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Best/Worst Required Reading in School

7,243 Views | 120 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by TXAG 05
Fat Bib Fortuna
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In reply to bluefire579 • 10:50a, 10/2/20
bluefire579 said:
MuckRaker96 said:
In 9th grade, I decided to play football all weekend with my friends instead of reading the Scarlet Letter.

On Sunday evening, I used my brother's old copy of the Cliff Notes to write a three-page essay about the book.

I turned it on Monday and two days later, my English teacher, Mrs. Bailey, with her terrible red dye job, called me up to her desk. I feared I had been found out.

She told me how impressed she was with my essay and wanted to know if I wouldn't mind reading it to the class. I did so. She gave me a 100 on it, the only one in the class.

I had a lot of emotions that day. But at the end of it all, I learned a valuable lesson.

Cliff Notes are awesome.
I tended toward cliff notes if I had no interest or if I got a little into it and hated it, but for Scarlet Letter, we had to do a chapter by chapter journal, so I had to read the whole damn thing. Hated every second of it
We had to write a journal of at least 30 entries for a book called "The Thread That Runs So True." that might have been about a colonial times school teacher.

The scuttlebutt was that our English teacher was so old that she wouldn't read the entire journal when you turned it in, she'd just open it to one page, read that entry, and your entire grade would be on that one page.

A friend of mine was daring enough to drop an entry in about him being on a team that won the Super Bowl and then flying to another planet and sure enough he made a 92 on it.
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jeffk
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10:53a, 10/2/20
AG
These threads always reinforced just how randomly books or literature "hit" with people. There are some absolute stinkers (Catcher in the Rye, IMO) but a lot of titles get cross-listed on best/worst lists pretty frequently. After teaching for a bit, I'm convinced there needs to be a balance of student choice and teacher suggestion. Show kids what's out there and available and really sell them on the worth of some of the classics, but also be flexible enough to let kids choose alternatives if they aren't feeling a class choice.
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Lathspell
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In reply to jeffk • 11:07a, 10/2/20
AG
I completely agree.

When I was younger, I started reading with the Chronicles of Narnia. I then read some Crichton and Jules Verne, around 7th/8th grade, for fun. After that, I didn't really get into reading until my freshman year of high school, when I read the LotR. If I had been able to have more choice in what I read for school, I believe I would have read more and believe other's would learn to enjoy reading.

Granted, most "academics" don't consider fantasy to be true "literature", at least at the time.
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ChipFTAC01
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In reply to Counterpoint • 11:08a, 10/2/20
AG
It's funny the two that immediately popped into my head when I saw the thread title were

Good (Great!) A separate peace. Probably one of my 5 favorite books

Awful (Terrible!) Great Expectations. Dickens should feel really bad about this.
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Ol_Ag_02
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11:11a, 10/2/20
AG
Any Shakespeare
Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
Dante: The Divine Comedy
Beowulf

Literature has come along way. That crap really sucked back then. No wonder no one could read. What was the point.

Supposed to be Thumbs Down.
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CheeseSndwch
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11:28a, 10/2/20
Best: To Kill a Mockingbird

Worst: The Canterbury Tales
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Jugstore Cowboy
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11:31a, 10/2/20
AG
Best:
A Confederacy of Dunces (junior year of HS) is the book I've probably re-read the most for pleasure.

-The Sound and the Fury - not sure if "pleasure" is the right word, but there was some satisfaction in figuring it out on re-reads. Got me hooked on Faulkner for a few years.

Worst:
Ulysses by James Joyce. Had no business trying to slog through that mess in HS, but I got along well with my teacher in that class so was able to throw some bawdy humor into whatever the hell essay I wrote and got an A.
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DanHo2010
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12:16p, 10/2/20
AG
Best: Animal Farm
The Once and Future King
Shakespeare - R&J, Macbeth, Julius Caesar

Worst: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, what a trash pile
Invisible Man by Ellison, first assigned school book I didn't finish and it was senior year of high school
To the Lighthouse, purposefully meaningless drivel

I have mixed feelings about assigning classics for kids to read. On the one hand, they are important books that have influenced a lot of people and things. They have artistic merit and can be seriously analyzed. And, it's not your English teacher's job to make you love reading, any more than it's your calculus teacher's job to make you love calculus. It's their job to make you learn how to do it.

But I do hate how many people seem to think that the stuff you read in school is what reading IS, and get turned off to reading in general, which to me is one of the great joys of life. I think a big part of it is that parents aren't encouraging their kids to read, because if you already know that there are books you like to read you won't let school dissuade you from that because of some stinkers.

