen of reading. Oh, but how can you grasp the subtle nuances, and answer the questions posed, at the same time?

210Nichtglied
Fev 11, 2009, 3:25 pm

@209 - That's a good question. Since almost all of my reading is recreational (regardless of the material) I'm not sure I would get full enjoyment out of reading something at 5,000 words per minute even if I were able to read at that rate.

Can someone explain "rereading" as a bad reading habit? I'm sometimes so taken with a passage--or even just a sentence--that I'll read it several times before moving on, but I can't fathom how or why someone would "reread" as a habit rather than as a conscious choice.

211Joles
Fev 11, 2009, 5:45 pm

In this same group I posted about a book called Readicide that you may be interested in when it comes to reading in schools.

The author Kelly Gallagher puts a great deal of emphasis on asking questions while reading and looking up things that you aren't familiar with. I think he would disagree about just being able to read fast being helpful.

(And I find that my students who don't comprehend their reading are all over the place when it comes to the speed at which they read. There are a decent amount of fast readers that don't comprehend, along with slow readers and moderate readers.)

212snickersnee
Fev 13, 2009, 10:09 am

I can't sing in tune, I can't tootle a cornet, I can't paint. I don't attribute those lamentable shortcomings to my my own imbecility, but to a lack of training. We teach children to read at around age 5, but beyond that age teach little or nothing about the mechanics of reading - lip motion, eye motion, etc.

I can't play the violin, even though I've had no lessons. I practice two hours per day, and it still sounds like ####.

213plutarch
Fev 13, 2009, 12:33 pm

212- thank you for responding, and well done. I feared we had silenced you with our doubt; be it well founded or not.

I believe these movements you mentioned have to do with processing. I lip read the passages I must review, or when I am writing- which is another case entirely. I have friends who tug at their hair or tap their foot. I can't imagine a blues singer standing like a statue. Try putting your entire body into the violin and see what happens.

214kabrahamson
Fev 13, 2009, 1:32 pm

Harold Bloom can read a 1000-page book in an hour. I posit that this whole words-per-minute argument is irrelevant, because in the end we all suck in comparison to Harold Bloom. ;-)

215tcplgal
Fev 13, 2009, 1:36 pm

Grapes Of Wrath
A Tale Of Two Cities
House On Mango Street
I liked Lord Of The Flies but was in a group project that watched and showed clips of the movie The Beach as an example of dystopia/utopia. I can see why people would not like it, but I did and most of my class did too.
I did not like The Stranger by Camus because of what my teacher did with it - I just don't think most high schoolers can grasp existentialism (sp?) and think if I reread it now that I might like it.

216Vanye
Fev 13, 2009, 1:51 pm

My question would have to be does Dr. Bloom enjoy that book?

I don't know how fast i read but i know that i read faster when i enjoy what i'm reading & just don't worry about my speed especially since i'm retired & reading is one of my big recreations. However, when i was in college i often wished i could read faster. 8^)

P. S. I wonder if Bloom reads as fast when it's a book he's gonna trash or if he even reads those all the way through?

217Nickelini
Fev 13, 2009, 2:45 pm

My question would have to be does Dr. Bloom enjoy that book?

I dunno. He has a really negative aura around him. He doesn't seem to like anything, even when he says he does.

218Fullmoonblue
Fev 13, 2009, 4:35 pm

215 -- definitely reread The Stranger! Most of my classmates despised it back when we had to read it in school... but then I reread it as an adult and WHOA. Pretty amazing stuff.

Personally, I think emphasizing the whole 'existentialism' topic is what ruins The Stranger for younger readers. Is life absurd, is it not, and ohmigod should I care...? Bleh. Whatever. Most don't.

But ask a class to vote on whether Meursault does or doesn't deserve to die, and why, and suddenly people have strong opinions. (Heh heh... or ask whether they think Meursault and/or Camus comes off as racist, or sexist. Boom, opinions! Amazing.)

219Emidawg
Fev 16, 2009, 12:08 am

In high school I could not bear to read Jane Eyre.. and yet the teacher assigned a 5 page paper on it.

I ended up watching the movie Clueless.. and writing the paper based on that. Similar enough storyline, just changed a few names to match the book. I managed to get a B+

Honestly classic literature can be great, but entire an entire curriculum based on it is rather outmoded. Sure teach a bit of it but modern times call for modern literature as well...

220Nickelini
Fev 16, 2009, 12:29 am

#219 - I ended up watching the movie Clueless.. and writing the paper based on that. Similar enough storyline, just changed a few names to match the book. I managed to get a B+
-------------------

Wow, you got lucky! Clueless isn't based on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, it's based on Emma, by Jane Austen. Pretty different. I wonder what your teacher was thinking?

221Emidawg
Editado: Fev 17, 2009, 2:51 pm

You know I loathed that class so much it may have just Been Emma that was assigned... and not Jayne Eyre... I recently read (and enjoyed)The Eyre Affair and that may have mixed me up.

I think the only books that I actually enjoyed in her class were Moll Flanders and A Hundred Years of Solitude

Among the books required for reading were The Fountainhead(gah!) Henderson the Rain King, Heart of Darkness, and Madame Bovary as well as multiple plays and short stories.. there was this one terribly depressing one that I cant remember the name of but it was about a girl preparing to commit suicide and telling her mother how everything was put into order and how she'd even put trash bags down so as not to make a mess...

I think the poetry section of the class was the worst... explicating poems always seemed wrong to me... especially since multiple meanings were always there.. I would hate how the meanings I would often see were "wrong"

This was an AP English class.. I suppose I should have known what I was getting into when I started it...

222Joles
Fev 16, 2009, 2:14 pm

Emi,

Your feeling toward poetry meanings gives me a good chuckle. I remember when I was in school and wrote a poem about a tree, then extrapolated some meaning out of it. Then went back and said...yeah, I really just wrote it about a tree, but I see where you could get other meanings out of it.

