Hey, /lit/. Newly qualified English teacher here. I've accepted a post at a high school and, incredibly, they've allowed me to pick my own texts for the students to study. I can pick 3 books, one for each term (semester). Which should I pick?

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Anonymous Wed May 4 05:07:39 2016 No.7997600 [Reply] [Original]

Hey, /lit/. Newly qualified English teacher here.

I've accepted a post at a high school and, incredibly, they've allowed me to pick my own texts for the students to study.

I can pick 3 books, one for each term (semester). Which should I pick?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:08:39 2016 No.7997603 The Recognitions Men and Women The Tunnel

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:19:16 2016 No.7997624 >>7997600 Frankenstein (Shelley) Lord of the Flies (Golding) The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:20:57 2016 No.7997627 >>7997600 Make sure you get 1984 in there so we can stop these socialism is good meme

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:34:35 2016 No.7997660 >>7997600 Notes from Underground - Dostoyevsky Ficciones - Borges Les Enfants Terribles - Cocteau

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:36:35 2016 No.7997663 >>7997627 i can't decide if this is b8 or you genuinely know nothing about Orwell well played, i suppose

Anonymous Wed May 4 05:55:55 2016 No.7997694

>>7997600
What year are you teaching? You have to keep in mind you will be literally trying to teach kids who can't read. Also try your hardest to not make reading books so unenjoyable that most kids literally skip English class, I love reading, loathed English class, nearly compleltly put me off literature all together

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:57:55 2016 No.7997698 Nineteen-eighty-four - Orwell Dubliners - Joyce Candide - Voltaire Nothing hard or long. I'd put 1984 in the middle,since that is the longest. I would start with Dubliners,and end with Candide r8?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 05:58:03 2016 No.7997699 Where you at? Gotta read the little niggas something from their country.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:00:19 2016 No.7997708 i would pick something from these Edgar Allan Poe Villiers de l'Isle-Adam Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:04:08 2016 No.7997717 File: 123 KB, 494x499, 1449131567970.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997698 >Candide - Voltaire This isn't a novel, it's an incoherent track.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:08:59 2016 No.7997727 >>7997717 yeah idk who the fuck ever thought candide was a worthwhile read

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:09:24 2016 No.7997729

>>7997698
Terrible, I'm sorry. These kids won't be able to point out on Ireland on a map, let alone able to recognise or fathom the themes relating to Irish nationalism and class divide

1984 is taught in advanced in Australia for a reason, too much going on for most of the kids

This bloke should get them to watch a movie instead of read a book and get them to wrote about the the themes and dramatic techniques

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:12:33 2016 No.7997738 >>7997729 >Highschoolers >Can't read a book >Can't point out fucking Ireland on the map In what nation/country has he decided to become a teacher?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:14:50 2016 No.7997745 >>7997738 I'm American.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:14:57 2016 No.7997747 >>7997727 >>7997717 I'm reading it right now,and it's not incoherent at all. It goes really fast with the story,and it's as simple as a straight line,I give you that,but it still forms a coherent whole so far.

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:18:17 2016 No.7997754

>>7997738
I finished high school about 3 years ago so I'm probably more in touch than you are. I can gurantee less then half of the students would be able to point out Ireland on a map and you would be Lucky to find one who knows about its independence movement. Maybe one or two kids in the class won't be able to read very well, if not at all. Dubliners being easy to read is a meme anyway, he spouts a lot of drivel about an uninteresting dreary town

I work with many 16 year olds and you are severely overestimating their literary ability. About half of them won't even read the book you give them

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:24:27 2016 No.7997767

>>7997754
but why?
How can you not point something as significant as Ireland on a map?
I'm not talking about Burma or Nepal,but a fucking country in Europe.

>Not being to able to read very well
>In Highschool
What is going on with the education in the US?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:25:16 2016 No.7997770 >>7997767 Ireland is completely irrelevant, as is most of Europe. Majority of Americans will never even visit that continent in their life.