A good analogy might be football. I've never heard anyone say, "Well I really loved high school football until my coach made me do all these really hard drills. Why can't we just show up and play the game all the time?" So there is a need for the hard stuff that isn't fun. But, if there was no game on Friday and all you ever did was practice and drills, more people would hate it. So there needs to at least be some balance between serious and fun reading in school.
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Brian Earl Spilner
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In reply to Smokedraw01 • 12:24p, 10/2/20
AG
Smokedraw01 said:
Catcher in the Rye is one of the worst books ever.
Reasoning?

Pretty widely considered a great book; rightly so.
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Smokedraw01
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In reply to Brian Earl Spilner • 12:34p, 10/2/20
Brian Earl Spilner said:
Smokedraw01 said:
Catcher in the Rye is one of the worst books ever.
Reasoning?

Pretty widely considered a great book; rightly so.


The character is one of the most unlikeable characters, next to the protagonist in The Red Badge of Courage. And it just doesn't seem to have a point.
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Fat Bib Fortuna
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12:44p, 10/2/20
And it was the inspiration for the guy who murdered John Lennon
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nai06
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1:42p, 10/2/20
AG
The classics have their place, but generally speaking assigning them as required readings is a surefire way to get young people to hate reading.


There are so many great books published every year that are largely ignored by teachers because they

1. Are new and would require additional lesson planning
2. Are Young Adult and automatically slated as lower skill/quality


And that's really a shame. We miss out on teaching kids to actually enjoy reading.
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MW03
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1:55p, 10/2/20
AG
Ones I liked:
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Night by Elie Wiesel
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut
The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway

I couldn't get through The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.
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h1ag
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In reply to Vince Blake • 2:41p, 10/2/20
AG
I came here to post Ethan Frome. And my teacher was obsessed with it.
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Silky Johnston
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2:48p, 10/2/20
I don't remember reading many books in school. I guess that's a perk of being in the "slow" group. All you other nerds were forced to read crappy books while I got to finger paint.
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Claude!
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2:53p, 10/2/20
To add to the good side of the ledger: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Still probably top five all time for me.
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AGinHI
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3:05p, 10/2/20
AG
I am thankful for the literature I was introduced to in school. I liked the vast majority of it and enjoyed all the ones listed below. They were so varied and different, it really opened me up to exploring genres other than the fantasy/sci-fi I was reading. Here is what I can remember (in no particular order):

  • The Iliad and Odyssey
  • The War of the Worlds
  • The Count of Monte Cristo
  • Shane
  • A Streetcar Named Desire
  • Candide
  • Waiting For Godot
  • Death of a Salesman
  • A Separate Peace
  • The Call of the Wild/White Fang
  • Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles
  • The Sun Also Rises
  • The Metamorphosis
  • Brave New World
  • The Angel and the Serpent: The Story of New Harmony (a socialist experiment in the US, this went along with Brave New World and our covering of utopia-I actually remember that-I don't recall if it was good, but just being introduced to something like this was cool)
  • 1984
  • Lord of the Flies
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Of Mice and Men
  • As I Lay Dying
  • The Screwtape Letters
  • Dante's Inferno
  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
  • Shakespeare (I only remember The Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar, due to memorizing/performing lines, but I believe there may be one or two more).

If I had a worst:

I didn't read The Scarlett Letter or Moby Dick. Couldn't get into either of them. And I don't remember The Crucible.
“We don't have a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We have government of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats.”

-Milton Friedman
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Legal Custodian
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3:07p, 10/2/20
AG
Best:
Edgar Allen Poe's short stories
To Kill a Mockingbird

Mixed Review:
Shakespeare
Great Gatsby

Worst:
Catcher in the Rye

I can tell you that I loved watching Romeo & Juliet as a 15yr old when the English teacher forgot to skip a certain scene of Juliet
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Frok
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3:12p, 10/2/20
AG
I really struggle to remember what I read in high school. One I do remember is I had a history teacher make me read "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara. That book really intrigued me and got me interested in the civil war.

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redline248
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In reply to MW03 • 3:56p, 10/2/20
AG
The Jungle was assigned reading in my freshman history class at A&M. I didn't finish it.
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dreyOO
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4:40p, 10/2/20
As an adult, I read Cather in the Rye. Just assuming that I missed out as a youngster. Thought it sucked.

