I went to a public school, I remember reading a little bit of Shakespere, I remember Beowolf, I remember the Odyssey. I didn't take advanced classes in school, didn't even like to read but now I love to read, and since college I've read a lot of the great literary works and I think thats where its really at. I don't think kids and teens are reading books that will really challenge them to view the world their living in. What do you think? What kinds of books did you read in school? Do you think the stuff people are reading these days really challenges our ideas about life, society, happiness?
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Your right they don't read challenging things in school anymore. I'm currently a senior in my undergraduate and people at my public school just didn't read. We read excerpts of things. We never read the whole book.
We need to read the books that are involved in the great conversation and modern literature in schools.
The problem is, Shakespeare, Beowulf, Odyssey, etc. are not "good" in the sense that some of us would like to believe. They're classics, sure, but who decided for them to be classics and--therefore--on ever future student's must-read list? I will now humbly refer you to this page: http://www.progressiveu.org/222003-the-eerie-paradigm-shifts-in-literature-or-the-future-of-false-sophistiction
I thought the author made a good point.
At my school, we still read Shakespeare and Homer, among the other classics, but we hardly ever delve into literature that challenges our way of looking at life, such as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair or the Communist Manifesto. One must do this as outside reading on personal time.
Another tragedy is the fact that though classics may be taught, many students refuse to read them and cheat with SparkNotes and such. With television and the Internet, who has time for reading anymore?
We read the typical Shakespearian classics, The Odyssey and Beowulf...we also read the following, but I was in accelerated English and then took AP my senior year...Some of these are honestly beyond a high school student's perspective or desire...You would probably get more out of some of these reading them later in life-choosing to read them. But others were definately good reads.
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
The Color of Water by James McBride
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
1984 by George Orwell
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Their Eyes Where Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller
The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams
We also did some excerpts from Johnathan Swift, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickenson...and thats all I can remember now in my second year of college...For our senior project we got to chose a work or an author and I did mine on the The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. This is a very interesting poetic work. I think our accelerated English program was very comprehensive, hopefully schools can continue to do this.
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We also read the basics at school, but a lot of them were too easy without any interesting discussion. I feel like the good books (yes, lots of classics oddly enough) I read were all outside of school. Tastes are so different that so much is risked when everyone has to read the same book and don't have the opportunity to discuss and understand the concepts being read. I much prefer when they allow you to pick your own book and then present why it was interesting and good literature to the class. And advance class thing only at my school, but I think it provides the opportunity to let everyone explore their own tastes and adventures.
Think about it...
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tomorrowtoday