So what books did you read at school?

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Originally Posted by Antiquarian

Three more than my school. And yes, it is pathetic of both our schools and teachers. I know we had books at our disposal at school. The teachers chose not to use them. I've always kind of disliked elementary and high school teachers. I didn't find a single one of them "inspiring." Most of them did the very minimum of what was required and didn't give a darn about the students. I had one teacher, Mr. Palmer, for US History who did care that we learned. For the others, who weren't nuns, it was just a paycheck with a long vacation. They said as much. I'm not making the assumption.

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Over here we follow the O Level syllabus, and we are required to do no more than two books because of limited time I think. I don't know about other countries, but for mine, we study the books for the Literature examination and nothing more. Well, in Singapore, it's all about examinations.

To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, Tale of Two Cities, The Great Gatsby... as well as various short stories (I'm positive I missed a novel or two).

Plays:
Twelfth Night
Romeo & Juliet
Macbeth
Hamlet

Well, I'm only a Freshman right now also, so this is just Freshman year.
oh, and I go to school in Florida, but it's private and I'm in Honors, so I guess it doesn't really make a difference what state I'm in.

To Kill A Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
Cry, the Beloved Country (By a guy named Alan Paton. Not sure how famous it is, but it was awesome. I find that I'm in love with African literature, though. So maybe I'm just biased, seeing as a lot of the other kids didn't like it.)
assorted short stories
assorted poetry
The Old Man and the Sea
The Human Factor (Graham Greene novel. It was a choice novel. Included it here because even though it is kind of just a trashy spy novel, at the same time, Graham Greene was great at making trashy spy novels works of lit.)
Crime and Punishment
On the Road
The Odyssey
Romeo and Juliet

This Summer I'm going to have to read Six Characters in Search of An Author, No Exit, Farenheit 451, and one choice book. I'm so excited. This is one of the best summer reading lists I've ever seen. I love plays and I've already read Farenheit 451 and it's one of my favorite books, so, suffice to say, I'm a happy man.

My school reading list wasn't that different from the others mentioned here, but I would like to put in a word for their summer reading lists. They had the inspired idea of assigning books that were actually fun to read in the summer. So I read things I probably wouldn't have otherwise, like The Once and Future King, and Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. I know there were others but I don't remember the titles at the moment...

And best of all, for some reason we never had to write a paper about these books when we got back to school.

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Originally Posted by Antiquarian

In the US, teachers have a lot of leeway in choosing, I think. At least they did when I went to school.

One of my friends is an Englishman, but grew up in Singapore and now lives in the Canary Islands. He loved Singapore. Can't wait to go back. Said it was beautiful. I've never been there. The closest I've been is Hong Kong and Macau.

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I guess the grass is always greener on the other side :rolleyes: Singapore is a clean, convenient and safe place. But our government's terrible if you're going to judge it by modern standards. It's definitely not beautiful to me, building after building isn't my idea of beauty :sick:

Anyway, over here, we have anything but leeway. Well not anything, but you get the idea. I think everyone is just as critical of their own countries, but oh wells.

I'm am only currently in the nith grade, but I have finished most the books we're to read in high school, keep in mind I attend a french school:

And then there were none
A midsummer night's dream
Romeo and Juliet
MacBeth
Lord of the flies
The crysalids (not sure if that's teh correct spelling)
A brave new world
The great gatsby
Hamlet
the martian chronicles

that's all I can remember off the top of my head

I went to a public school in Australia

of the top of my head:
The butterfly war (crap)
Bend it Like Beckham (the book not the movie, yes it was crap and yes other English classes in my grade did Animal Farm) (crap)
Looking for Alibrandi
Romeo and Juliet
To Kill a Mockingbird
Macbeth
The Lord of The Flies

And yes we watched a lot of movies and studied sub cultures...

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Originally Posted by Vincent Black

Bend it Like Beckham

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I'm surprised they don't make you read Shane Warne's autobiography

As I have mentioned previously I was in the "idiot class" for lit. As such we only really read anything of note in the final 2 years I was in high school - the second year was when I was retaking the subject after getting a D the first year.

Blake - The lamb/ The Tyger/The sick rose (trainee teacher, she was trying to teach us meter, it didnt work - she had no control, we were an unruly lot)

Kesey - One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest (useless, teacher told us everything that happened in the book before we read it & refused to mark my essay because she disagreed with my premise about McMurphy not being a martyr)

Shakespeare - Romeo & Juliet (teacher picked some people in class to read out the different parts - the rest of us were left to either slept or talked among ourselves)

McCaig - Assissi

Crichton Smith - assorted poems

Not much there for 2 years, rest of the time was spent on worksheets or messing around in the school library.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Light in August
Turn of the Screw
The Stranger

Who were these written by? Are they good?

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The Stranger by Camus is outstanding. I have taught this many times over and always am fascinated by the response. I have students who LOVE this book and cannot put it down. They argue points and are so empathetic to Mersault (main character). Then I always have a group that HATES it. My romantics I call them. They find the main character cold and unemotional and his life without purpose annoys them.

I'm currently in high school in Ontario, and it sucks because every year we only read one classic book and one Shakespeare play. Oftentimes the books we read aren't even that challenging either.

Grade Nine:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Romeo and Juliet

Grade Ten:
Animal Farm
The Taming of the Shrew
The Catcher in the Rye (I picked it to read for my cumulative project)

Grade Eleven:
The Catcher in the Rye (because my grade ten teacher never told me we would read it in grade eleven)
Macbeth
Emma (Picked for cumulative project)

I'm hoping next year the selection will be better.

The Scarlet Pimpernal, Oliver Twist, Harry Potter book 1-3, Heidi, Don Quixote, hmmm.... and many I don't remember

Lord of the Flies
A Midsummer's Night Dream
Romeo and Juliet
King Lear
The Hobbit
Animal Farm
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby
...I know there are a few more, but I really can't think of them now.

At my school (and most schools in my country) we didn't have summer reading lists and so on...I think I would have liked that. I read a lot over school vacations anyway, but it would've been nice if a few books were suggested to us, even if only for interest sake. Only now (I can afford books now since I started to work last year :)) am I starting to realise what I've missed out on. I have a lot of catching up to do!

USA High School in Maryland-

9th-
Romeo and Juliet
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Various Shakespeare Sonnets
(can't remember the rest..)

10th-
I don't remember anything here besides The Crucible, this class was early American Lit and sadly not my strong point

11th-
The Great Gatsby
The Grapes of Wrath
(again I don't remember the rest..)

12th-
Macbeth
Hamlet
Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(The best year so far and thats all I remember)

...my list is terrible.