What's required reading in English schools?

Well I'm a homeschooled high school student in the US so I don't know exactly if this will answer you question but I'll give it a go. We combine both my literature and history together--in other words when we studied the Medieval era we read Chaucer, Sir Arthur Malory, the Koran, Beowulf, etc.
Obviously they're not all original in English, but I've included world lit. Since that's what I do for "English/literature class"


In middle school here's a few (I can remember):

Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night


9th-------------------------

The Consolation of Philosophy
The Koran
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Beowulf
Dante's The Divine Comedy
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Canterbury Tales
Le Morte d' Arthur
The Prince
Utopia
Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene
Henry V
Hamlet
King John
Julius Caesar

10th--------------------------------------

Meditations by Rene Descartes
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft
Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Oliver Twist
Jane Eyre
The Scarlet Letter


*sorry I did this fast if there's any typos*

The Koran?! What all of it.... how do you study an interpritation Koran as a text I Imagine alot of the languge contextal points ae lost pluss alot ties in with Islamic history and people....although I suppose one with a tafseer.

Who's interpritation/translation?

the new curriculum in Ireland for junior certificate now consists of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Artemis fowl, as well as all the ones they had when i was doing my junior cert (ten years ago:sick: )

We get to read Of Mice and Men, I only just started 3rd Year so I don't know all the books we are going to read, although we may read Animal Farm, which I have already read.

On the syllabus I know for GCSE, the amount of reading required is pathetically low.
For the exam:
- one modern novel, usually Of Mice and Men or Lord of the Flies
- a selection of poetry (around 25 poems usually covers the exam requirements).
For coursework:
- one Shakespeare play (usually just extracts - they can get away with two scenes and a basic knowledge of the plot)
- one modern play (An Inspector Calls or something akin)
- one pre 1914 novel (Usually done through short extracts from Dickens).

And that's it for two whole years. In my opinion, the A level course is also really light. For example, in the first term all they really have to read is one modern novel and one Shakespeare play.
in comparison to courses in other countries, I think this leaves students who go on to study English at University really very unprepared, unless they have read more widely independently.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nightshade

The Koran?! What all of it.... how do you study an interpritation Koran as a text I Imagine alot of the languge contextal points ae lost pluss alot ties in with Islamic history and people....although I suppose one with a tafseer.

Who's interpritation/translation?

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Oh no! :eek: I guess I should have put that up there. No, I read selections from the Koran. We were studying that time frame (i.e. The Rise of Islam). I use a college history textbook (Western Civilization by Jackson J. Spielvogel), along with other sources for studying, then we read first sources (the Koran). I like to consider it more of an introduction, something I'd like to study more in depth at a later time. Almost all on the list I read in full, though a select few like the Koran, I don't read all of, since one school year really does not give enough time for.
Frankly with so many books we have to buy each year, we search for the best edition for what we're looking for but, if our library has an edition we'll just use that. Otherwise it can become very expensive. For the Koran we used: 1st Touchstone ed. Simon & Schuster, which was at our library.
I hope that answers your question!;)

For GCSE :
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A collection of modern poetry
Some Australian short stories.

For AS Level, I did :
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Thomas Hardy poetry.
The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare (for coursework)
All My Sons by Arthur Miller

You guys are reminding me of some of the required reading I had when I went to high school back in the mid-80's (in California):

The Great Gatsby
Canterbury Tales
Fahrenheit 451
Grapes of Wrath
Catcher in the Rye
Lord of the Flies
Macbeth
Oedipus Rex
The Crucible
Of Mice and Men
Beowulf
Never Cry Wolf
Julius Casesar
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Crucible
Animal Farm
Scarlet Letter
1984 (read that in the year 1984, naturally)
The Death of Ivan Illych
Pgymalian
One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich

I hated John Steinbeck back then (cursed him through every chapter I was "forced" to read). Now he's one of my most beloved authors.

Edit: Oops, didn't realize how old this thread is...sorry for the bump. What do you want...I'm just a goofy newbie. Gahhh...

From what I remember as the blur that is high school, here's how things went.

Freshman year:
To Kill a Mockingbird (I was surprised. I had read this when I was much littler)
Romeo and Juliet
and some stuff I forgot

Sophomore:
We mainly read excerpts from translated world literature like The Tale of Genji, the Odyssey, the Illiad, the Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.

Junior:
The Scarlett Letter
The Great Gatsby
What is the What (Eggers)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
lots of Annie Dillard, Carl Sagan and associated authors who write about literary theory [except my favorite, of course, Michel Foucault]
The Crucible
and some other stuff

Senior:
Hamlet
Macbeth
1984
Their Eyes Were Watching God
How to Read Literature like a Professor
A Room with a View

My year pursuing my French baccalaureat consisted of Candide, A Sentimental Education, something by Marimee, Flowers of Evil, Confessions of a Child of the Century, Madame Bovary, The Plague, The Stranger, Nausea, something by Cesair and something else by Zola. There was more but I guess I forgot.

This year:

Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Awakening, Kate Chopin

Medea, Euripides
Beowulf, ?
Othello and Macbeth, Shakespeare
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Hard Times, Charles Dickens
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Hmm this year I read...

Beowulf
Excerpts from Canterbury Tales
Epic of Gilgamesh
Excerpts from La Morte D'Arthur
Renaissance poetry like John Donne, Raleigh, Marlowe, Suckling, etc.
Restoration such as Johnathan Swift, Pope etc.
Romantic poetry
Victorian poetry

Novels/Plays of...
Fahrenheit 451 (I would have preferred 1984 but oh well, I read it myself)
Macbeth
Hamlet
Frankenstein
Slaughterhouse Five

Hmm, right now we are reading poetry from the 20th Century and are about to read I think some excerpts from The Stranger by Camus.

I wouldn't mind being english just to read and study all that stuff. You have to read some of my favorite novels, which I had to discover on my own.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
Waiting for Godot (Beckett)
Invisible Man (Ellison)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)
To A God Unknown (Steinbeck)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)
The Crucible (Miller)

That was the focus of our study in the past year. These were only the full length novels we read, however. In addition to that, we had to read a plethora of excerpts, essays, and poetry from writers like John Milton, Thomas Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walt Whitman.

Aside from that, I read on my own:

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Mourning Becomes Electra
Native Son
Moby Dick
Of Mice and Men

Not sure that I can remember them all, but this was high school...

Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane
Twelfth Night William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare
Macbeth William Shakespeare
King Lear William Shakespeare
Hamlet William Shakespeare
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
The Plays of Oedipus Sophocles
A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen
The Crucible Arthur Miller
A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry
Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Awakening Kate Chopin
Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
The Color Purple Alice Walker
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky
Lord of the Flies William Golding
A Separate Peace John Knowles
Animal Farm George Orwell
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
1984 George Orwell
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rocket Boys Homer H. Hickam, Jr.
Sister of My Heart Chitra Banjeree Divakaruni
Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
Passage to India E.M. Forster
Bread Givers Anzia Yezierska
As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya
The Once and Future King T.H. White
The Odyssey Homer
Triangle David Von Drehle

As I mentioned, I could not remember all of them. But, on top of these, we also read a lot of poetry.

Well, these are the novels I've had to read so far in my high school career, as far as I can remember:

Beowulf
The Joy Luck Club (Tan)
The Odyssey (Fagles translation)
Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Odor of Chrysanthemums (Lawrence)
Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and Henry IV (Shakespeare)

...and that's all I can remember. Hope that helps!