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:29:27 2016 No.7997786

>>7997767
I'm Australian bruh

Trust me, with the exception of people with Irish grandparents maybe 1% of 16 year olds could point Ireland out on a map or tell you it's capital city

There are a substansial amount of 16 year olds I work with who can hardly form a coherent sentence

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:33:44 2016 No.7997795

>>7997747
It's more than straightforward, it's shallow. Voltaire has no literary value whatsoever, and his insights are about as deep as you would find in a Jeremy Clarkson column. The only reason he's recognised is that a few British toffs found him funny when he ran off to London because the French were being too idealistic and proactive for his tastes.

>>7997786
Leave Redfern.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:35:57 2016 No.7997800 >>7997795 Wollongong cuzzy

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:39:44 2016 No.7997807 >>7997770 But it's basic fucking knowledge. >>7997786 what turns people stupid?

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:41:45 2016 No.7997810

>>7997600
Portrait of a young man as an artist by Joyce
The Man Who was Thursday by Chesterton
Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
All 3 are short and beautiful and won't turn them into plebs who think they are masters of literature because they read Orwell and Fitzgerald in high school.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:41:56 2016 No.7997811 File: 53 KB, 258x235, 1459845726180.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997807 >But it's basic knowledge Not really. Most people probably can't point to Ireland without help. You assume everyone knows what you do.

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:42:57 2016 No.7997814

>>7997807
Low intellect combined with a lack of desire to learn things. Without a desire or an interest to learn and a low level of intellect making learning things more difficult then it is to everyone else people get left behind, they never develop the base skills in reading, writing, math smd language to do anything to serious with their lives

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:43:03 2016 No.7997815 >>7997811 Is it that much to ask?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:44:45 2016 No.7997817 >>7997815 Yes, considering about 1% of the population will have fetal alcohol syndrome, another maybe 2% will abuse drugs and another 2% will have learning disabilities.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:45:19 2016 No.7997819 >>7997815 When was the last time you met a working class person? Knowing where Ireland is doesn't pay the bills so most people have no reason to know it.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:48:01 2016 No.7997822 >>7997819 Isn't there a mandatory geography class in the elementary schools of Australia/The USA?

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:49:28 2016 No.7997827

>>7997822
Yes, but that is for continents. Also people don't remember stuff that isn't useful for them. They might know stuff that you don't. What they need to know and remember is different than what you do. Also remember that OP asked about high school students.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:49:56 2016 No.7997830 >>7997800 Can't complain about the Gong m809.

Anonymous Wed May 4 06:50:45 2016 No.7997833

>>7997754
>I work with many 16 year olds and you are severely overestimating their literary ability. About half of them won't even read the book you give them

ITT: shitty public education @ anglophone countries

Why don't you guys try stimulating their developing brains for once, and not defeatistically make them feel stupid instead of teaching them that struggling with intellectually demanding material is normal, and even desirable.

I'm sure they would develop a much bigger """"level of intellect"""" (you do know their minds are still developing, just to check?), and a much bigger passion for learning things

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:53:33 2016 No.7997840 File: 12 KB, 469x463, 1462177629273.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997833 Everything about this post says snooty, European fedora.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:54:02 2016 No.7997841 >>7997600 I'd recommend the Crucible. Fairly easy read, it's what go me into plays in highschool plus the themes are pretty spelt out so you have that to work with.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:54:52 2016 No.7997843 File: 67 KB, 680x1020, 1462205468770.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997827 >Just for continents seriously? 8 years in the elementary school and you don't even learn the countries? What is the point then?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:55:46 2016 No.7997846 >>7997843 You realize there are over 200 countries? The average person doesn't want to memorize all that.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:57:07 2016 No.7997851 >>7997843 >australian education >be ausfag >tfw have met several adult australians who thought africa was a country

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:57:29 2016 No.7997853 >>7997846 Yes. But learning at least the western countries + the important ones isn't that hard.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 06:57:42 2016 No.7997854 >>7997846 Just sit them on /int/ and make them fill in a map with all the flags. But yeah the average person is awful, I can't believe we let these people vote. I can remember high school English with painful memories.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:00:24 2016 No.7997863

