Books you read in school

[I'm Team Bayley and Indi]

Jan 16, 2016 0:41:25 GMT -5 Jiren said:

Jan 15, 2016 20:00:24 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Ha, You too

I remember

- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
- Macbeth
- Romeo & Juliet
- An Inspector Calls
- Sherlock Holmes (Red Headed League I think)

We did almost exactly the same at our school, Sherlock Holmes was Speckled Band though

[lildude8218]

There was a book I read in the 5th grade that I always remembered for some reason but never remembered the title. It was about a kid and his younger brother living in New York during the Great Depression. I think his parents died or something and they went and lived in an abandoned building or something and then the kid went and got a job even though he was really young. It was one of those books we read as a group during class and I can't even remember if we finished the damn thing.

[DiBiase is Good]

Twelfth Night
The Canterbury Tales (Franklin's Tale, specifically)
The Fox (D H Lawrence)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Wuthering Heights
Talking Heads
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Walkabout
Animal Farm
Collection of Keats poetry (dreary shite. Even my Teacher apologised for us having to study it. Our class drew the short straw and got Keats, the other class got Shelley)
Roman de la Rose

[Manute Bol]

Here's a list from a different perspective. I teach high school English and here's stuff my students have read in my class. These are for various grade levels (9-12) as well as some for specialized classes (ESL, ESD, inclusion classrooms, etc):

NOVELS

1. Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street (1984); Mexican-American
2. Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games (2008)
3. Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003); British
4. S.E. Hinton The Outsiders (1967)
5. Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon (1966)
6. Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
7. Yann Martel Life of Pi (2001); Canadian
8. Vladimir Nabokov Lolita (1955); Russian
9. George Orwell 1984 (1949); British
10. George Orwell Animal Farm (1945); British
11. J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
12. John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men (1937)
13. Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club (1989); Chinese-American
14. Paul Zindel The Pigman (1968)

PLAYS

15. Arthur Miller The Crucible (1953)
16. Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman (1949)
17. Reginald Rose Twelve Angry Men (1954)
18. William Shakespeare Macbeth (1623); British
19. August Wilson Fences (1987)

MEMOIRS

20. Dave Pelzer A Child Called “It” (1995)

NON-FICTION

21. H.G. Bissinger Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990)

SHORT STORIES

22. Edgar Allan Poe “The Black Cat” (1843)
23. Edgar Allan Poe “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846)
24. Edgar Allan Poe “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843)

POEMS

25. Billy Collins “Reader” (2015)
26. Christopher Marlowe “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (1599); British
27. Edgar Allan Poe “Annabel Lee” (1849)
28. Edgar Allan Poe “The Raven” (1845)
29. Walter Raleigh “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (1596); British
30. William Carlos Williams “Raleigh Was Right” (1944)

ESSAYS

31. Elbert Hubbard “A Message to Garcia” (1899)

[MiLB Fan]

Assigned books that I can remember:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Animal Farm
A Separate Peace
Lord of the Flies
The Wave
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Woman at Point Zero
Othello
A Streetcar Named Desire
Fences
Fahrenheit 451
Survival in Auschwitz
Romeo & Juliet
The Stone Angel
Things Fall Apart
Raisin in the Sun
The Color Purple
The Joy Luck Club
Native Son
Siddhartha

Of course, I did plenty of reading on my own. I always got super-excited when a package from Troll Book Club arrived, or a book fair came to school. In sixth-grade reading class, we had to read several books during the year and do a project on each. But here's the twist: the books were completely up to us as long as they were at least 200 pages in length. I remember reading a Mortal Kombat novelization (yes, really. I shit you not!), Treasure Island, Indian in the Cupboard, Congo, and The Toilet Paper Tigers.

[eDemento2099]

I remember reading a ton of books, especially since I misspent the first two years of university as a literature major (I say 'misspent' because I switched programs, and none of the material I read was directly related to any of the work I did in university or outside of it.)

Outside of Shakespearean works (Romeo & Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Hamlet), the only noteworthy books that I read in mandatory schools (primary school and high school) were J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

I think both books are overrated and nothing too special, but it's noteworthy that my peers and I were required to read them, given the fact that the books were banned in many places. Rye was banned because its protagonist seeks out the services of a prostitute at one point in the plot. The book is hardly candid or explicit, but that kind of content was enough to get it banned in many places. Mockingbird was banned because it highlights racial prejudice in the American south.

I envy students who studied Orwell as part of their curriculum. (Reading his works on my own time were some of the best investments I ever made.)

[Sam Punk]

The Trial

[eDemento2099]

Jan 16, 2016 15:37:12 GMT -5 Manute Bol said:

Paul Zindel The Pigman (1968)

Hey, I read that one in school as well! I enjoyed the book, and it was instrumental in helping me taking reading and writing as seriously as I did, but I don't recall any profoundly meaningful life lessons from the book. Do you have a different view toward it?

Also, would you mind sharing where you presently teach? (We can go the PM route if you like)

[SeVeN: #TheBadGuy.]

We read To kill a mockingbird and Caesar in 11th grade. By we I mean Me. My whole class either read aloud like robots or were to cool to participate, so I pretty much read both to the class. It was odd reading Caesar and Brutus' parts.

[Deleted]

Jan 16, 2016 15:26:55 GMT -5 lildude8218 said:

There was a book I read in the 5th grade that I always remembered for some reason but never remembered the title. It was about a kid and his younger brother living in New York during the Great Depression. I think his parents died or something and they went and lived in an abandoned building or something and then the kid went and got a job even though he was really young. It was one of those books we read as a group during class and I can't even remember if we finished the damn thing.

I was gonna say From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (another book I read), but it really doesn't match up now that I remember more of it.

There was another book I can recall but don't remember. It was about a girl in Japan who wanted to make a thousand paper cranes during WW2. Anyone know this one?

[CMWaters]

The only ones I remember for sure reading in school were the series of The Boxcar Children books.