Well, I'm not quite sure where to begin. I guess I'll start with the whole English class thing. We as students are given all of these books that we have to read that are controversial, yet teachers think that they are so great. Plus, the intentions and lifestyles of some of these authors leave some people to wonder whether these authors were sound in their writing or left hidden images of their lives in their books. Virginia Wolfe, an author that we have read essays she has written, read a book, and watched a movie based on one of her books, is an example. She was considered unstable and ended up drowning herself. Candide, by Voltaire, has been put on the banned book list for libraries, yet we were forced to read it in school! And our teacher who had a sick mind, made sure that we understood every bit of what they were saying in it. I will never read another Willa Cather book in my life unless I am forced to. After reading two of Ayn Rand's books, I'm almost positive that she was out of her mind. Non conformist books make a reader read hundreds of pages only to see the point of her book in a few sentences at the end of the book. The Giver was just weird. They predestined everyone for their roles in life and killed anyone who was different. No wonder students don't like reading this stuff. Besides, if people read too much of this stuff, they might get depressed and do stuff like some of the authors who wrote these books. I'm not saying that people can't read these books or like them. All I'm saying is that students shouldn't be forced to read them just because a teacher or school district thinks the book or author is so great. The only books I have ever enjoyed reading that have been assigned for class are: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. At least in these books, I can relate to them in some way or another and they aren't boring once you get into them. Plus, their authors weren't suicidal.
This is what Students Read in High School?
By swimgirl - Posted on December 11th, 2006
I loved that book. It was so cool to me.
The opposite of war is not peace. It is Creation!
I never read any of the books that you've mentioned. In middle school our reading materials were Diary of Anne Frank, Hiroshima, and The Great Gatsby. In high school our reading materials consisted mainly of Lonesome Dove, Once and Future King, The Crucible, and 1984 (with a few other short ones thrown in there). I remember wishing we had been given more controversial books to read. So I find it rather funny that you got the controversial books to read and wishing you had less controversial books.
As far as the reasoning behind choosing books, perhaps you should ask why they are choosing them? If it is for a particular message, there might be other books that can better explain the same message; if it's purely for literary interpretation, though, then developing critical thought and intuition comes best with controversial books like those you've listed. I think it's more a matter of what they are trying to teach than how.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/fanaile-drupal-org
Almost wanted to cry.
The opposite of war is not peace. It is Creation!
I read somewhere that most of those books were originally written for college students. The college students who were so inspired by those books then became high school English teachers and decided to teach them to high school students. The tradition thus continues, even though most high school students have yet to develop an appreciation for the Great Literature.
"students shouldn't be forced to read them"
I wrote a few threads proposing this, and my ideas have never failed to be shot down. We still have a long way to go, dear.
After reading this blog, I suddenly comprehend the motivation for murder.
Huh?
I completely agree.
--Mike
I personally loved reading the books you mentioned. Because they are so controversial, they force you to think, and they provide for the most fascinating discussions. They raise important questions about the human condition and what drives people, and they shed light on issues that plague society.
Whereas for me, Narnia was boring because the concept and themes had been so overdone for me that it didn't seem to provide anything new.
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
It's a shame that High Scholl English teachers have to "force feed" books to the students. Not so long ago, students were eager to explore the world of literature and discover the workings of great minds.
Students now have no more desire than to check their cell phones and download the latest songs. Here's a clue--those are not the great minds that will influence the future generations.
Instead of treating these books as enemies, trying listening to the messages that are timeless.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the only one on your list that I've read for school is Pride and Prejudice. I know in 9th grade, we had to read Antigone, Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet, but all those are plays. The only book I remember reading is A Tale of Two Cities, which I thought was rather interesting, once you got past all the language of it. Tenth grade, we read a bunch of American Literature books, none of them I particularly liked, though I can't remember what they are now. Junior year, we had to read a couple books on our own, and I think I chose 1984 and Invisible Man. We also read Macbeth, I think. Maybe it was Hamlet. We read both eventually. Senior year was the craziest, with The Waste Land, The Stranger, and Death of a Salesman, plus one that I can't remember the name of.
Though I didn't necessarily enjoy (or finish reading) a number of the books in my English classes, I think they all taught something, even if it was just to experience a style of writing. That's my opinion, anyway.
~C
Visit my blog.
The mechanics of lecture and discussion based teaching demand a rigid curiculum. It is hard to talk about a book or essay that not everybody has read. It is kind of one of the downfalls of our teaching system. Maybe we should divide English classes up by what books people read from a longer list.
Most of those books were pretty cool. We read Camus in my class, and that is a strange book indeed, but they all make you think. Instead of touching on points in your life that you immediately recognize, like "Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" these books bring into a larger world of ideas. I personally liked "The Screwtape Letters" better than Lewis' other fiction works. Being introduced to ideas is important.