>>7997600
Brave new world, then pretend to be interested in what they think is more important between freedom and happinesz. This will spark a healthy discussion most of time and will make them feel smart.
Lolita. Because sex. There's none in the book but some might read it in the hope that there is.
Bukovsky. Because lol alcohol lol pussy lol i'm so sad. Works a charm with teenagers.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:01:12 2016 No.7997865

>>7997853
The average person probably does learn about both continents and countries in class but they don't retain it. I don't think you talk to a lot of working class people. Keep in mind that genre fiction fans are more intelligent and well read than most people.
>>7997854
>/int/
They would remember India as poo land and Canada as weed land.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:01:38 2016 No.7997866 >>7997830 Dapto though

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:02:52 2016 No.7997870 >>7997841 Also, Lord of Flies and maybe a movie like psycho just to mix things up a little. Alternatively, you could study rap lyrics as poetry, maybe that'll get the kids involved.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:03:06 2016 No.7997871 >thread consists of people calling out a whole country as stupid for not being able to point out ireland on a map what fedora tipping m80s

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:05:09 2016 No.7997875

>>7997871
Are you serious? It's actually fucking pathetic. High schoolers. I cannot imagine a Swiss highschooler that couldn't point out say Alaska (and I'd argue Alaska is of less relevance to us than Ireland to them) on a map.
>le fedora dib mene xDDDD
Pathetic.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:07:23 2016 No.7997881

>>7997624
woah these actually wouldn't be bad for highschool students
>>7997729
>1984 is taught in advanced in Australia for a reason, too much going on for most of the kids
hahah what cunt. I was never in 'advanced' English and heaps of my classmates had read 1984. We were never taught it though. The curriculum is pretty retarded.
>>7997810
Portrait would be ideal for hischool. When I read it at 17 it was pretty #relatable

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:08:27 2016 No.7997883 >>7997871 Highschoolers struggling with books isn't normal. Not knowing basic geography,isn't normal. And not knowing it after you have recieved a "First World" education? Disgusting

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:10:25 2016 No.7997887 >>7997883 >struggling with books isn't normal I guess you just buzz right through Finnegans wake.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:11:36 2016 No.7997890 >>7997883 >Highschoolers struggling with books isn't normal. >Not knowing basic geography,isn't normal. i bet you're not ausfag

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:13:20 2016 No.7997894 >>7997887 I guess you have problems with 1984. You shouldn't have problem reading a basic book that is just a highschool material.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:13:47 2016 No.7997895 >>7997717 It's a picaresque what are you on about? It's only slightly faster paced than Gullivers Travels or Robinson Crusoe

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:14:28 2016 No.7997898

>>7997840
>be teacher in America
>it's literally below my level to even attempt to teach these fetal alcohol syndrome working class students they're so dumb
>I come on an international image board to lament
>a non-american makes a great point that I'm actually at fault for this because I'm not doing a very good job
>obviously can't make a counter-argument because he's right
>WAIT--- holy shit, I don't *have* to explain why I think I'm right -- I'm a T E A C H E R -- I'll just make a snotty remark and try to make him feel unintelligent for even attempting to argue with me
>wentbetterthanexpected.jpg

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:14:46 2016 No.7997899 >>7997894 And? That still doesn't mean they'll get every single book.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:16:30 2016 No.7997905 >>7997600 The Picture of Dorian Grey Hamlet A Farewell To Arms

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:17:07 2016 No.7997908 >>7997898 You didn't make any points. You rambled on about how shitty Anglophobe countries are. You do realize that Europe isn't really relevant on other continents? Your country knows geography from surrounding countries but that isn't relevant here.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:17:45 2016 No.7997909 >>7997899 Being so stupid that you struggel with 1984 or the fucking Great Gatsby means you are not the type of person that should go for a higher education.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:19:24 2016 No.7997915 >>7997909 Snob detected.

>>	OP Wed May 4 07:21:06 2016 No.7997920 Hey guys, OP here- thanks for all the responses, a TON of great suggestions to think about. FYI the class I'm teaching will be 16-17 year olds.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:21:50 2016 No.7997922

>>7997915
I might be a bit of a snob,but that just shows how big of a mistake I make every day when I wake up assuming that everyone is just as smart as me if not smarter.
Every bloody day I wake up and the people around me dissapoint me.It's shameful really.

