I'm in AP Lit rn. So far we have read
Silias Marner
Great Expectations
Hamlet
A Brave New World
I'm in AP Lit rn. So far we have read
Silias Marner
Great Expectations
Hamlet
A Brave New World
Littt wrote:
I'm in AP Lit rn. So far we have read
Silias Marner
Great Expectations
Hamlet
A Brave New World
Did you and your classmates enjoy reading these? That looks like a good list. I especially find Brave New World to be perfect for HS kids. As I've stated too many times already on this thread: the books should be enjoyable on the surface, should also have a deeper message for the "high-fliers". I think Huxley nails it.
Mengiway wrote:
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Stranger- Camus
Angle of Repose- Stegner
Islands in the Stream- Hemingway
If I were back in HS I would have rather read books that were entertaining (given that they are well written) rather than 'important' books. I think we would be better off piquing kids' interest in books and have them read more later on as well.
Quoted for two things: 1) Great list. I love all of these books. Great for young men in particular, not sure about young women. Angle of Repose is quietly devastating. And 2) Totally agree that it's better to have kids read books that will make them lifelong readers than force feed them a few "important" books that won't excite them. I wasn't that into "literature" until I read "Portrait of the Artist, ""The Sun Also Rises" and "This Side of Paradise." Then I couldn't stop.
If we're broadening to books written in other languages and translated into English, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano should absolutely be on the list.
English major wrote:
Infinite Jest is one of my favorite books, but they won't get through it. You could do Brief Interviews with Hideous Men if you want some DFW, but it's a short story collection, not a novel.
DFW is not worth wasting time in HS. Joyce was much better at obscuring his intent. DFW is an ambler.
From a review of DFW:
There’s a direct parallel between DFW and James Joyce. They both tended perpetually towards the encyclopaedic. They were utterly indifferent to audience expectation - even to the modernist, avantgardish audience they themselves created. Their main books are vast, oceanic, limitless affairs. They appeared to wish to use eventually every single word ever admitted into the English language and a shedload of foreign ones too. You might say they were both insufferable know-it-alls. They had a delightful propensity for going off on rants or lists, or lists of rants.
But there’s a difference between the ocean of Joyce and the ocean of DFW, or what I have observed of it. Joyce had a plan and he stuck to it. DFW, it seems, never sticks to the point in his writing (forever interrupting himself, subverting his own text with page long footnotes, or end notes, forever entangling us readers in his sperm-whale-sized syntactic constructions, forever digressing) because he wasn’t that sure there actually was a point. He thought there should be but he wasn’t sure he’d discovered it. He was an out of control noticing machine (that’s not my phrase). All of his writing is suffused with unbearable acuity we associate with drugs or extreme meditative states. It's like breathing poisoned air. He writes about “addiction†and “tennis†and “parental abuse†and whatnot, all daytime tv subjects. He was mighty literary power-drill cracking a nut. Not much left of the nut when he’s done. Not much of a nut to begin with.
I’m not saying the reason I love Joyce & unlove DFW is that Joyce was a general ordering a successful campaign and DFW was a lonely guerilla hacking through the jungle with a dead radio. One's heart lies with the guerilla, after all. But there’s also the matter of JJ’s gorgeous way with words and effortless humour. Even his fans may concede that DFW’s logorrhific outpouring is often ugly, deliberately ugly. And also that reading JJ & DFW is like attending a service at the Church of Giant Brains - there's a great choir, fab stained glass windows, but it's so chilly, and it makes you feel like an ant, a bad ant who does bad things.
DFW’s narrators are most of the time like a rat in a trap, ceaselessly whirling around in a confined space, hysterically looking for the way out, but there’s no way out of their own awful sensibilities into the world, and I can’t help but think that as his characters, so it was with DFW himself, never getting to the end of his own endless sentences until the day he just wrote a full stop and had done with it.
DFW's own motto might be:
— “I’m aware of how all this sounds and can well imagine the judgements you’re forming.â€
(Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, DFW, paperback edition, p. 247 of 273.)
Avocado's Number wrote:
Pardon me? wrote:I remember reading 5 or 6 of these in 8th grade, and we didn't have AP classes at that level.
From "A Fish Called Wanda":
Wanda: You think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5IQnQhzMSI
Pardon me? prefers his "literature" plenteous with sunshine, unicorns, and lollipops. Colourful pop-ups are also a necessity.
DFW, Pointless wrote:
English major wrote:Infinite Jest is one of my favorite books, but they won't get through it. You could do Brief Interviews with Hideous Men if you want some DFW, but it's a short story collection, not a novel.
DFW is not worth wasting time in HS. Joyce was much better at obscuring his intent. DFW is an ambler.
From a review of DFW:
There’s a direct parallel between DFW and James Joyce. They both tended perpetually towards the encyclopaedic. They were utterly indifferent to audience expectation - even to the modernist, avantgardish audience they themselves created. Their main books are vast, oceanic, limitless affairs. They appeared to wish to use eventually every single word ever admitted into the English language and a shedload of foreign ones too. You might say they were both insufferable know-it-alls. They had a delightful propensity for going off on rants or lists, or lists of rants.