I suppose it isn't a bad thing to get something different out of a poem. (But I DO think it's horrible for someone to tell you that your interpretation is wrong.)

223plutarch
Fev 16, 2009, 2:39 pm

Poetry tends to be a vehicle which allows us to peel back the layers of consciousness in which we function. To wring out meaning, is to grasp why we chose certain words over others in our descriptions of everything from trees to space anomalies. Poetry, in every form, is to grab chunks of the abstract observations and data within our own minds and try to put them into some type of form. To say - yeah, I just wrote it about a tree- is to say more than volumes of books could even come close to. There is an idea that poetry puts the abstract into form, just as any artistic medium will, and leaves it for the philosophers to decipher, and the story tellers to eventually spread it amongst the common thought.
Do not ever underestimate your poetry. Try, instead, to grab larger chunks and put them together in ways that may only make sense to yourself.

224Sandydog1
Fev 16, 2009, 6:16 pm

>221 Emidawg:

You almost got me. I was going to run to the video store to see if I could find a crazed Carribean wife tucked away in the old man's estate. As IF!

I also preferred Clueless over Emma.

And I ALMOST preferred Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou over The Odyssey.

225billiecat
Fev 17, 2009, 9:54 pm

I was going to say how much I loathed Catcher in the Rye, but I admit I liked it when I read it in high school. It's only later that you see how shallow it is - which is humbling as you realize how shallow you were in high school. I am so grateful to my English teachers that the only Ayn Rand they inflicted on me was Anthem, short enough that I escaped the serious brain damage that seems to occur to any young person who reads much Ayn Rand. Unfortunately, Alan Greenspan did not escape, and we all are now paying the price.

226Joles
Fev 18, 2009, 11:45 am

223

227plutarch
Fev 19, 2009, 1:03 pm

226

228sojournertruth
Fev 20, 2009, 1:12 pm

Hmmm... Given the opportunity, I guess I will always read. And doesn't that "awful" literature help to define what we truly love and enjoy? If we only observe the majestic peaks from the mountain tops, we will never see how far we have climbed.

229plutarch
Fev 21, 2009, 11:30 am

228

230sojournertruth
Fev 21, 2009, 7:26 pm

Life is everywhere, I've seen the most wonderful flowers growing out of stone at the rugged peak. The peaks are also near, accessible in a day sometimes, definitely exposed rather than isolated, and exhilarating when shared with others.The point was to appreciate all literature. The worst of literature makes us appreciate the best all the more. On another level all writing can be valued on some level for an authors attempt to express themselves.

231plutarch
Fev 22, 2009, 12:23 am

I stand corrected. Thank you. Your insights are keen and refreshing. What do you consider to be the worst of literature...for that matter, what is literature.

232plutarch
Fev 23, 2009, 10:12 am

pw sojourn

233snickersnee
Fev 25, 2009, 9:44 pm

213: Many thanks for your solicitude.

I certainly understand your musical examples, but authors belong perhaps in different category. Conrad's description of the General's daughter interrupting the writing of Nostromo in A Personal Record is suggestive - a number of authors whose craft practice is known (Conrad, Proust, Hemingway, etc.) required peaceful surroundings while writing. Of course, Thomas Hardy almost certainly read the Wessex dialect aloud, and T.S. Eliot almost certainly read The Waste Land aloud (at least to themselves).

I'm still worried about an answer (or lack or answer) to my #195: (with more precision): what percentage of graduating high school students are actually literate? What percentage of University freshmen are literate? What percentage of (supposedly literate) high school graduates entering the Army/Navy/Air Force/Marine Corps/Coast Guard are actually literate?

I certainly don't wish to impugn anyone, but many of the the young people I meet (from very different socioeconomic backgrounds), are unable to read at a basic (say year 10) level.

234Joles
Fev 26, 2009, 11:35 am

I don't teach english or language arts or reading or whatever you want to call it. But, from the projects my students do, I can say that about half really know what they're doing. All teachers had to have our students do some writing prompts in preparation for state mandated testing. Some of the essays I received were wonderful, while others couldn't put together a coherent sentence. (They also don't understand how to put together a simple 5 paragraph essay. And they disregard any kind of graphic organizer for their thoughts. Mind you, I don't really use a graphic organizer and always hated them in school, I am capable of using one. Some of them aren't even capable.)

235lauranav
Fev 26, 2009, 5:39 pm

Fascinating thread. I agree with some of the books listed, and actually enjoyed others listed. The one I still remember hating from school is The Good Earth. Some day I may read it again to see if I have a different perspective now, but I really did NOT like that book.

236snickersnee
Fev 27, 2009, 3:28 pm

Jolene -

Many thanks for the first honest answer. What is a "graphic organizer?"

Plutarch -

My favourite poem ends:

The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky!

237Joles
Fev 27, 2009, 5:29 pm

A graphic organizer could be an outline or a word map. Some schools use the "hamburger". It's basically just a way to organize your ideas prior to actually starting to write.

238snarkhunting
Fev 27, 2009, 10:24 pm

http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

Jolene, are those some good examples? (I had no clue what they were, either.)

239Joles
Mar 2, 2009, 1:09 pm

Yes, that's a great collection. From my experience each school has their own particular ones that they prefer.

240plutarch
Mar 10, 2009, 5:06 pm

239-
have you explored Personal Brain or any of the other non-linear organizers.

241Joles
Mar 11, 2009, 10:49 am

Not really. In my position I don't work with organizers very often, most of my classes are performance-based. I'll have to check it out!

