#51
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
1. The Hobbit
2. 1984 3. Dracula 4. Frankestein 5. Othello 6. Much Ado About Nothing 7. Notes from the Underground 8. Metamorphosis 9. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 10. To Kill a Mockingbird An eclectic mix of styles, genres,etc... All works of high literary merit that I personally enjoyed. None of the works is impenetrable for a 9th-10th grader. |
#52
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
of the lists I like SoloAJ's the best - I think people are getting a tad idealistic thinking high schoolers will read Dostoyevsky.
As for short stories, I suppose it's trite thanks to Donnie Darko, but the Destructors is pretty good. Araby is a terrific little story and relates to childhood exceptionally well. Hamlet is also one of the most 'adolescent' Shakespeare plays - the Prince is basically Holden Caulfield with murderous rage. |
#53
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
AJ,
i am jealous. i would love to start over and get to read alot of the stuff you are going to for the first time. you truly have a great list going and this thread covers the rest of it pretty damn well. the book i was talking about was jack kerouac's "on the road" check it out. it used to be really hip. now it seems to get bashed a bit. i was a big fan of the beat generation writers and took a class in college on them that still goes down as one of my all time favorites. check that one out and tell me what you think. other than that stick to the classics and the authors you really enjoy. oh and great to see you on here as well. lates. J. |
#54
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
Pretty sick library here (omitted duplicates).
SoloAJ Of Mice & Men The Great Gatsby Catcher in the Rye Hamlet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Fahrenheit 451 I, Robot Ender's Game 1984 Brave New World A few short stories by James Joyce Odyssey (O Brother Where Art Thou) The Things They Carried Slaughter House Five Freakonomics Batman: The Killing Joke V for Vendetta On Writing The Lottery The Ones Who Walked from Omelas The Lady or the Tiger The Most Dangerous Game The Necklace Tell Tale Heart A Modest Proposal Bartleby the Scrivener The Yellow Wallpaper. Peter666 Don Quixote Robinson Crusoe Pride and Prejudice Crime and Punishment Romeo and Juliet Animal Farm diebitter Lord of the Flies Cannery Row Martian Chronicles The Hobbit The Body The Green Mile Dune Macbeth The Shrinking Man/Danse Macabre The Old Man and the Sea Tigermoth The Things They Carried We (> Animal Farm) Everything is Illuminated Grendel Beowulf John Cole Pride and Prejudice Lord of the Flies Macbeth Henry IV (parts one and two!) Addison and Steele the Roger DeCoverly Papers selected essays by English writers such as Charles Lamb The Lady with the Dog Maus I The Dead Butnahhhhh 10 Little Indians dcasper70 How To Win Friends And Influence People mflip Beloved Fifth Business A Handmaid's Tale A Midsummer Night's Dream Julius Caesar Oliver Twist The Outsiders To Kill A Mockingbird AceLuby One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Hyperion MrWookie The Republic The Things They Carried Man's Search For Meaning The Brothers Karamazov Kimbell175113 Handmaid's Tale Dominic The Mists of Avalon Heart of Darkness Rendezvous With Rama Into Thin Air Gulliver's Travels Wuthering Heights Metamorphosis Tess of the D'urbervilles The Turn of the Screw West With the Night GeraldGiraffe Gulliver's Travels Journey to The Western Isles of Scotland The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman The House of Sleep The Rotters' Club The Closed The Importance of Being Earnest Gagarin Way JMP300z The Man Who was Thursday Killing Pablo Starship Troopers The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy High Fidelity Catch-22 Equal Love Lolita Death of a Salesman Jeff W Dracula Frankestein Much Ado About Nothing Notes from the Underground Metamorphosis The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Triumph36 Destructors Araby The Prince J.Brown On The Road Howl |
#55
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
Thought of another choice for the graphic novel slot: Persepolis.
The thing is, a lot of the greats are too deep in comic meta-stuff for young, inexperienced readers. Watchmen doesn't work as well without knowledge of the standard superhero tropes and plotlines, and Killing Joke (or DKR) presupposes familiarity with a bunch of Batman characters. V for Vendetta is a maybe, but it would be better appreciated by an older audience, imo. Maus could work. |
#56
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
while I wish it were not the case, any HS teacher who assigned his Lolita would most definitely be fired! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
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#57
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
I have to throw in that I too found that these few in particular have stuck with me as enjoyable in High School and still enjoyable -- I am very glad to have been introduced to them.
To Kill a Mockingbird Lord of the Flies Catch-22 (This is in my mind, THE book to include for comedic literature) I also personally love The Heart of Darkness, but I believe most High Schoolers have issues with it's pacing and find it tedious. Also -- Is there some way to teach Shakespeare so you can absorb the threads of the plots without being hampered by needing an english-to-english translation constantly? I like Shakespeare (not love) but I always felt that the language was a huge roadblock for most High Schoolers to overcome in order to get the interesting aspects of what they were reading. |
#58
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
The copies of Shakespeare I was given in High School had the play on the right side of the page and English-to-English translations on the left side of the page. Most of the words that were hard to understand had easy translations/explanations right there.
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#59
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
This is all wild speculation on my part, but could the "english-to-english" translations actually hinder comprehension? If you can just look to the margin and find a word you're more comfortable with, then you'll never have to try to think over the real text.
And, imo, a huge percentage of the difficult language in Shakespeare can be figured out (with a combination of logic and intuition) by a thinking reader without any outside assistance. (I guess I'm speaking more for honors classes, students who are interested in Shakespeare, but hey, those who aren't interested still aren't even with the translations.) |
#60
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Re: A Modern Reading List for High School?
[ QUOTE ]
This is all wild speculation on my part, but could the "english-to-english" translations actually hinder comprehension? If you can just look to the margin and find a word you're more comfortable with, then you'll never have to try to think over the real text. And, imo, a huge percentage of the difficult language in Shakespeare can be figured out (with a combination of logic and intuition) by a thinking reader without any outside assistance. (I guess I'm speaking more for honors classes, students who are interested in Shakespeare, but hey, those who aren't interested still aren't even with the translations.) [/ QUOTE ] I don't believe this is true. Much of the language used, especially the "slang" and play-on-words that are used throughout. These are very tied to the time in which the play was written -- by design, because of his target audience. This kind of thing is not something someone just picks up without outside assistance. As for not having to think over the text -- I guess it depends if your goal in reading the text is to understand the structure of the words and writing itself or if you goal is to understand the story and its uses of irony, foreshadowing, etc. (all those high school English buzz words). Both of these are worthy goals, but more often what I remember being focused on was the plot and literary devices such as those mentioned above; the fact that it was iambic pentameter (or other aspects of the manner of writing) was of course always mentioned but rarely seemed to be the main point. When this second goal is desired I believe having to struggle with the language reduces what the students get from the study. |
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