>>	OP Wed May 4 07:23:20 2016 No.7997925 >>7997920 Also, I'm teaching in England. The students SHOULD be able to point out Ireland on a map. I'm starting in September.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:23:23 2016 No.7997926 Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, and Hamlet. For leisure reading construct a list for each term which consists of medium-high brow lit from each literary period.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:23:47 2016 No.7997927 >>7997922 Not everyone is a genius but they still deserve an education. A lot of people who are taught in high school go on to trades anyway.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:25:06 2016 No.7997932

>>7997908
I could probably point out at least 60% of the US states on a map.
I could probably point out 90% of all countries in Europe and Asia and South America.
I had never put any terrible effort into learning to do that. I literally just went to geography classes and had C's and D's in it yet I can still point out all of this.

I made a point that you burger public school teachers never give the working class kids a chance at an education, and that this is why they are so "stupid". But I guess you have bad reading comprehension so you didn't catch that point.

And apart from the system being broken, I honestly believe that some of you teachers also personally go with this because you're secretly trying to compete with them because hey -- the upper class only needs so many 'lower class people who know anything' a.k.a. teachers -- so you'd just better discourage your competition.

backwards country -> backwards education -> backwards people -> backwards country

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:25:36 2016 No.7997933 >>7997833 You may be right, but this one, single teacher asking the board for advice won't change that culture. It would be silly to ask him to swim against the tide.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:26:31 2016 No.7997938 >>7997925 Hamlet is a must for real. Then do brave new world and maybe Keats or Paradise lost? Structure your lessons around whether it is better to be happy and blind or knowledgeable

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:27:42 2016 No.7997942 >>7997933 Would it really? Be so silly as to make a faint suggestion that he could actually make an effort to be above-average successful at his job?

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:28:22 2016 No.7997943

>>7997881
>Portrait

You're a fucking nerd toff, stop spreading your cancer, you are literally negativly influencing literature by trying to get a teacher to give content that will only make the students grow to resent literature

>relating to portrait
Tell me more boy genius, normal kids have aspirations to be football stars and will grow up to be brick layers with their dads, give them appropriate books to read

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:29:30 2016 No.7997948 >>7997932 Most American classes deal with American geography and history. A lot of the lessons deal with the Revolutionary and Civil wars and other stuff that isn't relevant to you.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:30:02 2016 No.7997951

>>7997600

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Teach them the joy of literature. Don't commit symbolic violence on your pupils. Fundamentally this class is about them, not you flaunting your /lit/-approved taste and telling them what they should take away from the book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_power

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:32:08 2016 No.7997955 >>7997933 This guy has an opportunity to completely change the course of some kids life for the better. A well chosen book could do wonders for giving someone life goals.

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:33:02 2016 No.7997957

>>7997948
That's beyond my point, sorry if I didn't get that through properly.

>>7997933

>>7997942 cont.
But then again I really might just not know how fucked up your guys' education system is, so I guess do whatever feels right. I just know that if you're about to feed some books to a kid, you better not give him John Green just because you (or the kid themself) thought that fucking Great Gatsby was beyond his reading comprehension

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:37:17 2016 No.7997964 >>7997957 What's wrong with young adults reading young adult literature?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:39:14 2016 No.7997968 >>7997964 they're not young adults. they're on-their-wayers-to-become-adults. nothing wrong with reading YA literature if they do it in their spare time, but not in place of reading actual C L A S S I C S in a C L A S S room

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:42:54 2016 No.7997978 >>7997968 They all need suitable books though.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:44:04 2016 No.7997981 >>7997964 They can't look up Sparknotes for YA lit

Anonymous Wed May 4 07:52:15 2016 No.7997992

>>7997981
Why are you automatically operating under the assumption that they will want to read Sparknotes?
A teacher's job isn't to make students read literature, their job is to make students want to read literature.

Also why do you care if they do read Sparknotes? Their loss. At least you gave them the opportunity to actually read good lit. And it's much easier to start when someone at least points you to the right works.

