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/lit/ - Literature

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3197749 No.3197749 [Reply] [Original]

If you had control of the literature read in high school, what would you assign?

>> No.3197779

also, why?

>> No.3197804

If they were seniors I would make them read The Bell Jar.

I would make them read it to learn that the world is not all about scholarships, school, and prize and having the "college experience" is not the most important thing in the world. And yet twist it into why you shouldn't kill yourself or feel isolated because there are many people that feel like them, such as myself.

>> No.3197807

I'd go through each era and choose the book that impacted that decade or century the most, and not go by what was most popular.

>> No.3197862

No Woman Warrior or Edith Wharton, I can tell you that.

>> No.3197885

>>3197807
I disagree I would say that some of the most popular books taught are the most influential. This, in my opinion is true in the case of Huckleberry Finn.

>> No.3197924

I'd definitely make seniors read Gulliver's Travels.

>> No.3197934

>>3197749
Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass. Warmth and wisdom from a man who's lived an amazing life. Helped me to get over myself when I read it soon after high school.

>> No.3197939

The Time Machine
Kidnapped
Flowers for Algernon
Frankenstein
Ivanhoe
The Three Musketeers
Anything by Frank L. Baum
David Copperfield

Not because of any cultural significance, but because these are some of my favorites.

>> No.3197969

The Communist Manifesto
Howl's Moving Castle
Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
WHAT EVERY BODY IS SAYING - An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People

I wonder how quickly I'd be fired.

>> No.3197976

There's nothing about the customary assigned reading that I'd push to change. Were I conferred with some hypothetical degree of omnipotence, however, then I would probably extinguish all Cliff's Notes & the like—but also change the nature of time, or just rebalance the overall high school curriculum, so that there is actually time to do the reading. During high school, it always seemed as though the only times I managed to do the honest thing & finish the assigned texts (which was always the goal; I generally enjoy reading), then I was reading basically all the time.

>> No.3197991

>>3197749
huck finn
crime & punshiment
the plague
the sound and the fury


most importantly, sometimes a great notion

>> No.3198023

>>3197969
i laughed at your post, but i also find it funny something like the communist manifesto would be considered so dangerous

i mean, if the goal of education is to help people understand history and the world, something like the communist manifesto would be required reading, along with adam smith or the magna carta. i think the fact that marx is still considered like radioactive material that needs special handling says something...

>> No.3198036

I've thought about this a lot. In the academies of ancient Greece you would read the Iliad and the Odyssey; in Japan they still study the Tale of Genji; in Islamic cultures one is typically taught to read through the Qur'an.

There's a huge amount of American literature that embodies classic American culture and values in the same way these do—but what would you consider the essential American canon? Something like >>3197991 ?

>> No.3198039

>>3197976
I think a college format would work well. Students choose classes and attend fewer, longer classes per day. Hopefully free up time for independent study and allow teachers to actually teach, rather than babysit. Also students could specialize/focus earlier in their education.

My school had an eight period day. I was also in band so I often spent 12 hours at school. It was frenetic and draining; I didn't have much left in me after graduation.

>> No.3198077

I'd probably make only the first year class be American and English literature. The remaining three years of literature classes would be world literature.

>> No.3198078

>>3198036
>There's a huge amount of American literature that embodies classic American culture and values in the same way these do—but what would you consider the essential American canon?

Leaves of Grass. It is America in book form.

>> No.3198180

Ausfag here - I don't think HS literature is a good place to pour everything into the head of young scholars.

However, I would include more the 'entry level' literature - The Stranger, Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, 1984, BNW, Clockwork Orange, Catch 22, Lord of the Flies, any Vonnegut... the list could go on.

Some of the simpler political and historical nonfiction - Utopia, Communist Manifesto, Bulfinch's Mythology - would also be included.

The most important change that I'd implement is the absolute stripping and removal of 'easy option' young-adult fiction bullshit from the curriculum. Until my very last year of schooling, we were given so many of these shitty YA-fic novels (about "serious issues" like the schizo kid or the autist kid or the carpal tunnel kid) that it crowded out real literature. The best thing we got in this sense was To Kill a Mockingbird, but our three-month-long study of it had nothing to do with the love of words and everything to do with toeing the social-justice line.

In the end, it helped to produce a class totally socialised into acceptance of modern social-justice issues but totally unable to connect with real literature, both because they (we) had no cultural touchstone for how literature should 'feel', and because when this tripe is held up as study-worthy literature then everyone will turn off involuntarily to anything labelled 'literature' in their future.