242Macophile
Mar 30, 2009, 4:53 pm

I'm reading Moll Flanders right now in my college English class and we have to write a paper on it (while researching about real crimes that would have happened during that time period). I am not enjoying this book, probably because we are racing through it so fast we have no time to comprehend it or think about it. We will finish it (and the literary analysis in the back of the book) in the matter of a week and are supposed to write a 5-8 pg paper in 24 hrs.

243LongHairLady
Mar 30, 2009, 7:19 pm

I liked the The Scarlet Letter, with its look at guilt and its affects. I found that fascinating. I also liked the works of Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn was fascinating, because of his struggle with being taught that slavery was right, and his better feelings coming through. But The Old Man and the Sea? Ew. Yuck. Doesn't make any sense.
Oh, and before I forget, Moby Dick. For Literature, I only had one chapter to read of it, the one about the whiteness of the whale. Suffice it to say that I immediately ran for the book.

244SusieBookworm
Mar 30, 2009, 8:28 pm

I enjoyed A Midsummer Night's Dream, but Romeo and Juliet seemed stupid, since a guy who's in love with another girl and a thirteen-year-old meet, instantly fall in love, get married, then kill themselves within a week. They should have made better choices.
I slightly liked The Old Man and the Sea, but then I read it as fast as possible and not in English class. It would be a bad book to make a class read.
The Outsiders is a good book, but I've had to read it three years in a row. 7th grade English, 8th grade English, and English I. It's beginning to get overused.

245d_perlo
Mar 30, 2009, 11:01 pm

Heh... I read The Outsiders in 6th grade for fun. Luckily I never had to read it for class. Though I did read it again for a Young Adult Literature class in Grad. school.

246Blodwynn
Maio 2, 2009, 1:04 pm

I second the Tom Sawyer nod.

247twasthebrillig79
Maio 3, 2009, 8:35 pm

"The book that really ought to be striken from the reading lists is My Antonia by Willa Cather."

This book totally sucked. And I usually loved many of the assigned books in school...

248TheLeMur
Jun 1, 2009, 3:48 pm

I rather enjoyed Lord of the Flies, but I had an amazing teacher.

I agree with The Scarlet Letter though. I also think Macbeth isn't one that should be read in high school. I'm not even against Shakespeare, and I couldn't stand it.

To Kill a Mockingbird wasn't bad, but my 9th, 10th, AND 11th grade English teachers felt it necessary that we read it in class and write research papers on it. By the end of 11th grade, I NEVER wanted to hear anything about that book again.

I also don't think my 8th grade mind really understood The Illiad. I say this because I don't remember ANYTHING about it. All I know is that it was the prequel to The Odyssey. And there was a really graphic battle scene near the beginning. That's about it.

249Joles
Jun 7, 2009, 11:33 pm

LOVE LOVE LOVED Macbeth in HS!!!! Again, I guess it's all how your teacher taught it to you.

250riani1
Jun 8, 2009, 1:43 pm

My high school English teacher had us read the plays outloud in class, it was wonderful for figuring out how the words should flow and how the characters interacted.

251kimbee
Jun 8, 2009, 6:15 pm

Two come to mind. The Giver and A Wrinkle In Time.

I think sometimes we're just not old enough or can't relate to the topic of the book when we're that young when all that matters is finishing the stupid essay you have to do on the stupid book. I read Catcher In the Rye in the summer before grade 12. I hated it. I hated Holden and how angry at the world he was. I thought he was just a snotty teenager. I read it again in the spring when I was able to see how depressed he actually was and that's why he was so angry at everything. It changed my mind about the whole book.

252jillmwo
Jun 8, 2009, 6:28 pm

I don't think A Separate Peace offers much to high school students these days.

253arxes
Editado: Jun 11, 2009, 12:27 am

I read The Stranger four times in junior high/high school; that was a bit much (twice in french, good grief). It went from sort of enjoyable to intolerable over the years. I also remember reading A Tale of Two Cities multiple times (this actually improved with rereading). There were some tedious books that never got better (A Separate Peace, tedious and simplistic, anything by Faulkner), but some of the books mentioned here I enjoyed, sometimes loved (Lord of the Flies, Ibsen, Dostoyevsky, The Invisible Man - I actually liked dark, depressing novels). We (well 11/12th) read some foreign stuff too, but only Gabriel Garcia Marquez is memorable.

My most hated book, already mentioned in this thread - The Old Man and the Sea, wasn't assigned in high school at all. My mom actually forced me to read it (go figure, I read a lot, but she decided I must start on _her_ classics) and it was like pulling teeth. I don't think it's that teenagers don't get the book or appreciate it, but non-religious teenagers certainly resent this heavy handed religious book. I certainly did, and I haven't touched Hemingway since.

As for assigned books, I loathed The Sound and the Fury. I still dislike Faulkner's style (although other writers using stream of consciousness heavily don't bother me as much) and the characters drove me insane. Shoeless Joe was also one of the books I remember very well, because I detested baseball. It might be time to reread them (well not Shoeless.... that was badly written and irritating) and rejudge.

254Joles
Jun 16, 2009, 9:46 pm

Interesting kimbee. I highly enjoyed the Giver. Was there a specific reason you didn't like it? We read it in 7th grade (I think). I really liked it, but we had good class discussions.

255TheLeMur
Jun 27, 2009, 1:36 pm

Ugh, A Wrinkle in Time.
As someone who absolutely LOVED anything fantasy or Sci-Fi (and I still do, though with a bit more discretion now that I'm older), I don't know how, but it's somehow true; I couldn't STAND that book. I didn't relate to the characters at all, the plot dragged on and on, and I remember my sixth-grade mind saying something akin to "So? Why do I care?" every time there was a new development or small twist.

On the other hand, I liked the Giver. I read it on my own, but I think I was in seventh or eighth grade. I think I got it as a gift. My opinion probably would have been different if I had to read it for a class. Guh.

256jet_doyle
Jul 7, 2009, 4:52 pm

From my schooling days, one book I didn't enjoy was The Pearl by Steinbeck. I found no interest in it.