Btw, am I wrong when as an European I get the impression that YA is only part of the curriculum in _public_ high schools in America?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:53:03 2016 No.7997994 1984, Orwell Atlas Shrugged, Rand The Hobbit, Tolkien

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:57:06 2016 No.7997997 >>7997992 I went to a private school in Australia and while the cohort was fairly academic overall, most kids just read the Sparknotes the day before the assessment. There was some YA assigned but mostly it was contemporary classics like Hemingway.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:58:14 2016 No.7998002 Dubliners, 1984 and On The Road.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 07:59:48 2016 No.7998005 >>7997627 the author of 1984 was a socialist who fought in the Spanish civil war you're a meme, kid

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 08:00:50 2016 No.7998006 >>7998005 The author of 1984 was George Orwell,who got scared of stalinism.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 08:03:14 2016 No.7998010 >>7997997 >>7997992 Yeah it's their loss but in terms of merely achieving a good score for assessment, a student receives no immediate motive to actually read the text given the level of expected understanding.

Anonymous Wed May 4 08:25:02 2016 No.7998049

Start with the Greeks op. If you really are an English teacher, let me tell you that once I finally read then I was shocked that I had never read them in highschool. They teach everything essential to language. Mythology, poetry, history (context), etc. They might be too long though. Macbeth, Hamlet, R&J, merchant of Venice, etc.

Maybe selections from the Bible. Job, Ecclesiastes, or even just Genesis could be good.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 08:34:57 2016 No.7998065 >>7998049 Are you retarded? He's an English teacher.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 08:58:14 2016 No.7998110 File: 13 KB, 271x277, 1460506878482.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997600 Hypersphere Infinite Jest TLOTIAT

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:00:15 2016 No.7998116 >>7997968 >help what is orthography

Anonymous Wed May 4 09:03:15 2016 No.7998126

>>7998006
Read his essays you poltroon, of course he was scared of stalinism, stalinism was awful. That doesn't undermine his support for non-authoritarian socialism, in fact it was his experience in the Spanish civil war which convinced him that Stalin had abandoned the principles which the communists professed and was nothing but a murderous dictator.
Homage to Catalonia actually has several quite touching portraits of a (mostly) functioning anarcho-syndicalist state under war.

Anonymous Wed May 4 09:03:53 2016 No.7998128

>>7998049
I'm sick of this "the Bible is good literature" meme. It sucks. If you can't enjoy it religiously, it's impossible to be enjoyed. Read secularly, the Bible is absolutely terrible. The writing is shit, the plots of the books are ridiculously inconsistent, the morals to be learned from it are generally terrible (if you're reading for morals, there are *far* better books to choose), there's just nothing desirable about reading it whatsoever. Trust me, I've read the whole thing, cover to cover, back when I was a wee Catholic school lad. It sucked nuts.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:08:09 2016 No.7998143 The God Delusion The Fault in Our Stars any PHP manual

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:11:16 2016 No.7998150 >>7997951 Make them read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle so they're forever horrified by Murakami

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:11:20 2016 No.7998151 File: 34 KB, 630x630, 208840_1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997600 >Lolita >Fight Club >Books of Blood vol 1-3 by Clive Barker Let see where this goes

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:18:15 2016 No.7998157 >>7997600 Lolita 50 Shades of Gray The Bible

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:19:07 2016 No.7998159 >>7997600 american psycho no country for old men the oxygen thief

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:24:13 2016 No.7998165 Robinson Crusoe >Great book about survival, castaway situations make teenagers think of themselves in the situation and is vital to building their imagination. Mao's Last Dancer >Read that recently, fucking great book Lord of the Flies >Nuff said

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:34:46 2016 No.7998177 Short reads of varying difficulty: Picture of Dorian Gray Heart of Darkness Maybe a couple of the inner chapters of Xhuangzi

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:41:35 2016 No.7998188 >>7997660 E N G L I S H teacher

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:41:43 2016 No.7998189 Ulysses Gravity's Rainbow Infinite Jest >how has nobody posted this by now

Anonymous Wed May 4 09:57:01 2016 No.7998224

>>7998189
Teaching the meme trilogy to students who don't know where Ireland is. OP can just fill the void in the classroom when he asks a question about the text with his laughter.