And who knows? Maybe we don't need to brainwash social justice into our youth if we can instead connect them, via real literature, with all the thoughts and feelings that comprise a genuine, shared humanity.

>> No.3198200

I don't have absolute control, but I do teach advanced 9th-12th grade students and these are the long works I teach off and on:
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
Much Ado About Nothing
Odyssey
Of Mice and Men
Frankenstein
Siddhartha
Demian
Macbeth
Oedipus Rex
Julius Caesar
Fahrenheit 451
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Scarlet Letter
Othello
Death of a Salesman
Raisin in the Sun
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
1984
Beowulf
Grendel
Canterbury Prologue
Hamlet
Gulliver's Travels
Candide
The Wasteland
Assorted Vonnegut

Good or bad, /lit/? Most of my students dislike Scarlet Letter each year but I loved it as a student. They like Hawthorne's shorts... considering switching to House of Seven Gables but dunno.

>> No.3198213

>>3197862
I'm curious about Warrior Woman. It was the subject of my English graduate exam, and despite all of the research I had to memorize for the exam, I really enjoyed the book. It is a darling for teaching a dozen different topics across subject areas though.

>> No.3200792

>>3198200
Drop Scarlet Letter for Finnegans Wake. Makes sure you have Infinite Jest in there, too.

>> No.3200801

I'd have a truckload of good books(I cannot be assed to list them) from where they could choose. I don't believe in forcing someone to read anything, that just ruins the meaning of literature

>> No.3200811

Interesting question. I hated having to read Scarlet Letter back im Gymnasium but if I was a teacher I would definitely assign it.
I had a teacher assign us Clockwork Orange in a Jesuit High School and thought, "Jesus, he must have brass ones" but now that I'm older I can see how the Jesuits would have been okay with the book.

>> No.3200815

"In Search of Lost Time"

Why?

See you in four years you little bastards.

>> No.3201692
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3201692

Whatever it is, it ought be read aloud.

>> No.3201699

>>3197804
such a noble lesson, monsieur, to impart to youth. the 'why you shouldn't kill yourself' approach is so tactful.

>> No.3201812

>>3197991

Sometimes a Great Notion! Yes! Doubly yes! My all time favorite novel and Kesey is one of my top 5 favorite writers. Though I know that none of the people that were in my honors English class in high school would have been able to understand such a great novel, nor would they have the motivation to read anything over 200 pages. This is actually all probably true even now, and I graduated in 09'.

>> No.3202486
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3202486

I would only give them books that young people can enjoy without deeper meaning. They can read Battle Royale and Metro 2033 for all I care.

Because this might get some more kids into reading if they get to read about something they like. If you tell a 15 year old to read something deep a few will get it but they would probably have read those books anyway. And then you have the rest of the class who starts to dislike reading because they simply can understand what they are assigned. And in reality most of them probably won't even read or finish the book and therefor will learn less then in they read a "easy-fun-to-read-braindead-book"

>> No.3202490

>>3200815
>four year
Not reading it every day for 3 weeks.

>> No.3202496

>>3198023
red scare

>> No.3202498

>>3202496
Are people still afraid of that?

>> No.3202499

100 Days of Sodom, Lolita, The Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Gates of Perception and the Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh.

>> No.3202500

>>3201812
Sometimes a great notion is perfect for high schoolers. It would make them realize (as it did for me) tht everyone is a living, feeling, thinking human being just like you

>> No.3202516

>>3202498
the government not so much, as the USSR fell apart so our only real competitor is China, which is only communist nominally

the people have just been somewhat brainwashed, just look at the American Tea Party

so McCarthyism is, at the very least, just contained to a radical yet large faction of american "conservatism"

>> No.3202520

>>3202516
I would argue that Islam has replaced communism

>> No.3202527

>>3202520
except Iran isn't really a threat to American global domination the way the USSR was a threat to American global domination

>> No.3202528

>>3202520

No. I think Islam has replaced communism.

>> No.3202537

>>3202528
In terms of fear and hate, i would agree with you.

>> No.3202540

>>3202537
No man all the imams are totally preaching Marx these days

>> No.3202547

>>3202540
>Islamists
>preaching marx
err, no
Marxists were persecuted in Iran once the theocracy was set up

>> No.3202562

>>3197939
>Frank L. Baum
>L. Frank Baum

Pick one and only one.

>> No.3202563

Blasted by Sarah Kane

Gotta mentally scar dem kids.

>> No.3202587

finnegans wake

obviously