257kaionvin
Ago 19, 2009, 1:43 am

Hah at someone mentioning Henrik Ibsen- after The Poisonwood Bible's never-endingness everyone in my English AP class was rather ecstatic about A Doll's House.

I thought The Giver was a more elementary/middle school book, at least I recall it being assigned in 6th grade or so (worst school book ever was the 7th grade Where the Red Fern Grows). I didn't like it- thought it was over-the-top and not very engaging.

Shakespeare is somewhat inexplicable to me- I suffered through Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet and A Midsummer's Night Dream before I got toTwelfth Night (and learned that these plays were actually meant to be entertaining and funny beyond the corny sex puns and the slapstick). I also object to The Odyssey, from which I was forced to read 3 times!

I liked A Separate Peace, actually- but I think because we got to do this one in small groups . I read 1984 outside of class- and I get somewhat that it is of its time, but it is really dull and heavy-handed.

258fishwax
Ago 24, 2009, 3:57 pm

As an elementary teacher who has just completed a masters in language and literacy, I find that some of the earlier opinions about continuing to teach canonized works are also true in the elementary schools.

Charlott'e's Web is (to me) still a great book. However, there's SOOO many more exceptional books out there. Also, at the early elementary level many times reading seems to be about making something cute to go along with the book rather than rich discussion of the book itself.

Some teachers continue teaching the same books because they are comfortable with them and are not aware of how stereotypical or problemtic some of the books are. This is where a great librarian can help teachers rethink the books they use in the classroom. Also, By learning how to have rich discussions during reading, through breaking away from teaching only canonized works as well as learning how to critically analyze books teachers can bring that knowledge to the students they teach, and help them be better able to critically analyze those works as well.
Some teachers avoid discussion of the problematic issues in a book because they may believe children can't handle it, and/or they may not know how to discuss those issues in a classroom- never having been taught how. Also, some teachers may be afraid to get into books with issues such as racism, at the elementary level because they don't know how to negotiate a productive discussion.

259Janientrelac
Out 8, 2009, 2:16 pm

There is a certain attitude that cheerful books "and they lived happily ever after" are automatically not great literature.

260Janientrelac
Out 8, 2009, 2:22 pm

The only Steinbeck book I ever liked was his non-fiction Travels with Charley.

261dukeallen
Out 21, 2009, 5:26 pm

Perhaps I was lucky in that my teachers almost never assigned a specific book, other than some short stories in our text books. We were allowed to simply read and report on whatever we wanted, as long as the teacher approved of the title.
The only book I remember being assigned as a class was Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. Most of the class, including myself, loved it.

262hdcclassic
Out 22, 2009, 5:40 am

>261 dukeallen:, with us it was the same, we had some short stories everyone read and other than that only some books I remember we had to read (we too had that Christie, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Punainen Viiva and couple of others).
Otherwise we could make our own picks, approved by teacher of course. There was also some guidance and themes, but if you came up with good suggestions yourself you could do pretty much as you liked (I got to make book reports about e.g. comic books, because at that point the teacher had figured out I did read quite a lot anyway and turn in good enough reports, no matter what the subject).

263dukeallen
Out 22, 2009, 10:37 am

262> I envy your book reports on comics, I was an enthusiastic collector at that age, but my teachers wouldn't allow it. I was the "advanced" reader of the class and my teacher turned me onto Poe and Conan Doyle.

264MmeRose
Dez 24, 2009, 12:05 am

I went to school in the dark ages - the 50's and 60's. It appears that my most hated book from school has disappeared from the lists or maybe it was never on any list and the teacher just liked to torture students with it! Giants in the Earth. We called it Clods in the Sod.
I was always an avid reader and almost always had read the books long before they were assigned. What drove me crazy was the slow, torturous pace in class - weeks or months spent reading and analyzing ONE book! Oh, and there was never science fiction on any of our reading lists and we were not allowed to use it for book reports. It was public school, why they had that rule always baffled me.
I've been heard to say "Once they taught me to read, they should have left me alone!".

265jillmwo
Dez 24, 2009, 7:50 am

All of that sounds very familiar, ctpete! I remember the title you reference. It was never on any of my own required reading lists, but it also never seemed sufficiently interesting on its own for me to be willing to pick it up and read freely. I also used to resent the slow readers and the idiot comments that would be made in class by the students who just didn't get whatever it was we were reading. Made me nuts!

266zenobiamae
Dez 26, 2009, 6:45 pm

I think that the main problem with HS reading lists is that most of the teachers choose books based on the avaliablity of a teacher's guide. If the the teacher does not even like the book for itself then how can students be expected to work up enthusiasm for a book that they might never pick up and think to read by themselves? Also, if the teacher is relying on the guide in order to get through the material then they are less likely to be providing really riviting insights for their students. I know that not every teacher chooses thier material based on the teacher's guide criteria but I was talking to a grad student who had done a study asking about how HS teachers choose books and this is what all of them said. To me that just seems sad. It is too bad that students cannot choose what books they want to read with more freedom. The avid readers would most likely get around to a decent number of "classic" eventually and at least the more reluctent readers would have a chance of being entertained.

267Xenalyte
Dez 29, 2009, 5:06 pm

Among high school, college, and grad school, I have been assigned to read Moby-Dick five times. I have never ONCE gotten through the damn thing.

Why do we introduce high-schoolers to an author by using the author's least accessible book?

Great Expectations, I am looking in your direction.

Also, The Good Earth was awful.

Finally, as far as I can tell, Ernest Hemingway never wrote one complex sentence in his entire life. Simple sentences, every single one I've run across.

268MmeRose
Dez 29, 2009, 9:08 pm

Papa Hemingway was a macho man writing for macho men. They can't handle complex sentences.