I actually hated "Tale of Two Cities" and Ayn Rand makes me want to eat the book so I don't have to read it anymore. But Voltaire is awsome, and Virginia Wolfe is delicious.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
I agree on your Ayn Rand comment, but I hated Voltaire. Candide was just too much with having to read it and listen to my perverted teacher's explanation of the book.
Are you sure that it was your teacher being perverted? There was a lot of blatantly sexual stuff in Candide....I think it was part of Voltaire's way of getting back at the organized Church and their repressive stances.
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
Unfortunately, yes. He pointed out every sexual point in Candide to us, described all of them in detail in the Taming of the Shrew, and even found content in a Tale of Two Cities that he could talk about in regard to that. Some of the stuff we read in class that year was okay, but my teacher ruined it with his teaching.
Sex is a fact of life, I suggest you get used to it, and your teacher would be remiss in his duties if he didn't make sure the class understood the books you were reading.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
but isn't that a requirment for a good artist and writer?
On another note, I do not know how you all remembered what you read in high school.
I was introduced to Virginia W. last semester, and although a nut case I think she was a good writer and intresting person.
Oh and dont forget Mary Sheely.
all truths are easy to understand once discovered; the point is to discover them ~galileo
Oh yes, can't forget Mary Shelly....She was so awesome!
(I read Frankenstein like twice through when we were assigned it and it quickly became one of my absolute favorites...)
And I know some folks have mentioned Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible)....He can really be added to the "controversial writers" list too...
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
Like it or not, they are here to stay. These "acheivment test" are the things ruining education. Teachers no longer have power, school boards have no power, or parents no longer have the power to teach what they want to teach to their kids. With parents, I am referring to Home School. All live under the thumb of state and natinal government. People behind a desk with no education experience, decide what teachers should teach. Teachers, if you ask them, wll probably say that they hate teaching those books, about as much as you having to read them. Books we read have no life purpose, and no holding on our future. But we no longer have power to taught what we want, we must be taught what the state says is right. God Bless the day when schools start asking the students and teachers what they need to be taught. But until then, test will be taught, because teachers and schools no longer have freedom of will.
The point of reading such books is to open your mind to new ideas, you dont have to accept them but at least be willing to look a them. Besides, if you only read what you related to you would never grow as a person and miss the thought invoking, inspiring ideas of authors.. or atleast you wouldn't know what you dont like which is just as bad.
As to the backgrounds of authors, they need not matter unless you want an idea of why they think the way they do. I mean dose a valid argument become any less valid when said by a crazy man as by a educated one?
"Two eyes see eachother, then look away." K.G.R.
I think understanding the background of the author is important to understanding why they wrote the book. Mary Shelly is a good example. (Frankenstein is possibly one of my favorite horror books.) She had several children die and you can see where that is brought into the story. It also influences their ideas. Although you are correct that it should not matter when deciding whether or not to disregard an idea or piece of work.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
Being a homeschooler myself, I can't say I've had much experience with standardized tests outside of the SATs and a couple of elementary level ones. But I can say that standardized tests are stupid. They limit what teachers can teach, and it essentially dumbs the kids down. It doesn't let them explore the deeper meaning in a lot of books, and if you have the wrong teacher, you often explore the wrong meaning. The few standardized tests I've taken are way easy for me, because I am taught by people who are not limited. However, having taken all English classes that are majorly focused on literature, I do somewhat agree with the original point that some of these authors were really messed up. And I'm a reader, outside of schoolwork. I devoure books similar to the ones I read for school daily. Though I haven't read most of the books mentioned, I did have American lit last year and I loathed most of the books. A good amount of them were either written by authors who were either seriously messed up in their thinking (Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had good points, but also enough weird things to make you think "what was this guy on?"), depressed druggies (Poe, who mentions opium at least once in almost all of his works, and the ones where he doesn't are disturbing anyways), or just plain depressed people (Ambrose Bierce, nicknamed "Bitter Bierce" as our handy little intro so kindly informed us, before we even started reading him). Just reading those, and a few select others got me the closest to organizing a book burning that I've ever been. The ones that weren't that morbid or freaky were a breath of fresh air. During that class, and other lit classes, I have read much Shakespeare (which range from tolerable to very good, with the exception of Othello), Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, Nathanial Hawthorne, Johnathan Swift (old English satire... very interesting, except for the bit about killing babies), Homer, books on Greek and Roman Mythology, and various biographies of famous people (Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, George Washington Carver, etc.). All of them have eventually had some purpose, no matter how annoying or boring or morbid they are. So while I sympathize as a fellow high school student (A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Predjudice and Frankenstein are in my immediate future along with more Shakespeare), I think there is a point to reading it all. It may be hard to see, but its there. Unfortunately. If there wasn't a point, I'd be right there with you protesting.
