What books were you made to read in high school?

[kosiosko 1]

high school drop out ...

but remember

lord of the flies
animal farm
to kill a mocking bird
lots of Henry Lawson (poetry/short stories)
Ulysses , Joyce... major class dissections... spoilt it (but I go to a pub called "Molly Blooms")
Catch 22 , Heller... major class dissections... blew me away

We had separate drama classes, lots of impro, but 'did'

'the Caucasian Chalk Circle' Brecht
'The Tragedy of Macbeth' Shakespeare
'Endgame' Beckett

** Blood Wedding, but left half through **

 

[Arakhor]

Jane Austen bored me to tears, but I did like reading the books of either Dumas.

 

[Tee Kay]

I remember Romeo and Juliet. The rest I can't remember the name of.

Year 12 English got to read 1984, though I was in English Language which is a different course.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I have to read Romeo and Juliet and that book is really bad. Seriously, it sucks and it's hard to understand. . I also had to read A Raisin in the Sun and that book was better because of the funny accents and it was shorter and easy to understand. We also had to read some (about 50 pages) of the Oddysey, and that book was alright, at least it was easy to understand.

Romeo and Juliet is far from Shakespeare's best work, but most of it isn't that bad. The writing at the end was rather poor, but keep in mind that was only one of the alternate endings. This was one play Shakespeare wrote so that it could be either a tragedy or comedy depending on which final scene was chosen for a particular performance. His company would alternate which ending to use each day, so that half of the time the couple lived happily ever after. Also, he didn't really write the story, he just adapted it from the tale of Romulus and Julia.


I read an excerpt of the Odyssey in English class, and the whole thing as some optional background info for AP Latin. Its English translation seemed a little better than the English translation of the Aeneid, but did not come close to the quality of the Aeneid in the original Latin. I can't say how good the Odyssey would be in the original Greek though.





Most of the books I read in High School were not specifically assigned, we just had to pass a certain number of accelerated reader tests per semester. Let's see if I can remember a few of the things that actually were required.

To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Grapes of Wrath
The Jungle
The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution
The Lord of the Flies
The Great Gatsby
Beowulf
The Crucible

(In textbooks, some reproduced in part but most in whole
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
The Most Dangerous Game
The Pit and the Pendulum
Pygmalion
Oedipus Rex
Canterbury tales
The Tempest
A Modest Proposal




If I had chosen to take AP English then I would have been required to read multiple books by Ayn Rand as well as Virginia Wolfe. (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead would then have counted as required instead of optional though.) My sister had AP English with that teacher 4 years earlier though and hated it (even though Rand was not in the curriculum then), so my mother strongly discouraged me from taking it.

 

[tycoonist]

From what i can recall,

Macbeth
Henry V
Of mice and men
Tale of two cities
To kill a mockingbird
Brave new world
Down and out in Paris and London
The House on the Strand
The Crucible


The following i have definitely read, but i don't quite remember if it was in class:
Animal Farm
1984
Rebecca
Catcher in the Rye
Metamorphosis
Lord of the Flies.

 

[W|M]

Macbeth
The Tell-Tale Heart
Much Ado About Nothing
Abomination

Can't remember the names of any other ones, except for the ones that I read as the school makes you read any book forever. And I think I got the title of the last one wrong, but it's something similar, and there was a book about some refugee in the 80s or 90s from Iraq going to London via Iran that I forgot the name of.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Romeo and Juliet is far from Shakespeare's best work, but most of it isn't that bad. The writing at the end was rather poor, but keep in mind that was only one of the alternate endings. This was one play Shakespeare wrote so that it could be either a tragedy or comedy depending on which final scene was chosen for a particular performance. His company would alternate which ending to use each day, so that half of the time the couple lived happily ever after. Also, he didn't really write the story, he just adapted it from the tale of Romulus and Julia.

What happened in the comedy ending?

 

[Japanrocks12]

I have to read Romeo and Juliet and that book is really bad. Seriously, it sucks and it's hard to understand.

And with that, you've lost pretty much all your credibility with respect to anything else you say in this thread.

 

[W|M]

All Shakespearean works are hilarious to people from the 16th-17th centuries and English teachers. They're extremely boring to anyone else, not to mention hard to understand.

 

[Ajidica]

All Shakespearean works are hilarious to people from the 16th-17th centuries and English teachers. They're extremely boring to anyone else, not to mention hard to understand.

Shakespearean comedy: Not funny then, not funny now.
It only becomes good when the actors are very good.

 

[Dumanios]

So far...

Romeo and Juliet

 

[Arakhor]

They may be hard to understand, but that doesn't make them boring.

 

[W|M]

Even if they were in modern English, they would be boring rom-coms without the comedy.

 

[Arakhor]

Measure for Measure has interesting ideas on prostitution, hypocrisy and religious fervour, whilst Macbeth is about the abuses of power and the corruption of pride. They're not all dodgy comedies.

 

[kosiosko 1]

i just think you should be shown Shakespeare ... skip the reading, most people have several plays in their list, an excursion to a quality theatre would achieve more, if it grabs you, get a copy of the script to read, otherwise its like studying Picasso without pictures

 

[Ajidica]

Measure for Measure has interesting ideas on prostitution, hypocrisy and religious fervour, whilst Macbeth is about the abuses of power and the corruption of pride. They're not all dodgy comedies.

Of course, Henry V is quite good.

I haven't been made to read many books in HS as most of my classes were speach classes.
9th grade:
Romeo & Juliet
bits of the Odyssy
bunch of different short stories
To kill a mockinbird
and for personal projects that we were mandated to do:
Shardik
Exodus
10th grade:
Lord of the Flies
a collection of a bunch of different writings about the 60s.
Midsummer nights dream
A Rasin in the Sun
11th grade:
The Once and Future King. (I had read it already so that was simple).
12th grade:
I will be reading Beowulf, the Canterbury Tales, and different works by Shakespeare.

I've read alot of books on my own, so don't start thinking I am illiterate!

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I have a feeling that "comedy" doesnt really mean haha-funny in those days.

 

[Ajidica]

I have a feeling that "comedy" doesnt really mean haha-funny in those days.

Some medieval stories could be quite funny, even in non-comedic aspects. The Byzantines often took great pleasure in describing exactly how somebody's bowels stopped working and bits of flesh rotted off.
And these were writings coming from people who had been playing the 'holier then thou' game.

 

[Arakhor]

I don't think you're illiterate, Ajidica, but it does seem to be a favourite teenage pasttime to hate everything Shakespeare did or said.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The only funny thing I remember from Shakesphere is a scene in Hamlet where the ghost is under the stage and yelling "SWEAR!!! SWEAR!!!" over and over again (something along those lines). It looked pretty funny written on paper.