269keristars
Dez 29, 2009, 11:47 pm

>267 Xenalyte:

I've never had to read Moby Dick (I almost did, and then I got sick and dropped the class, but I kept the book to maybe try it, and now it's lost, so...), but I'd been assigned Frankenstein similarly often. Twice in high school and four times at university. Luckily I actually like the novel, and have never not liked it, but by the second time I had to read it at uni, I was ready to include it in the Books to be Struck... list, if only because I was so annoyed that I wouldn't be able to read something different already.

By the time my kid brother had to read it for high school, I had so many pages of lecture notes (and the matching essays), he could have read them and done just as good, if not better on any quizzes/exams than if he spent time reading the book himself.

270Sandydog1
Editado: Dez 30, 2009, 2:19 pm

Toss all of these and re-read them when you're 4 or 5 decades old. Personally (this whole discussion is 100% personal, I guess) I really enjoyed many of these including Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Age of Innocence, et multi al.

I'm sure I would have HATED them all in H.S.

271MmeRose
Dez 30, 2009, 2:31 pm

And that's the shame of it, Sandydog1, students are not being taught to appreciate literature, but to despise it. We need a major revamp of HS English classes.

272benuathanasia
Editado: Dez 30, 2009, 4:01 pm

I second that motion ctpete!
I'm studying to be a HS literature teacher at the moment and I PRAY that my future school has a flexible reading list. I really wish that for, say a Holocaust curriculum, I could allow my students to select between Schindler's Ark, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Night, The Diary of Anne Frank, etc. FORCING a student to read a specific book will almost instantly turn half of them off to it; it's simply the nature of adolescents.

For instance, in HS we were forced to read God of Small Things in an "appreciating eastern cultures" unit...now there's a class wandering around out there thinking that all Indians are racist, sexist, incestuous people. Had we been allowed to choose, I NEVER would have gone anywhere near that book in high school and instead probably would have read the Ramayana. Now as a college student, I appreciate what GOSTs was really about, but forcing it down a high school-er's throat will definitely affect their perspective of it.

273MmeRose
Jan 1, 2010, 5:37 pm

Good for you! My daughter had two excellent HS English teachers who managed to get students at all levels (AP to regular classes) interested in literature, I'm jealous of the discussions she told me about. She graduated in 2007, so I'm not talking ancient history here!

274Arkholt
Jan 1, 2010, 11:58 pm

Didn't have time to read the whole thing, but I skimmed through it. Some good suggestions for books to be struck. The Great Gatsby gets my vote. Can't stand it. Had to read Watership Down in 8th grade and suffered through the entire thing. Actually... I don't think I finished it... Passed the test on it, though. :P

Reading plays is usually irritating for me, be they Shakespeare or anybody, really. However, I had a college class on Modernism and we read Eugene Ionesco for one part of it, and I found it interesting. The Boy Soprano, I believe it was.

My suggestion for making English classes better is to assign more contemporary literature. This may already have been suggested, but I missed it. Still, kids ought to be reading what's being written now. Some of them may already be reading it, and the teachers have them stuck on this old stuff with no relevance to current issues. I'm not saying the old stuff is bad. It has its place. I just don't think its place is high school. If kids want to study the classics, let them do it on their own or in college.

275benuathanasia
Jan 2, 2010, 2:47 pm

That's the one thing my high school did "right," Arkholt. We read a lot by contemporary writers like Lawrence Yep, Linda Crew, Richard Slotkin, Arundhati Roy and lots of short stories by authors I could not begin to recall. It did not help raise interest in the slightest. In most areas, we actually preferred the classics (The Odyssey, The Hobbit, and Great Gatsby had the highest "approval ratings" in my class). Probably because the classics had saturated our culture; for example, while reading The Odyssey, we all begged to watch Wishbone's version of The Odyssey (unfortunately, no one could find it).
I really wish we had done more classics. Once I got to college I felt so behind not having ever read any Shakespeare in school (aside from Taming of the Shrew in middle school), none of the classic poets, Lord of the Flies, 1984, any John Steinbeck, any of the Bronte Sisters, Pride and Prejudice, Fahrenheit 451. Thankfully I have since read most of these.
No, I don't believe it matters whether it's "classic" or "modern." It just has to be something the student finds interesting. They need the ability to choose.

276hdcclassic
Jan 4, 2010, 4:00 am

A question to all you English, Americans and others: what do you do in your English classes, do you do anything else than read books and write essays about books you have read?

Because I have been wondering, at least in our school (and probably not in other schools here either) in our Finnish classes we didn't read that many novels...but a considerable part of classes were spent on reading and "reading" also other types of media, learning about grammar and linguistics, writing various types of texts...do you not do those things, or where do you find all the time to read all those books?

277AngelaB86
Jan 4, 2010, 11:52 am

HDC: my freshman year of highschool, the focus was on reading, and writing essays, but we also diagrammed sentences at the start of every class. Sophomore year, we just read novels and wrote papers on them.

278benuathanasia
Jan 4, 2010, 5:43 pm

In my high school it was probably around 6 books a year, plenty of papers, research papers on things related and unrelated to books, creative writing, and "learning how to use a library" (e.g. playing online and hiding in the corner reading smut or the Guinness Book of Records while the teacher graded papers).
I never did sentence diagramming or anything like that. In fact, I have one of those cartoon-y posters on my wall (the type you see in elementary school) with the parts of speech on it so I can remember.

279Nickelini
Jan 4, 2010, 6:25 pm

HD - my 13 year old entered high school this past September (in western Canada). So far she hasn't read any novels, but she says they're currently reading short stories.

