Books you think should be read in high school

[aabbcc]

If you could form a Literature / English ( / whatever is the variant of the subject in your country) reading list for the final four years of education prior to university (i.e. high school), supposing a subject could include both national and world literature (in ratio of your choice), and supposing it is written for university-bound (and in those universities humanities-bound) students, which works would you select as important ones to be read?
It can be absolutely any kind of list, from the list which includes a work or two of Harry Potter - type literature per semester, up to 30-a-year list of huge 'classics', in any order you wish (chronologically by periods or entirely mixed), as long as you sincerely believe it is a good list for the circumstances as described above.

Recently at school we were challenged to do this, and I was surprised with how many brilliant lists students from my class came up with, so it got me interested into seeing what would high school reading lists look like if created by members of LitNet. So... I'm very curious.

(As far as my choice is concerned, I'm still having second thoughts about half of the works I enlisted, so I'll have to think it through again before posting.)

[Kafka's Crow]

Schools are not serious about teaching literature, nor are students bothered about studying it and parents don't care about books either. People are more concerned about education that pays instantly for the effort and money invested. People want to study Business Administration (whatever that is supposed to mean!) or IT etc. As long as you can tell your IE 1394 from USB 2, they are OK with it. What would they "get" by studying Dostoevsky?

[aabbcc]

Schools are not serious about teaching literature, nor are students bothered about studying it and parents don't care about books either. People are more concerned about education that pays instantly for the effort and money invested. People want to study Business Administration (whatever that is supposed to mean!) or IT etc. As long as you can tell your IE 1394 from USB 2, they are OK with it. What would they "get" by studying Dostoevsky?

Perhaps you've got a point, but that's for another discussion. You aren't answering my question.

[JBI]

I would have 2 major novels, by the likes of Faulkner, Melville, Hardy, Lawrence, Davies, etc., 2 Shakespeare plays a year, one comedy one tragedy, one major poetic time period a year, and a thick set of shorts and essays.

[Charles Darnay]

Schools are not serious about teaching literature, nor are students bothered about studying it and parents don't care about books either. People are more concerned about education that pays instantly for the effort and money invested. People want to study Business Administration (whatever that is supposed to mean!) or IT etc. As long as you can tell your IE 1394 from USB 2, they are OK with it. What would they "get" by studying Dostoevsky?

Very cynical indeed. My view (and I like to have a view because I am studying to teach high school English) is that the goal is to get them interested and to appreciate literature (and English) and through this comes caring about it. I disagree that teachers don't care - sure, you will always have some cynical "failed-as-a-writer-so-now-I'm-a-teacher" teachers, and I despise these people because they take away from those who love to teach and who do a great job - but I would have to say the majority cares about teaching. Any given hgh school student can develop and interest/care in literature....it's all about finding out how to do this. Parents are parents....who cares about them? Sure they are a great way to foster learning in kids - if the parents care the kids are more likely to care - but when it comes down to it, a teacher can inspire a student despite the parent's apathy.


But I digresss..... a lot

MY IDEAL READING LIST

GRADE 9:
Romeo and Juliet - only because it is so traditional and I think, despite it's overuse, everyone should be exposed to it

Great Expectations - Perhaps a little early to be thrown in the Dickens pool...but everyone should start somewhere and I think Great Expectations is a good start

GRADE 10:

Boccacicio - Selections from The Decammeron (in translation)
Chaucer - selections from Canterbury Tales (modern translation)
Cyrano de Bergerac

I think a great idea for an English class is a running theme. This theme would be fablio/carnivalesque. You can introduce the students to great literature while having a lot of fun as well...the works aren't too difficult (in translations) but are meaningful


GRADE 11:

Selections from Thomas Moore's Utopia
1984
Brave New World
Handmaid's Tale

Granted, I stole this idea from one of my English teachers - a distopian theme would be really interesting I think....not too sure how I would model it exactly (probably wouldn't get them to read all three works) but it's a start


GRADE 12

Gogal - short story selections
Dostoevsky - The Idiot
....................

I'm going for an anti-hero theme here, but I can't think of any more off the top of my head.

[*Classic*Charm*]

I think my list would be different from yours, Charles Darnay!

I think Romeo and Juliet should be read before high school. High school should be reserved for the major tragedies. Maybe it's just my personal view coming through here- I really dislike that play.

Grade 9 is also a little early for Dickens, as you said. I was a fairly advanced english student and when I read it grade eleven, I still had a hard time with it. I just don't think it would capture a student's interest, and the language may be beyond the average grade nine.

I really like your grade eleven list though!

[Mariami]

My list

Grade 9
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
Under Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Grade 10
Eugene Onegin - Aleksandr Pushkin
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Short stories - Guy de Maupassant
Light in August - William Faulkner

Grade 11
Anna Karenina - Lev Tolstoy
War and peace - Lev Tolstoy
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Grade 12
Short stories - Gogal
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ulysses - James Joyce

[Mockingbird_z]

for 11 grade - i think they (students) won't be able to read all these books in one year, take War and Peace! four volumes! even in Russia many students cant read the novel without skipping War deacriptions or other secondary themes.

