What books were you made to read in high school?

[aimeeandbeatles]

This would be interesting with lively lists and complete international debate.

EDIT: This is as far as I can remember. In Grade 10 we read something about this old man going fishing and he got dragged around in a boat by a giant fish but I dont remember the name on it. I heard that later they scrapped it for a book called Crabbe that I dont know anything about.
In grade 11 we read something called the Chrysalids (I dont know if I spelled it right) which was post-apocalyptic about mutants and stuff.
In grade 12 the teachers had a choice. My class did Flowers for Algernon but another class did the one about those boys who crash on an island and turn into animals (I forgot the name again) and then there was also one called The Chocolate War that I dont know anything about.

 

[bombshoo]

Not in order, since I don't remember that. Actually this isn't even the whole list. Our junior year English teacher gave us none of the standard stuff, but it was all crap so I forgot the names.

The Hobbit

To Kill a Mocking Bird

The Crucible

A Brave New World

1984

The Catcher in the Rye

Lord of the Flys

Gulliver's Travels

 

[JtheJackal]

Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
The Crucible
The Catcher in the Rye
The Lord of the Flies
The Sun Also Rises
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
Sirens of Titan
Of Mice and Men
and others I can't remember.

Short Stories I remember
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
"Harrison Bergeron"
"August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains"
"Teenage Wasteland"
and numerous others

 

[Left]

From what I can remember...


Alaskan highschool

Animal Farm
1984
Romeo and Juliet
MacBeth
Crime and Punishment
Cyrano de Bergerac
Beowulf
Catch 22
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lord of the Flies
Heart of Darkness


Short Stories:
Borges and I
The Yellow Wallpaper

 

[Omni314]

tulip touch
macbeth
romeo and juliet
of mice and men

tulip touch was a horrificly bad book, awefully written, bad story, just cant think of any good points

as for the others they were brilliant books and over done by the school so that you end up hating them

hmm along side others I seem very uneducated

 

[Zelig]

I remember The Man in the High Castle.

I honestly can't remember any others.

 

[Luckymoose]

This would be interesting with lively lists and complete international debate.

EDIT: This is as far as I can remember. In Grade 10 we read something about this old man going fishing and he got dragged around in a boat by a giant fish but I dont remember the name on it. I heard that later they scrapped it for a book called Crabbe that I dont know anything about.
.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. One of my favorite authors.

 

[Integral]

9th grade:
It's all one big blur. Don't remember.
We definitely did Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet, though. And I think The Hobbit was involved as well.

10th grade:
Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground, selections from The Brothers Karamazov
Chekhov: Lots of short stories
Tolstoy: Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Cossacks
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, Othello
A ton of other assorted short stories
Animal Farm

11th grade:
Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death
1984
Brave New World
Charles van Doren: A History of Knowledge
Our Town
Red Badge of Courage
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Life of Pi
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Crucible
The Great Gatsby

12th grade:
Shakespeare: The Tempest, Macbeth, King Lear
The Glass Menagerie
Lord of the Flies
Heart of Darkness
A Tale of Two Cities
The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles
Beowulf
Frankenstein


--

Our English department had a policy of teaching two Shakespeare plays per year, three in senior year. Sophomore year was World Lit, hence all the Russian stuff. Junior Year was American Lit with some other stuff tacked on. Senior year was AP Lit.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Not many.

The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Crucible
Of Mice and Men
The Pearl

We didn't even read any Shakespeare (only the top English class got to read that). Dunno why I wasn't in the top class, got 2 A's at O Level for English/English Lit.

 

[Arakhor]

I did Tennyson, Measure for Measure and the Mayor of Casterbridge in Sixth Form, but I also did Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth and other things earlier on.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I thought about doing an English A level (English Lit. probably) but couldn't really fit it in with Maths and Further Maths.

 

[Arakhor]

I did English Language and Literature at AS-Level. I completely failed the Lit as I expected to do so, but I enjoyed the course.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

In my day we only had Maths AS-Level

EDIT: In fact it was called AO Level then.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Crime and Punishment
War and Peace
Are perhaps the only ones that are recognizable to the general public here.

 

[JollyRoger]

Can't rememebr it all, but required reading included Romeo & Juliet, MacBeth, King Lear, Great Expectations, A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Heart of Darkness, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Jungle, The Scarlett Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

We did do some Shakespear in high school but I dont remember exactly which ones we did. I remember they had us watch videos because they thought it would make more sense than just reading it with all the fancy words.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Was it just me or did "Of Mice and Men" suck?

The ending was so obvious and signposted the whole way through the book. Dreadful.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

We were made to read only romanian literature in high school. 95% of that was boring crap about peasants and the life of peasants. Typical communist propaganda.

It was like reading thousands of pages about grass growing.

 

[Lone Wolf]

We in Russia don't pollute the minds of our children with these We$tern novels

 

[ParadigmShifter]

We were made to read only romanian literature in high school. 95% of that was boring crap about peasants and the life of peasants. Typical communist propaganda.

It was like reading thousands of pages about grass growing.

I bet your home-grown is really potent now though!