Summer reading list
Each year, our local high school-- along with most of the schools in the area-- sends its students home with a list of three or four books over the summer. They're serious about it too. Students are tested over the material during the first week back after vacation, and their scores comprise a significant chunk of their grade for the term.This may be the easiest assignment of the year. Carolyn's a bookworm, so telling her she has to read is rather like standing on our driveway in July and telling ice to melt. We picked up the last of her books today.
What are the incoming Juniors reading this year? Glad you asked!
A Lesson Before Dying
The Piano Lesson
Cold Sassy Tree
I haven't read a couple of them, so I'll be snagging those when she's done. I find it interesting-- in a good way-- that they don't exclusively focus on the "standard classics." Usually one or two will be, but not all four. The rules seem to be that the books are recognized as quality literature, Pulitzer prize winners and such; and that at least one will be a play. Over the years, they have run heavily to fiction, but not exclusively.
So, here's the natural question: if you were the teacher, what would you be assigning?
posted by Jane Ellen+ at
11:40 AM
11 Comments:
Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
William Golding, Lord of the Flies
George Orwell, 1984
Shakespeare, King Lear
Jean-Paul Sarter, No Exit
Cold Sassy Tree is an underestimated book and I am pleased to see it on that list. What would my choices be? I always appreciated choices when I was a student, so I would offer the following list:
Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises -OR- For Whom the Bell Tolls
Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice -OR- Othello (extra credit for seeing the play too)
Jack London's "White Fang" -OR- Mark Twain: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" -OR- "Letters to the Earth"
I like Beal's idea of choosing a fourth and then defending your choice in an essay.
-R
Give them something that is pleasurable:
Howard's End orA Room With a View by E.M. Forester.
Emma or Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
I was thinking the other day about what books I read as a child. We had a series (junior classics illustrated?) and I read over and over Black Beauty, Heidi, Little Women and Little Men and the wonderfully titled The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. I have fond memories of reading these when I was in the upper end of elementary school.
Ok, now that I am home and walked past my bookshelf a few times, I'd like to add a few more combos. First though, I see an inherent fallacy in the above comment made by Don. He very rightly posits that something pleasurable should be assigned, but then he lists books by Jane Austen. Hmmmm?
Anyway, more combos:
Frank Herbert's Dune -or- Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (I fully assert the literary validity of good science fiction/fantasy novels)
Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible -or- Abdelrahman Munif's Cities of Salt
Mary Shelley's Frankenstien -or- Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (unabridged)
Ok, I think that's all, for real this time.
-R
The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas
Moby Dick, Melville...yes that long arse book about whales. If ya wanna understand the roots of the American novel, read Melville.
Oliver Twist, Dickens
Cannery Row, Sallinger
No one I teach will ever read John Irving or Barbara Kinsolver. Why the American novel is in the hands of these two people is beyond me.
Hmm ... when Jane casts her eye on the world around her, she draws it with a great sense of humor and truth. She was also a bit of an economist, noting the finely graded values of marriage in early 19th Century England. I find reading her books a great pleasure. It's easy to imagine that this might not be someone else's cup of tea -- reading Henry James or William Faulkner are other examples of tastes that may need be acquired -- but I do not withdraw the recommendation.
I love Beal's suggestion for choosing a book and defending it with an essay too. When I was in high school, we had to read an extra book each term and do some kind of essay or report on it... the list to choose from was about six pages long and it was always my favorite part. Some other books that haven't been suggested: The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Hamlet by Shakespeare, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The Odyssey, Diary of Anne Frank, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - I don't remember who wrote that one. It may be a bit young for high school but its really good.
I want to take a class on William Faulkner. I want to read all of his stuff. Wow.
Hey, good stuff, folks! I love the list I'm accumulating.
I will note that many of the suggestions here have been part of the educational process to date. If memory serves, previous years' summer reading has included To Kill a Mockingbird, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Lord of the Flies. As part of the regular curriculum, they've read one or two of Shakespeare's plays each year (I recall Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Hamlet, thus far), as well as Hemmingway, Twain and Dickens.
Several of the others are simply resident on our bookshelves (including a sizeable science fiction section, Ryan), and are thus being absorbed over time. Yes, this is one addiction we actively encourage.
Some things I haven't seen mentioned? Let's see... maybe Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, or Thorton Wilder's Our Town.
This list was going around a while back. I has a lot of good books, but there's some junk there too.
I'd include either Main Street or Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, and I'd probably choose To Kill a Mockingbird, too. Or something by John Steinbeck. Or...or...or...or....
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