280MmeRose
Jan 4, 2010, 8:55 pm

My high school years are too, too long ago, but my daughter was in Advanced Placement English all through HS.
They read books, poetry and literary articles. They researched the lives of authors and the things that affected their work. They did creative writing, research papers, news report writing, non-fiction writing and journal writing. Through it all, they learned the fundamentals of English: vocabulary, correct sentence structure, correct formats for essays and non-fiction, footnoting, bibliographies, etc. They also learned to critique writing - their own and others.
Also, the AP English classes had summer homework that was due the first day of class and they were expected to do independent reading all year.
"AP" classes here are the equivalent of beginning college courses and a high enough grade on the standardized test can earn actual college credit for the student. My daughter entered college as a sophomore (2nd year).

281JalenV
Dez 6, 2011, 1:16 am

I was lucky to have parents who read for pleasure. I could already read by the time I entered school because my mother read to me. I taught my little sister how to read. We all read aloud to each other. I still love to read aloud. When I come across a line I really like in a book I'm reading, I'll read it aloud to myself just to savor the words.

I was in high school 1968-1972. I had an advantage in reading classics because we had old books at home so I was already used to old-fashioned styles. I absolutely hated Ethan Frome in high school because of the way it ended. It haunted me about as much as Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream". (No, that wasn't required reading when I was in hs. My Dad was a science fiction fan who gave me his paperbacks after he read them.)

Bartleby the Scrivner was the story I kept getting stuck with in class. When my teacher announced it in my college freshman English class I actually groaned "Not again!" aloud.

I remember almost nothing about A Separate Peace beyond the cover and that one of the boys was Jewish. Are they gay? I didn't know same-sex attraction existed when I was in hs. I don't remember what Dad told me when I asked him what "fairy" as an insult meant when I had to read Catcher in the Rye, but I think he was a bit uncomfortable with the question.

I remember reading somewhere that classic version of The Red Badge of Courage (another had-to-read that I didn't like) was actually edited to the point of not making sense. I wonder what it would be like to read the book as originally written -- but not enough to see if I can find a restored copy.

If nothing else, The Scarlet Letter does teach about what women had to go through if they got pregnant outside of marriage in the Bad Old Days. Come to think of it, Hester was lucky that she didn't have to turn to prostitution to feed herself and her child.

A few months ago I listened to an audio version of Middlemarch and enjoyed it very much. I don't think I would have liked it in hs, though.

Didn't like Old Man and the Sea.

Revisted Great Expectations some months ago and liked it more than I did in hs. To be honest, the only parts I'd remembered from hs were Pip meeting the convict and Pip meeting Miss Haversham. (Now there was someone whose money and social status worked against her. If she'd been forced to go out in the world and mingle, she'd probably have gotten over being ditched.)

I do agree about not being ready to appreciate books at a younger age. My mother tried to get me to share her love of Georgette Heyer Regency Romances when I was 16. Sprig Muslin bored me. I gave Heyer another try about 5 years later. I've been a fan ever since. Sprig Muslin is one of my favorite Heyers.

Learning the context of novels helps, too. That "My West Indies Messalina" line in Jane Eyre meant so much more to me when I reread it after watching "I, Claudius." My least-favorite M.R. James ghost story, "Martin's Close," became more interesting to me after I read that it had been deliberately written in the style of a 17th century English court trial. I read my sister's copy of Is Heathcliff a Murderer?: Great Puzzles in 19th-Century literature by John Sutherland and it was illuminating.

Some of my childhood favorites, such as Elizabeth Enright's Melendy and Gone-Away books are still favorites, but I don't see them with the same eyes I saw them with decades ago.

Never read Grapes of Wrath. Dad was an Okie and he HATED that book. I think he'd have had words with any teacher who tried to force one of his kids to read it.

Thank you, younger readers, for letting me get a glimpse of which books are still being forced upon hs kids and some of the newer titles.

BTW, the heroine of a cozy mystery series I enjoy, Amanda Pepper, is a high school English teacher. You may read the first chapter of the novels online. Here's one where poor Amanda tries to get her students interested:
http://gillianroberts.com/02amanda_philly.html

If you never got to hear Tiny Tim singing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips":
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=tip+toe+through+the+tulips+tiny+tim&view...

Meet her ghastly headmaster:
http://gillianroberts.com/06amanda_inthedead.html

282raistlinsshadow
Dez 25, 2011, 3:08 am

I'm finding (found, actually—very quickly in a couple lit classes first year of college) that a lot of the "usual" high school assigned reading I never got around to. Catcher in the Rye? Nope. Hemingway? Nope. Mark Twain? Nope. Lord of the Flies? Naw. I don't really know what happened.

But top two on my banned-list—even though I do understand their merits, even having revisited them—are Heart of Darkness and Scarlet Letter. I've read worse and I've read better (and, in the Scarlet Letter's case, seen better movies). I didn't like The Crucible or Antigone, but I loooooved Shakespeare. I didn't mind Jude the Obscure and never had to read anything else from Hardy, and I adored Jane Eyre.

I was also not assigned to read books like The Giver or Anne Frank's diary; I read them myself. Never was required to read Márquez because I didn't take the English APs. I actually lucked out in fourth grade because I was required to read Ender's Game—how cool is that?

My point, I guess, is that I wish I had been required to read all this, because I feel like there's still something missing in my literary background. I read a lot of really neat books (Ender, Phantom of the Opera, The English Patient), but I also don't have that experience reading some of the "classics" that get referenced on and on and on again... but which I also don't really have the inclination to pick up myself more often than the other novels I have on my shelf.

What they did right? Phantom and English Patient were chosen off of lists that had to do with a theme—antiheroes and modern English lit, respectively. If a curriculum allowed it, I'd love to do that for my students—within reason, of course. Perhaps why teaching at a university is more my calling than teaching HS students.

283kassetra
Editado: Maio 19, 2012, 12:46 pm

Changing a few schools between 11-18 meant that some of my book lists were odd or repeats, and I did have to change which book I was in the middle or reading more than once.