[kelby_lake]

Ulysses is very hard and War and Peace is very long.

I'll start from Year 10 (I think that's the equivalent for american grades- 14 to 15 year olds?)

Year 10:
Romeo and Juiliet
Brave New World
Animal Farm

Year 11:
Macbeth
The Great Gatsby
Fahrenheit 451

Year 12:
Othello
A Clockwork Orange
Lolita

Year 13:
Hamlet
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Brideshead Revisited
Catch-22

[Charles Darnay]

My list

Grade 9
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
Under Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Grade 10
Eugene Onegin - Aleksandr Pushkin
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Short stories - Guy de Maupassant
Light in August - William Faulkner

Grade 11
Anna Karenina - Lev Tolstoy
War and peace - Lev Tolstoy
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Grade 12
Short stories - Gogal
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ulysses - James Joyce

Light in August in grade 10? I applaud your confidence in students!

Kelby, your list actually sounds a lot like my actual high school reading list (strike Clockwork Orange and Lolita - I don't think you can get away with teaching those in high school - at least, not where I'm from)

[higley]

Light in August in grade 10? I applaud your confidence in students!

Kelby, your list actually sounds a lot like my actual high school reading list (strike Clockwork Orange and Lolita - I don't think you can get away with teaching those in high school - at least, not where I'm from)

That's interesting; I think one of the senior classes at my old high school covered A Clockwork Orange, and I'm sure the English teachers would love to get away with Lolita.

Light in August would be quite advanced! My senior class read As I Lay Dying, but I think that's all the Faulkner that got covered in high school. It depends on the teacher really-- if they're spectacular, as mine was, they're capable of instilling understanding of even complicated works. Mariami, I like your idea of Dostoevsky in successive years.

[DapperDrake]

Under no circumstances would I include any literature that was any good - its my opinion that school puts people off of books for life, I think its criminal to put people off of shakespear and other classic literature.
The number of average people who's only knowledge of literature is from school is I expect quite large, and how many of those people form favourable opinions of the works that are forced on them?
No, I would only use books released in the past few years, preferably ones that were utterly banal page-turners so that kids could at least associate reading with pleasure and if anything be put off reading poor quality writing.

The English education system is different though I think, we have 11 years of mandatory school, 2 optional years of college, then university; and I'm only referring to the first 11 years part - if people have chosen to study Lit at college then that's different.

[sprinks]

Under no circumstances would I include any literature that was any good - its my opinion that school puts people off of books for life, I think its criminal to put people off of shakespear and other classic literature.
The number of average people who's only knowledge of literature is from school is I expect quite large, and how many of those people form favourable opinions of the works that are forced on them?
No, I would only use books released in the past few years, preferably ones that were utterly banal page-turners so that kids could at least associate reading with pleasure and if anything be put off reading poor quality writing.

The English education system is different though I think, we have 11 years of mandatory school, 2 optional years of college, then university; and I'm only referring to the first 11 years part - if people have chosen to study Lit at college then that's different.

This is sort of what our school did in the first few years... And it didn't work. But I do wholeheartedly agree with including more modern books; just not only using them and no classics.

One thing that schools, or at least ours, do is they include too much. Therefore our experience with some of the works is very rushed and therfore unappriciated. Take for example last year when we did Romeo and Juliet, we never had time to read the whole thing. We read barely any of it. It was quite a dissapointment. And just now we did The Theban Plays, or rather, The Theban Play. I have a feeling our classes understanding and interest would have been increased if we had read all 3, instead of hastily rushing through only one of them.

[JBI]

Light in August in grade 10? I applaud your confidence in students!

Kelby, your list actually sounds a lot like my actual high school reading list (strike Clockwork Orange and Lolita - I don't think you can get away with teaching those in high school - at least, not where I'm from)

Actually in Ontario many schools are teaching A Clockwork Orange in the grade 12 curriculum. I know my school certainly did (though I was in the class that did Gatsby instead).

[aeroport]

I would have 2 major novels, by the likes of Faulkner, Melville, Hardy, Lawrence, Davies, etc., 2 Shakespeare plays a year, one comedy one tragedy, one major poetic time period a year, and a thick set of shorts and essays.

This sounds like a good pattern to me, but I think I would include slightly more, especially in the last couple years. If the students are heading for humanities-based postsecondary study, I think seven or eight novels in the final year is not unreasonable.

Grade 9: the year of making literature fun
Macbeth
perhaps Animal Farm; something satirical, at any rate
The Millere's Tale
The Odyssey

Grade 10: the year of the complicated villain
Richard III , Othello & The Merchant of Venice
Crime and Punishment

Grade 11:
Hamlet
'Bartleby' and Benito Cereno
The Brothers Karamazov

Grade 12:
King Lear
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
Moby-Dick
The Scarlet Letter
passages from the Bible

Much has been left out because I, personally, feel severely crippled by not having yet studied such authors as Hemingway and Faulkner (and perhaps Lawrence) and I think there should probably be a novel from each in here.