What do you think of High School/Secondary School Req. Reading?

[IceM]

Is all garbage! Not enough time devoted to the Greek and Latin stuff; only snippets at a time. Never enough to feel the goodness of it all. I felt no goodness.

Too political and too weak. In America, the kids, they're so stupid. So we read weak stuff. I was always bored in class because I would read far ahead and then have to wait for the stupids to catch up.

To the first bold, isn't this what college courses specializing in literature of this type are for? High School curriculum is meant to foster and/or develop a love for literature by exposing one to a wide variety of literature spanning literary eras. Albeit, much of the curriculum and class-reading is determined by the teacher, so we're subject to their personal tastes rather than canonized literature (in some occasions). But, taking myself for an example, being an 11th grade AP Language student, I've read two prominent novels from each major period in literature. Specializing in Greek or Latin works robs the students of experiencing different types of literature and different stylistic aproaches to the genre of choice. I'm sure some (perhaps many) students prefer the style and subject content of Kurt Vonnegut and more prominent 20th century authors compared to Homer and the Greek Epics.

To the second bold, excuse my disagreement but that's complete bull****. Congratulations, you've finished the novel early. High school curriculum is molded to teach the student body how to analyze literature by using select (i.e. few) novels as examples. If high school curriculum were a series of rapid-fire readings of novels, I'm sure many more students would despise literature purely from an inability to keep up more than the distaste with literature itself. Just because you've finished the novel early doesn't grant you the right to degrade your peers. You speak from presumption and unsubstantiated arrogance. If you really take issue with the so-called weakness of curriculum then endeavor to read novels on your own time. Read novels outside of the curriculum. You do no more good settling for complacency in reading pure curriculum materials than you do chastising your peers for their reading pace. Disgusting.

[morgana]

We don't have a formal plan on what to read during highschool, so it depends on the teacher. And we didn't read as much as I'd like to.

We read mostly argentine literature:

1st year: "Otroso" (this was a poor choice, because it was a children's book that I had already read when I was 9. So giving this book to 13 year old kids was a mistake. Yeah, this left scars! We had a very difficult exam to enter to that school, on maths and literature and language. And after all the trouble, they give us a kid's book???)

2nd year: "Rosaura a las diez" Marco Denevi. Good book, but I didn't enjoy it at the time. Sometimes it takes years to get the books you've read in highschool.

3rd year: "Crónica de una muerte anunciada" Gabriel García Marquez, and one book that we could choose ("And then they were none").

4th year: "El túnel" Ernesto Sábato.

5th year: "El juguete rabioso" Roberto Arlt, "El cartero de Neruda" (the one of the movie of Neruda and the postman... didn't like it).

Most of these books were really oppressive... not my choice for highschool kids.

And for my English classes I've read (I don't remember the years): "The Great Gatsby", "The Scarlett Letter", "Jamaica Inn", "Animal Farm", "My Family and Other Animals". I prefer these books to the ones I had to read for school.

[kiki1982]

My school reading was existant (not everyone can say that!) and for Dutch (mothertongue) 2-3 a year.

For French (foreign language 1) 1 a year, later 2

For English (foreign language 2) 1 a year, later 2

For German (foreign language 3) 1 only ever.


But, oh how unfortunate, what sh*t lists we had!!

From 13 years of age to 16, we got nothing but children's books, I think. I couldn't be bothered and I had a hard time reading anything. It was always in themes. Once there was historical novels. I couldn't be bothered as I semed to know more about the period than the writers who were writing about them...

But from 17 on, I discovered adult literature. And with a teacher with a big love for reading, the list was varied, to say the least. Mind you, real analysis and essay writing wasn't really required, but I once made a blinding essay and that sparked my reading. It finally occurred to me that there was something interesting after all to be read... Our courses mainly focussed on literary theory, or how to analyse. At 17 only poetry. Only at 18 (last year) literary history came inot the picture. Literary critique in Dutch is not so prominent.

We only had to read in Eglish from about 17 (?), but two books a year. The first list was varied (same teacher as Dutch) with everything on it (I mean absolutely everything in the canon!), but the second year we all had to read Brave New World. I read it, but didn't love it. We also didn't do a lot of things about that. Though at 17 we had excerpts from Romeo and Juliet which were quite hard for us, and an analysis regarding communism about Animal Farm. No reading them entirely, though. n the las year we all got an abonement on Time magazine and regularly did presentations on articles.