As for Narnia books, those are some of my absolute favorite books in the whole entire world. They are very much children's books, so I can see why someone might be tired of them being taught in high school. But if you just read them for the sake of reading, they're really good. I read them first when I was 7 or 8, and I still enjoy reading them now that I'm a senior in high school.
Pride and Prejudice got a bit boring in the beginning, but after a while it was okay. You're right about Emerson and Poe. I have the same thoughts about Thoreau. My classmates hated reading them so much that they started calling them Ralph Wierdo Emerson and Henry David Throw-up. Additionally, I loved reading when I was small, but now that I have to read all of these other books that I don't like or want to read, I don't read for pleasure any more.
Look, I'm fine with the fact that many people here seem to like happy go lucky, whatever books, but please, show a little respect to truly great authors. Poe's real life matters as much as a flea bite when reading and considering his works, he's was practicaly the inventor of modern horror, of course his works might disturb a little, they're meant to!
If you have an aversion to angst , or mood, or deppression fine, but don't let the life of an author inturrupt what you think of an author's work.
"Two eyes see eachother, then look away." K.G.R.
I like chronicles of narnia and pride and prejudice. Those are indeed good books. As for the crazy authors, I sometimes have doubts about. They can make other people depressed with their stories. Poe wrote about death all the time.I didn't like the Giver either.
I've been so busy with finals, swimming, diving, and the start of second semester that I haven't been on in a long time. Anyone have any thoughts on the book Song of Solomon (not the Biblical book)? It's by Tony Morrison. I'm about halfway done right now and it is really confusing with its jumping around all the time.
I hated that book and could only get about 1/3 of the way through before I couldn't take it anymore.
~C
Visit my blog.
We just got the book a few days ago and my class hasn't talked about it much. I'm at the part where Hagar tries to kill Milkman with a butcher knife if that helps.
I've been so busy with finals, swimming, diving, and the start of second semester that I haven't been on in a long time. Anyone have any thoughts on the book Song of Solomon (not the Biblical book)? It's by Tony Morrison. I'm about halfway done right now and it is really confusing with its jumping around all the time.
I slightly disagree. I do believe that maybe students should not be forced to read books they fell uncomfortable reading. However, we need to have an open mind. I just recently read The Giver, and really enjoyed it. The fact is that in the future something like that could really happen by reading about it, maybe we could stop it from happening. We need to not just read the things that are so realistic. And in my opinion banning books is ridiculous. My school gives us the opportunity to read banned books, although you do not have to. Most books were banned because they were out of control for the time that they were written. Today, a lot more is acceptable.
Danielle
I wish we could opt out of reading a book. Candide was way too controversial for me.
Life is full of controversies. Get over it--if you cant handle it in a book, the real world will be absolute hellf or you.
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
It wasn't the controversy that bugged me in Candide, I just felt like all the controversial stuff didn't serve a point except to offend. I understand what an earlier poster said about it challenging the church, but I felt it was pretty pointless. Also, I didn't think it was well-written and it was longer than it needed to be and the main character was an idiot.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
I had problems picking out of that whole chunk, but I actually read "The Giver" in 5th grade elementary school, not high school.
A lot of the books that I read in high school were really interesting. Suicide is a part of life -- so as killing, depression, happiness, etcetera. Only having "happy" books kind of seems... maybe, elementary-school-ish? Teenagers aren't blind to the real world. :)
I absolutely love to read, but I know what you mean about forcing students to read books though. That bugs me too. And inmy opinion, books shouldn't be banned to begin with. There have been way too many bannings in our world lately. Just as we shouldn't be forced to read books we don't want to, we shouldn't be prevented from reading books that we do want to read. Who is anyone to tell us that we can't read a book? I think I should be able to make my own decisions about what books to read and which ones not to read. No one else should be making those decisions for me. After all, books tend to have a large influences on people.
Wow, I actually loved all the books you said you hated.
What's wrong with controversy? What's wrong with depression? With that powerful of emotion, of course you're bound to create something. Virginia Wolf was amazing, and how she died has no negative impact on the greatness of her books.
Why would anyone want to read a book that they 100% agree with and can relate to. What do you learn? What new perspective can you possibly see? Books are supposed to show you a new world, put you in situations you wouldn't normally find yourself in, make you feel and other such things.
I wish I had your English teacher, we didn't read anything that amazing, I had to read those books on my own time.
And also, the chronicles of narnia was awful. I read that in elementary school and early middle school, definitely way too easy for high schoolers.