In the first big English classes that I had (age 11 or maybe 10), we spent all of our time with C.S. Lewis. I still can't stand the chronicles of narnia.

At one school, I had books that I completely and utterly adored: siddartha, the stranger, metamorphosis, heart of darkness, 1984, brave new world, lord of the flies, etc., but then I changed schools.

I had a year of anything and everything Jane Austen. I can't take even the first line of any of her books, even today.

We had started with wuthering heights and then I transferred to the Ulysses school. That's right, Ulysses for a whole year. We had to bring in our own copies to 'add notes' for reading. By the end of the year my book was very badly beaten and when the teacher asked me why, I explained that it hadn't held up well to being thrown against the garage door repeatedly.

I'm of the firm belief that a book shouldn't be the whole year and Joyce should be reserved for optional reading lists.

I would have gladly taken so many other 'hated' classics for those two years over Austen and Joyce.

284PennyDreadful4
Editado: Jun 25, 2012, 9:26 pm

Lord of the Flies was so horrible to me that I physically could NOT read it. No way in hell, I just stared right through the page. I didn't care if I completely failed any assignments on it.
Being Canadian, I didn't read much if what you read in high school. Our short stories at least were all painfully boring garbage about people all alone in a cabin in the woods, where nothing happens at all ever. "Now what do you think the theme of that story is?" "Isolation," again and again and again. How goddamn depressing.

285benuathanasia
Jun 26, 2012, 7:58 pm

I'll never understand the hatred for Lord of the Flies. It's one of the few non-fantasy, non-science fiction, non-historical fiction that I truly loved!

286tungsten_peerts
Jul 10, 2012, 4:29 pm

Steinbeck was forever ruined for me by my having to read The Pearl. I don't know ... I haven't gone back and tried it again -- perhaps I should give it another chance?

287amanda4242
Jul 10, 2012, 5:58 pm

Don't bother with Steinbeck. I've read 6 of his books and he doesn't improve.

288tungsten_peerts
Jul 10, 2012, 7:04 pm

>287 amanda4242: ... thanks for the tip!

289benuathanasia
Jul 10, 2012, 7:31 pm

To each his own, I guess. I thought Of Mice and Men was phenomenal.

290groovykinda
Jul 11, 2012, 3:18 pm

Cannery Row. Best place to start with Steinbeck. Though I began with The Grapes of Wrath, which blew me away.

291PennyDreadful4
Jul 20, 2012, 1:54 am

I found Steinbeck absolutely mind-numbing. Will not touch.

292varielle
Jul 26, 2012, 9:46 am

Travels with Charley was OK, but it's autobiographical about a vacation with his dog.

293tungsten_peerts
Jul 26, 2012, 11:15 am

I don't necessarily think it should be struck from any lists, and perhaps I just need to read it again, but when I think of the word "underwhelming," The Master and Margarita comes to mind.

I read it many years ago. If I recall correctly, my reaction to it was along the same lines as my reaction to the Harry Potter books: "so ... witches ... on broomsticks. Really?"

Perhaps I read a poor translation.

Perhaps I am making excuses!

Perhaps I should stop using the word "perhaps."

294Sandydog1
Jul 26, 2012, 8:58 pm

Perhaps you should read some early Soviet histories!

295tungsten_peerts
Jul 27, 2012, 7:46 am

> 294 ... perhaps I should! Please recommend some. :^)

296alco261
Editado: Set 27, 2012, 9:16 am

Mensagem removida pelo autor.

297Sandydog1
Jul 29, 2012, 11:21 am

>295 tungsten_peerts:

I'll answer a quesion with a question. Perhaps an annotated version of The Master and Margarita would be helpful as well. I recall reading a lot of annotations on various websites and blogs. 'Anyone have any suggestions for a heavily annotated translation?

MM is so full of symbols and references to daily Soviet life (lust for hard foreign currency, xenophobia, urban housing shortages), that you really have to work at it - Gawd forbid - STUDY IT - in order to enjoy it.

I guess I too appreciated MM but in keeping with this topic, I would not even had considered it for a High School reading list. To me, MM is almost as challenging as Ulysses or The Magic Mountain - further study is almost required. Animal Farm is much, much more straghtforward, and a good teacher can explain the Soviet themes much more readily.

When I was in High School I was probably still reading The Poky Little Puppy.

I did love parts of MM. I'm not a huge fan of magical realism, but who doesn't enjoy giant machine gun- toting cats and naked, flying witches?

Heck, Chex, back to your question. I don't know the difference between the Comintern and a Common Tern. As for background, I've read most of Everyday Stalinism and that is pretty good, and I've heard good things about The Soviet Tragedy.

298Sandydog1
Jul 29, 2012, 11:32 am

I just re-read this entire topic in all its wonderful 297-posts spendor and need to reiterate: (1) I've eventually enjoyed reading just about every book mentioned here, and (2) If I had to read any of these in High School (I'd read a couple), I would had rather gouged my eyes out.

How fortunate are those precocious High Schoolers who can find enjoyment from these titles!

...excluding of course, Ethan Frome :)

299tungsten_peerts
Editado: Jul 29, 2012, 2:58 pm

> 297. Thanks so much for the detailed answer! Much of MM obviously went flying -- on a broomstick or otherwise -- right past my admittedly thick skull. :^) I'd love to give it another chance, as I for one adore challenging material. As Aristotle said, "to learn gives the liveliest pleasure."

It appears Pevear/Volokhonsky have a translation out ... can anyone comment on that?

/GB

Everyday Stalinism looks great ...!

300groovykinda
Jul 29, 2012, 4:58 pm

>298 Sandydog1:
"Are you still, uh, you know, inflicting all that horrible Ethan Frome damage?" John Cusak, "Grosse Pointe Blank"

I remember listening to an audiobook of that, read by Richard "John Boy" Thomas, who did an excellent job.
After it was over, I thought: "That's a Night Gallery" episode!