OP you should also finish off the year with Bloom's The Western Canon that you will read aloud in class.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 09:59:03 2016 No.7998230 >>7997600 Seriously though, I need to have some description of the students you'll receive. I'm a current high school senior (18+ fuck with me) who took the """""""elite"""""""" English classes and they were still full of retards.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:34:56 2016 No.7998317 >>7997699 T H I S H I S come on man if you're actually a teacher you know the importance of culturally relevsnt pedagogy

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:37:35 2016 No.7998322 >>7997699 >>7998317 Unless you are from Canada

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:38:46 2016 No.7998325 >>7998322 >culture is limited to geography You do realize theres a big difference between the lived experiences of poor students and wealthy right

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:44:34 2016 No.7998339 File: 77 KB, 500x366, 1448556834466.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Suggesting Walden by Thoreau >or these

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:45:11 2016 No.7998340 >>7997600 >The Trial by Franz Kafka >Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon >The Stranger by Albert Camus You know it to be true.

Anonymous Wed May 4 10:48:30 2016 No.7998348

Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Used to be required reading in MA high schools.

Relatively easy prose, good theme, exposes students to the world, extraordinarily classy writer that can teach an adolescent brain a thing or two, short enough to plow through quickly, true story, the list goes on.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:49:17 2016 No.7998349 >>7998065 Teaching English doesn't mean you have to teach English lit. It's about language not literature.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:50:58 2016 No.7998353 >>7998325 I'm saying there are no books worth reading/studying that are written by a Canadian. I don't know what you're on about.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 10:51:52 2016 No.7998356 >>7998349 It actually does, usually. The highschool class called "English", after the 8th grade, is no longer about the language and more about reading comprehension and understanding literature.

Anonymous Wed May 4 11:04:30 2016 No.7998374

>>7998353
Making a book relevant to students doesn't just mean you read a book by an author of the same nationality; if you have a class of immigrants, reading something like The Jungle or Kafka's Amerika will be a smarter idea than Gatsby

do you even teach bruh?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 11:19:55 2016 No.7998406 >>7998374 A quote from the original post you replied to: >Gotta read the little niggas something from their country.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 11:30:05 2016 No.7998436 File: 219 KB, 1542x850, oedipusrex_2100x1400_02.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7997600 Oedipus Rex Heart of Darkness At the Mountains of Madness

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 11:31:04 2016 No.7998438 >>7998406 that person was using the idea of culturally relevant pedagogy but culturally relevant pedagogy extends beyond geography and nationality; that is what i'm explaining

Anonymous Wed May 4 11:37:29 2016 No.7998449

I think Flowers for Algernon would be a wonderful novel for high school. We did the short story and it stayed with me ever since. I would also like to suggest We as opposed to 1984 but I reckon 1984 would be more practical/easier going. Lastly Siddartha.

>>7997754
>Dubliners being easy to read is a meme anyway, he spouts a lot of drivel about an uninteresting dreary town

Fucking this. It's not all bad and admittedly I've not finished it yet but it's significantly duller than I thought it would be from the way it's touted on here.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 13:53:04 2016 No.7998822 >>7998449 Dubliners is undoubtedly the worst of Jimmy's "novel" It's very subtle and it has some lovely moments, but mostly it just is a talented young man in his early 20s setting himself up to go beyond anything possible prior

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 13:54:36 2016 No.7998831 >>7998006 stalinism =/= socialism

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 13:58:48 2016 No.7998844 File: 1.22 MB, 2202x1300, 1461639575617.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >American and third-world educational system and policies: the thread

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:00:29 2016 No.7998852 >>7998831 I never said that stalinism = socialism.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:08:58 2016 No.7998866 >>7998852 regardless of whether or not YOU did, the original comment did. check your anonymous privilege, kid

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:12:50 2016 No.7998879 >>7997694 Kids can read in highschool retard

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:20:30 2016 No.7998905 >>7998879 Most of them wont, trust me. Im in highschool.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:22:34 2016 No.7998914 >>7998905 gtfo