French was an absolute farce. We had to read two books a year from 15 years of age, but the list they supplied was absolutely disgusting every year. I had the hardest time finishing any book in French and for years afterwards was turned off forever. I only ever liked one in those few years and finished it. The books were about: anorexia, psychological problems, teenagers getting pregnant, no forgetting WWII and the jews (apparently a very big trauma in France), sexual abuse and more of the sort of depressing stuff. I am still wondering why they couldn't find us anyting else to read. I have the impression the teachers didn't like to read and so mainly chose short books. Or they maybe thought that we liked those kind of issues... Who will say it. I never saw Molière (only on my own suggestion I was allowed to read it), never saw Dumas, never saw any song of Jacques Brel, never Fontaine, never anything. It still puzzles me. When we were 13, we got a poem of François Villon (medieval poet) which was naturally too difficult; when I was 15 years of age, we went to a (school-)perfomance of The Imaginary Patient (?) of Molière without reading it first, one can imagine how well that was understood. Finally, when 18, we got a serious piece of theatre: The Rhinoceros of Ionesco, but I don't think the teacher understood at all what she was talking of.

For the one German book, allowances should be made for the part of the class whose German wasn't up to scratch to read Goethe (which I read shortly after). The teacher chose a children's book about a handicapped boy (why always sad ones?), but I refused to read it and was contented with a 5/20 and made it up next test. She did address Heinrih Böll (who won the Nobel Prize that year) and Günther Grass, plus read the little poem Di Lorelei, though. And that was quite hard for most of them, so that was fine.

Still, I have sworn i my children that I don't have yet, ever come across such a teacher, the teacher is going to have a hard time with me. Admittedly, it is difficult to interest teenagers in something, but if you give them nothing but crap, they will certainly not get interested. I am sure that there is something to be read in French, that is easy enough. Fine, do not start with Hugo, but at least come with something nicer than the equivalent of a Mannilow (or how is it written?) song... There are so many great chansonniers, and then you're going to take that cheep stuff?

The lessons about Romeo and Julietwere maybe hard, but the inspired teacher made everything. It couldn't be said for French class...

[OrphanPip]

I'm surprised you didn't have to read l'etranger by Camus. That book is pretty much canonical French reading in high school. The French readings I had to do were similarly atrocious though. The early grades (7-8) was all reading news papers and short fiction. We got Camus in grade 9, some sort of detective novel I barely remember and Bonheure D'Occasion in grade 10, and in grade 11 Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir and Maupassant's Une Vie. We didn't read any other of the usually canonical French authors either.

[kiki1982]

I don't know if our French was good enough for hat. In Belgium, I have dsicovered over the years (despite what they say), language class is pretty abysmal. I could not put together a sentence in French orally. Did know all the grammar and some vocab, but talking wasn't practiced enough.

But yes, at least you got what you call 'abysmal' reading in your first kind of 'fluent' years. We didn't even get that! As I said, everything I learned about French literature in general even was later, down to the 'Western Literature' class in uni.

I have discovered it now, thank God. They almost turned me off for ever.

[LitNetIsGreat]

In the U.S. technically "instilling a love of literature and learning" is one of the supposed goals of school. Everyone I know certainly includes that in their mission statements, or other buzzwords like teaching our students to be "lifelong learners." However, it still has all the flaws you describe. They read like one novel a year, a few poems, a play maybe.

On the other hand, even when we did have assigned reading I remember just not reading any of the books or only skimming them. Why the hell would I read those boring *** books when I could be playing Final Fantasy 7 or some other pretty graphical video game? Or so I thought when I was younger. Now, of course, I'm an English major who reads all the time. Sometimes, I think it just clicks or doesn't. And sometimes, I think it can click rather late.

Yes I totally agree with both your points here. Certainly there is a case to be made for the appreciation of literature to come at a later age, especially with all the distractions available, but surely the love of the narrative, the story is something that can engage most people - my kids are 7 and 4 and both adore books completely, and I've not brain-washed them or anything , it’s probably a combination of state school and the teenage brain.

A novel a year? Really? How does it take a whole year? We studied at least a novel per term (4/year) plus plays, poems, short stories (and all were studied in-depth, especially in the later years). Maybe it's different elsewhere, but I came through a state school with a great love for literature...

Basically as DS explains. If it is literature and language combined you do one novel in one term (1/3) a bit of poetry in another, maybe a play and then non-fiction writing or something, exam practice etc. The political focus is not about trying to introduce a range of literature, it is about ensuring students pass exams and get grades for league tables. Yes if you came through school with a love of literature then you certainly are lucky in your form of state school because I doubt you would here.

[Heathcliff]

Now, in highschool, we've finally started reading things.
We no longer have compulsory library classes as we did in primary school, however in years seven and eught we'd be forced to read in class.
We still read in class now, we've started to write book reports and the schoool decides what we read.

Last year we read The Gathering by Isobelle Carmody, it is an Australian book and I suppose that means they are keeping things within the country.
I don't think it is objective though. That is the only book they've demanded be read, the library is full of mostly Australian, English and American books.

We don't have anything much from countried that do not speak English, hardly any of us can read other languages and the school hasn't taught us all too much about them, not anything extremely classic anyway.