This thread confirmed it. Wish this thread had existed before I wasted my time with it.
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Thunder18
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4:44p, 10/2/20
AG
Best:
Heart of Darkness
The Most Dangerous Game
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
To Kill a Mockingbird
Fahrenheit 451
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Iliad
Inferno
The things they carried
Mythology
Slaughterhouse 5
The Hobbit
The Diary of a Young Girl

Meh:
The Great Gatsby
The Outsiders
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
The Metamorphosis
The Red Badge of Courage
Beowulf

Worst:
A Separate Peace
Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities


Some friends and I almost got expelled our senior year of high school for a film project we did on 'The Heart of Darkness'. In a period of under a week, we wrote a screenplay, shot, and edited the film on my Dad's Mac. The final product was a 30 minute film that saw us get guns drawn on us and then almost get arrested by Fort Worth police for using firecrackers to film a drive-by scene in City limits without a permit to film. Our teacher had to sneak the video off campus once the principal got wind of the content and language within the film (lots of F bombs and implied heavy drug/alcohol use). The soundtrack was entirely CCR, and obviously we didn't have the rights or permission to use any of their work. At the end of the day, we got the highest grade for the project in our class, escaped expulsion and arrest and made some great memories.
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Hagen95
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6:11p, 10/2/20
AG
Didn't care for Chaucer. Too tedious.
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gggmann
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6:21p, 10/2/20
AG
A lot of Dickens dislike on here. I didn't mind Great Expectations, and I liked A Tale of Two Cities. We were given a choice of projects in Sr English after reading that, one of which was to build a model guillotine. I got 3 friends in my project group, and we built a full size guillotine in my Dad's shop. It was awesome - we brought watermelons to school and used it to chop them in half and serve the class. I can't imagine doing that in this day and age.

My favorite though was Animal Farm. It seems just as relevant now as when it was written.

As far as worst, The Scarlet Letter without a doubt. If you want to throw in plays, I'd add Our Town as well.
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maverick2076
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6:52p, 10/2/20
Best: The Once and Future King

Worst: a tie between Wuthering Heights and Dandelion Wine.
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KALALL
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7:25p, 10/2/20
AG
Best: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (read it while learning about existentialism)
I liked a lot of the classics mentioned on here.

Worst: Beloved by Toni Morrison & Poisonwood Bible
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YouBet
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8:22p, 10/2/20
AG
Agree with others that we need to expand choices for kids. Maybe we have now?

Classic literature sucks ass for the most part. It's proscribed simply because "it's what we've always done".

Reading this thread it did make me recall one more forced reading: The Old Man and the Sea-> Boring.as.hell.



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TXAG 05
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In reply to Brian Earl Spilner • 9:06p, 10/2/20
AG
Brian Earl Spilner said:
Smokedraw01 said:
Catcher in the Rye is one of the worst books ever.
Reasoning?

Pretty widely considered a great book; rightly so.


Rightly so? How so? Why do you think it's a great book?
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AustinAg2K
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In reply to gggmann • 10:27p, 10/2/20
gggmann said:
I didn't mind Great Expectations


You sound like a terrible person...
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ChipFTAC01
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In reply to AustinAg2K • 10:32p, 10/2/20
AG
I went back and read the plot synopsis of Great Expectations on Wikipedia earlier, because 9th grade was 27 years ago and thought, "This doesn't sound that bad."

But it is. It is that bad.
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Bonfired
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10:41p, 10/2/20
AG
Favorites:
To Kill A Mockingbird
Animal Farm
Count of Monte Cristo

Hated:
Moby Dick
Great Expectations
Madame Bovary

I have a soft spot in my heart for The Crucible because a group of 3/4 of us did a sock puppet version of it for our class presentation...the only person not entertained was our teacher.
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double aught
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In reply to Claude! • 10:59p, 10/2/20
AG
Claude! said:
To add to the good side of the ledger: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Still probably top five all time for me.
I had forgotten about this book. I had to read it for Russian Civilization at A&M. It was enthralling. I still remember the part about him saving bread each morning so that he could use it to get every bit of his soup later in the day. Funny the stuff you remember twenty years later.
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Chipotlemonger
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11:04p, 10/2/20
AG
Had a lot of ones that I liked. Memorable of those:
Frankenstein
Heart of Darkness
Power of One (newest book of this group, was a summer reading option)

Didn't care for when I read them:
Moby Dick

I'm sure there were others I liked or disliked but can't remember right now!
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AtlAg05
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11:25p, 10/2/20
AG
There definitely is something to being forced to read a book and choosing to read one. I really enjoy reading and have picked up some of the classics as an adult and enjoyed them. But in school hated it.

Liked that I can still remember:
Crime and Punishment
All the King's Men
Monte Cristo

I must have blocked the ones I didn't like. The only one I remember was the Mayor of Casterbridge, did the cliff notes for the report. I remember the teacher asked me in class about two characters' relationship, I said something about them being friends. It ended up being a guy and a prostitute, I was kinda close.
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aggieactor01
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8:23a, 10/3/20
AG
Fascinating thread. I definitely think there is something to the whole being forced to read it vs reading it for fun. I liked Les Miserables but only after re reading it as an adult. Same with several others already mentioned.

I will also say I hate that we lump Shakespeare And other plays into English class. They are written to be performed. Seen and heard out loud. Experienced with an audience. Not read.

I could go on and on about why but I'll leave it at that.
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