301mlfhlibrarian
Jun 10, 2013, 3:27 pm

I had a very good English teacher in my first secondary school (HS), who chose Alison Uttley's The Country Child as our first book, which the whole class loved. She did however have a great love of Dickens and we had to plough through David Copperfield :(

Because I was a voracious reader, at my second school my teachers often let me read any book in the English dept store-room, so I read Tess of the Durbervilles and Lord of the Flies at least a year earlier than anyone else in my yeargroup.

In the UK, we have two sets of exams that pupils take, GCSEs at 16 and Alevels at 18. The reading lists for English Lit at both levels used to be very dominated by classic authors, but recently they have started to incorporate some modern authors such as Philip Pullman, Nick Hornby and Robert Harris.

There have been some horror stories in the press in the past few years where the list has changed but teachers haven't realised and they've continued to teach the text they've always taught, only to find a few weeks before the exam that it's not on the list...and the poor kids have had to study another text in a hurry in order to be able to answer questions in the exam!

One thing that strikes me from reading the posts in this thread is the lack of communication between teaching staff...having to read a book several years in succession would have driven me mad.

302benuathanasia
Editado: Jun 11, 2013, 11:13 am

@301
I read an interesting story/anecdote about re-reading material.
I can't remember the author, but she mentioned how her daughter had to read How to Kill a Mockingbird in eighth grade...then again in ninth grade...then they moved and she had to read it in tenth grade. Each time the daughter read it, she read it in a different way. When she read it in tenth grade, she was convinced that the version she read in eighth grade was abridged in some way because she hadn't been emotionally/developmentally mature enough to understand it the way she did as a tenth grader.

Teachers often stress the importance of re-reading passages to better understand the material. How much more applicable could this possibly be to books? How many of us have read a book at one point in our lives only to pick it up at another point later on and appreciate it in a whole new light?

303mlfhlibrarian
Jun 11, 2013, 4:02 pm

302,
That may be true of some teens, but as we know kids don't all mature at the same rate. I would have thought to gain more insight into a book you'd need a longer gap, say about five years; depending on the book, you'd also need to have experienced more of life to get the most out of it. I first read Wuthering Heights when I was 10, I didn't really understand the relationships between the characters but even at that age I was fascinated by the intensity and passion of the writing. I don't think I really understood it until I was in my late teens/early twenties. Mockingbird has some very powerful scenes in it, and I suspect not every teen who reads it in class will understand the material in depth, even if they've studied it at length.

BTW, how long, on average, are books usually studied in HS? In England, ages 11-14 would probably spend about half a term on a book (about 5-6 weeks) whereas if they are doing a book for GCSE they'd likely spend at least a term, with revision sessions just before they take the exam.

304benuathanasia
Jun 12, 2013, 9:38 am

While all kids don't mature at the same rate, the rate of maturation/mental change during that time of a child's life (middle school/high school) is remarkable; it's like the physical growth babies undergo in their first few years.

I myself had the following timeline:
sixth grade - precocious people-pleaser
seventh grader - shy outcast
eighth grade - manic depressive with high/low spurts of social activity
ninth grade - "f*** the man" rebellious attitude/"you wanna start something b*tch?" attitude
tenth grade - "Let's start a diversity club at our school!!!"
eleventh grade - "Is it alright if I hand my homework in early so I can do volunteer work this weekend?"
twelfth grade - "LOL, screw this sh*t. I've already been accepted into my top college choice, why the h*ll should I do anything you say?"
freshman - back to manic depressive with high/low spurts of social activity

I teach high school and I see many of my students progressing the same way (though not on the same path, of course). One of my students, over the course of this year (his freshman year) has gone from shy mouse, to antagonistic victim (he'd start crap with people intentionally to get sympathy), to class clown, to class bully. If your personality (the essence of your being) can change so drastically in so short a time, I refuse to believe your cognitive development isn't progressing in much the same way.

As for how long it takes to teach a book:
Depends on the book
Depends on the class
Depends on the teacher
Depends on the objectives/goals

My class did The Outsiders in eight weeks this year because we were examining the concept of heroes/antiheroes/bystanders and personal choices (and how they affect our lives).
We did A Christmas Carol in two weeks because we were just looking at symbols/imagery/figures of speech/tone/theme (SIFTT). This was for EL (English Learner) sophomores.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I took an AP lit course where, over the course of the year, we did God of Small Things, The Great Gatsby, Abe, a biography of Woody Guthrie by his son Arlo, and two other books I cannot remember. And we were only in this class for three weeks out of six because it was a vocational technical school.

305cappybear
Jul 22, 2013, 7:30 pm

I have tried to read Tristram Shandy twice - enough already.

306MarthaJeanne
Ago 12, 2014, 11:36 am

I have not reopened any of the books I read for High school except for Shakespeare. Some of them were just plain awful. (All I remember about Catcher in the Rye is that if they cut out the bad language the book would have fallen into millions of pieces.) Any that I might have otherwise enjoyed were killed by the process of being told to read them in much too short bits, not supposed to read all the way through, and then torn apart in the discussions.

307Tess_W
Ago 12, 2014, 11:51 am

Fell in love with The Scarlett Letter in high school and it is one of my top ten favorites of all time!

I would vote to give The Red Badge of Courage the old heave-ho!

308MmeRose
Jan 19, 2015, 10:29 pm

306 MarthaJeanne "the process of being told to read them in much too short bits, not supposed to read all the way through"

This was torture, pure and simple. Reading one or two chapters a week and not allowed to read ahead (although I did anyway), then discussing that chapter ad nauseam the following week. Some kids forgot the beginning of the book before we got to the end! I always thought the process was equally bad for the advanced readers and the slow readers.