What's required reading in English schools?

[AmericanEagle]

Romeo and Juliet
To Kill a Mockingbird
As You Like It
Lord of the Flies
Animal Farm
Obasan - Joy Kogawa
Macbeth
The Handmaid's Tale
Snow Falling on Cedars
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet
Heart of Darkness
The Glass Menagerie

[Takeahnase]

I've just finished my English Literature A level and over the two year course, these are what my class read:

Hamlet
The Tempest
Translations
The Bell
Our Country's Good
The Merchant's Tale
Hard Times
Poetry Anthology

For GCSE all I can remember studying is Macbeth. Everything else is lost from my memory.

[meh!]

I can tell you what I had to read in five years at school (if I'd stayed for sixth year I would have read more, obv):

To kill a Mockingbird
The Cone Gatherers (excellent book by Robin Jenkins)
Othello
Macbeth
Of Mice and Men
I read the curious incident of the dog in the nightime for my 'personal response' (an essay)
I can't remember anymore, but there were a few.

I really can't remember all the poets but some were:

Phillip Larkin
Seamus Heaney
.. that's all I can remember, haha.

Only a couple of years ago as well.

[AllyFizzle]

Just graduated high school and it seems alot of schools have added In Cold Blood into the curriculum. Already in it were:
The Catcher in The Rye
The Great Gatsby
Shakespeare

[hot4jwg]

Great Expectations
Animal Farm
The Scarlet Letter
The Crucible
The Old man and the Sea
The Great Gatsby
Staying fat for Sarah Byrnes
Beowulf
Of Mice and Men
To Kill a Mockingbird

[IceM]

As a Junior in High School, let me rattle off some of the books/plays we've had to read.

Heart of Darkness
Othello
Bless Me, Ultima
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Antigone
Oedipus Rex
The Pearl
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
The Crucible
The Scarlet Letter
Slaughterhouse 5
Ethan Frome
Freakonomics
1984
Brave New World
The Old Man and the Sea
Animal Farm
Mere Christianity

[Travis_R]

I've had to read:

Julius Caesar
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
1984
Flowers for Algernon
Finding Fish

and each year I've also had to read a novel of my own choosing, which were Slaughterhouse-5, The Sound and the Fury and Lolita. As you can see, most of my teacher's choices were sound except for Finding Fish.

[Mariamosis]

I remember reading "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Metamorphosis" in middle school.

....the reading list (that I remember) from the 4 years I was in high school:

Night
Oedipus Rex
Macbeth
Beowulf
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Fallen Angels
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
Animal Farm
The Crucible

I remember my older brother had to read "A Tale of Two Cities", "Of Mice and Men", "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Catcher in the Rye" among others.

[ForKnowledge]

Atlantic Canada

To Kill a mockingbird
the giver
the oddessey
lord of the flies
knight
romeo and juliet
stone angel
lotr the fellowship
the pearl
huck finn
the catcher in the rye

[lowradiation]

I find myself strangely interested on the choices of Literature throughout school.

From Year 10/11 age 15/16 (GCSE Level):

J.B Priestly - An Inspector Calls
William Golding - Lord Of The Flies

(I honestly CANNOT for the life of me remember what else we did...)

From A Level (Age 17/18):

Year 12:

Austen - Pride
Chaucer - Canterbury Tales
Caryl Churchill - Top Girls
Shakespeare - Richard III
Hardy - Tess
John Fowles - French Lieutenants Woman
Shakespeare - Measure For Measure
Tennyson - Selected Poetry

I'm now doing english literature and history and degree level, just finished all the texts for first year:

Shakespeare - Titus Andronicus
Aphra Behn - Oroonoko
Milton - Paradise Lost
Defoe - Moll Flanders
James Hogg - Private Memoirs and Confessions...
Coleridge - Selected Poetry
Austen - Sense and Sensibility
Bronte - Jane Eyre
Bram Stoker - Dracula
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper
Conrad - Heart Of Darkness
Kipling - Kim
Woolf - A Room Of One's Own
Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber
Alan Warner - Movern Callar
Annie Proulx - Close Range and Others

I have my reading list for my second year modules but I can't be bothered typing it out!

[LitNetIsGreat]

I was thinking that was a little short on the primary texts for first year degree, but then I saw that you were doing history too so it seems about right. Either way it goes to show just how limited GCSE study really is in terms of breath of material. I know that it is only situated in the 14-16 age range, and everything that comes with that, exams/coursework etc, but in terms of the vast majority of people who don't study literature beyond this level for me only shows its real inadequacy in giving people a wider scope of what is out there. Not good enough for me at all. Yes there would have been extracts of things further down the line, perhaps a whole Shakespeare play (usually Romeo and Juliet) but in terms of providing the vast amount of people in society with anything like a timeline of literature the two year GCSE certificate is far from anything like acceptable for me.

[Werefairy]

This year I've read:
Invisible Man (no not the "the invisible man"- I was disappointed)
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Lord of the Flies
1984
Heart of Darkness
and we plan to read:
Animal Farm and Hamlet

I wanted to read "Flowers for Algernon" (not sure if i've spelled that right) but my teacher wouldn't let us.

You should pick up "Flowers for Algernon" for yourself. It was a wonderfully book. I never cared for being told what books to read. I started reading every minute I could get my hands on a book around the age of 9. I loved "Flowers for Algernon" so much, I have the book to this day. I couldn't let it go. I can't wait until my children are old enough to read it for themselves. It's a book to treasure.

[IceM]

As a Junior in High School, let me rattle off some of the books/plays we've had to read.

Heart of Darkness
Othello
Bless Me, Ultima
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Antigone
Oedipus Rex
The Pearl
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
The Crucible
The Scarlet Letter
Slaughterhouse 5
Ethan Frome
Freakonomics
1984
Brave New World
The Old Man and the Sea
Animal Farm
Mere Christianity

I'll add my Grade 12 titles that were required:

Things Fall Apart
Their Eyes were Watching God
The Road
Wuthering Heights
The Death of a Salesman
Angela's Ashes
Song of Solomon
The Crucible

Also, a handful of poems from Blake, Hughes, Cullen, and Frost.

[Veho]

My school was seriously lacking in choice in comparison with most. We read:

Macbeth
Of Mice and Men
An Inspector Calls
Romeo and Juliet
And analysed two war poems.

Pretty poor, really.

[prendrelemick]

I was thinking that was a little short on the primary texts for first year degree, but then I saw that you were doing history too so it seems about right. Either way it goes to show just how limited GCSE study really is in terms of breath of material. I know that it is only situated in the 14-16 age range, and everything that comes with that, exams/coursework etc, but in terms of the vast majority of people who don't study literature beyond this level for me only shows its real inadequacy in giving people a wider scope of what is out there. Not good enough for me at all. Yes there would have been extracts of things further down the line, perhaps a whole Shakespeare play (usually Romeo and Juliet) but in terms of providing the vast amount of people in society with anything like a timeline of literature the two year GCSE certificate is far from anything like acceptable for me.

Of course a student will also study and analyse poetry, newspaper and magazine articles, radio and TV scripts. But you are right there doesn't seem to be much Literature in there.