But there’s a difference between the ocean of Joyce and the ocean of DFW, or what I have observed of it. Joyce had a plan and he stuck to it. DFW, it seems, never sticks to the point in his writing (forever interrupting himself, subverting his own text with page long footnotes, or end notes, forever entangling us readers in his sperm-whale-sized syntactic constructions, forever digressing) because he wasn’t that sure there actually was a point. He thought there should be but he wasn’t sure he’d discovered it. He was an out of control noticing machine (that’s not my phrase). All of his writing is suffused with unbearable acuity we associate with drugs or extreme meditative states. It's like breathing poisoned air. He writes about “addiction†and “tennis†and “parental abuse†and whatnot, all daytime tv subjects. He was mighty literary power-drill cracking a nut. Not much left of the nut when he’s done. Not much of a nut to begin with.
I’m not saying the reason I love Joyce & unlove DFW is that Joyce was a general ordering a successful campaign and DFW was a lonely guerilla hacking through the jungle with a dead radio. One's heart lies with the guerilla, after all. But there’s also the matter of JJ’s gorgeous way with words and effortless humour. Even his fans may concede that DFW’s logorrhific outpouring is often ugly, deliberately ugly. And also that reading JJ & DFW is like attending a service at the Church of Giant Brains - there's a great choir, fab stained glass windows, but it's so chilly, and it makes you feel like an ant, a bad ant who does bad things.
DFW’s narrators are most of the time like a rat in a trap, ceaselessly whirling around in a confined space, hysterically looking for the way out, but there’s no way out of their own awful sensibilities into the world, and I can’t help but think that as his characters, so it was with DFW himself, never getting to the end of his own endless sentences until the day he just wrote a full stop and had done with it.
DFW's own motto might be:
— “I’m aware of how all this sounds and can well imagine the judgements you’re forming.â€
(Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, DFW, paperback edition, p. 247 of 273.)
This seems like a critique of Infinite Jest more than a critique of DFW in general. While I loved IJ, I can understand why some people find it to be tedious. But I don't really see how any of this applies to, say, Broom of the System or many of DFW's short stories.
Fogrunr wrote:
Not a novel, but as a course primer, I suggest both the first and second versions of Jack London's short story To Build A Fire.
The two versions (1902 and 1908) of London's well known short-story offering rather different endings. A good discussion would ask, why did London revise the story six years later?
You could add Hans Christian Andersen's short-story "The Little Match Girl," written in 1845, to read after the two versions of London's story. The story is about a child's dreams while vainly struggling to keep warm lighting matches on a very cold winter day.
I'm a bit late to the party, but let me suggest Of Mice and Men. I lead off each year with it in a high-level 10th grade class (but at a very high-achieving school). It checks so many boxes that have been discussed already, and should be great for both the stellar students and the mouth breathers. Allow me to list some of its merits:
- major author - if your school district is like mine, it's obsessed with hitting major authors, so it's easy to check off Steinbeck without dragging students through East of Eden or The Grapes of Wrath (both of which I find insufferable)
- historical content - Dust Bowl, migrant workers, depression, American Dream, etc.
- prejudice - race, gender, mental ability, physical ability, age, etc.
- simplicity - 110 pages, easy-to-follow plot, fun and relevant story of friendship for the low-end students
- depth - can be really fleshed out for your higher-end students with the social issues and the sheer brilliance of of the structure
- symbolism - every time I teach this book I pick up on newer, deeper, and more enriching symbols or motifs
- the movie - this is a poor reason to put a book on a list, but truthfully, I find that having a decent film version can really enhance the comprehension and give a nice visual context
- relevance - every high school student in America deals with the ups-and-downs of friendship, prejudice in some form, and flirtatious femme fatales
While I don't consider Of Mice and Men one of the foremost works of American literature, I find it an essential and rewarding text to teach. In my district, 9th grade literature consists of Greek mythology, The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, etc. Though these are also valuable pieces, the challenging language and ancient settings make it challenging for students to analyze the actual literature; they have a hard enough time getting the plot down, so they aren't able to focus on depth. That's why I find Of Mice and Men a perfect first text for 10th grade. It's truthfully the first text they're actually able to both understand topically and see that their English teacher isn't over-reading or over-analyzing. For the first time they actually get the symbolism and love the process of analyzing good literature. It's fun to see their faces light up when they "get it" on the first work we read, and it really leads to a successful year.
TL;DR - Of Mice and Men is great for your best and worst students due to its simplicity, depth, relevance, and ease.
They were ok. I probably wouldn't just read them on my own, but that's the same with all books.. I think that for the most part they are some of the classics of English lit and it is important to have some knowledge of them. Above all the books were not terrible and good for education.
Of Mice and Men
Night
Catcher in the Rye
Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird
Hamlet
Beowulf
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Huckleberry Finn
A Tale of Two Cities
This is what I remember reading last year in AP Lit:
Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Oedipus Rex
Antigone
Glass Menagerie
Beloved
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
plus a plethora of short stories and poems
This is what I'm reading in semester 1 college english:
Huck Finn
The Sound and the Fury
Salvage the Bones
The Joy Luck Club
Drown
Angle of Repose
Some of these I think they would enjoy, some I think you should read before you are college age because they don't hold up as an adult, some are great works of literature, some have a ton of SAT vocab words in them.
Catch-22
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Canticles for Leibowitz
Tale of Two Cities
Catcher in the Rye
Confederacy of Dunces
The Awakening
Passage to India
Lolita
The Fountainhead
Short stories by George Saunders
Pride and Prejudice