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:28:34 2016 No.7998935 >>7998905 this site is for 18+ negros only lad

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:34:36 2016 No.7998957 >>7998914 >>7998935 sorry i didnt know

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:50:44 2016 No.7998996 >>7997870 My English teacher tied in Kendrick with Things Fall Apart (the yams is the power that be)

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:52:19 2016 No.7999001 >>7997863 You sure know a lot about the mind of an underage-person-who-is-too-young-to-be-on-4chan

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:55:42 2016 No.7999013 >>7998339 Thanks for cropping out the stupid shit at the bottom. i don't understand why the humor in memes needs to be so hamfisted, these book titles clearly speak for themselves/

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 14:59:10 2016 No.7999019 >>7998340 GR's too big though. I've read Par Lagerkvist and the memeamorphasis in classes before, so L'Etranger and The Trial should be fine

Anonymous Wed May 4 15:00:28 2016 No.7999025

Lord of the Flies is literally for elementary schoolers. I read it for the first time in fifth grade and it was insulting to find it on my high school reading list. The prose isn't complicated or interesting, and you don't have to be intelligent to comprehend the moral shoved down your throat.

Anonymous Wed May 4 15:01:29 2016 No.7999027

PLEASE don't assume that all kids want to get into literature by sampling individual authors deeply (e.g. by jumping right into Dostoevsky, to prove that literature can be grandiose and cool and stuff) as opposed to getting a general appreciation for literary tradition(s) as a whole

i didn't get into lit as a kid for so long because it was always taught like that, and i am way more into History of Ideas-style learning. i found it very difficult to get into literature when it wasn't presented to me as a contiguous tradition, with currents and subcurrents that you can trace, with themes and topics relevant to specific eras and philosophies for specific reasons. it was just individual books by individual authors, with no context given.

if there are any other kids like me, they will feel frustrated by not being able to get a bird's-eye view of the tradition. even just a breakdown of major periods and a feel for how authors' historical context is important.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:01:34 2016 No.7999028 >>7999025 The question of this thread remains, is the teacher teaching nerds or neanderthals?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:06:16 2016 No.7999042 >>7997600 Pick at least one thing from the typical canon, To Kill a Mockingbird or Great Gatsby. I finished highschool recently and my class mates were very in to both. What grades are you teaching?

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:18:27 2016 No.7999084 >>7999042 >To kill a mockingbird Please no. We have enough teenage girls overrating that shit because they read it in class.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:19:30 2016 No.7999086 >>7999084 Yeah, replace with 1984. My class seemed to love it.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:20:34 2016 No.7999091 Heart of Darkness, for sure

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:24:50 2016 No.7999101 >>7997600 Slaughter-House 5 East of Eden Invisible Man

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:25:27 2016 No.7999103 Atonement As I Lay Dying Bird by Bird Brave New World

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:26:33 2016 No.7999106 A Clockwork Orange Catcher in the Rye Fight Club The point is to get those angsty fucks to read. These will have the most to do with them.

Anonymous Wed May 4 15:28:29 2016 No.7999113

OP i think it would be best to ask what the other English teachers are teaching and base around that. The people with more experience will have more of a feel of what should be taught than people who have never had to teach.

Great Gatsby went over well in my level 4 classes, as did Midsummer's Night Dream. What specific classes are you teaching? My school was pretty big so we had electives, generally freshman year was general lit
sophomore was American Lit
junior was British Lit
and there wasn't a dedicated Senior class. You don't want to be teaching the same thing they learnt the year before, because they will be bored.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 15:31:25 2016 No.7999121 These 3 are YA with literary merit. Hamlet Great Expectations A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Anonymous Wed May 4 15:35:57 2016 No.7999140

>>7999121
I don't know if I would teach Portrait in High School. It's a bit too much.

Hamlet is for upper levels, but doable.

Great Expectations is a great book and great for teaching high school kids. Most of them will probably end up hating it, but do it anyway.

>>	Anonymous Wed May 4 16:04:00 2016 No.7999243 >>7999013 i didn't do that but thanks, Lori

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/lit/ - Literature