School Reading

[katekintailbc]

I wrote this long post for the BookCrossing forums and thought I'd copy it here because it's stuff I want to keep track of and will probably forget one day.

In response to the question: What books were in your school curriculum?

We had short stories, plays, and poetry each year, but I couldn't remember all the names/titles. They're not necessarily books, but I've included some as I remembered them. Also, I'm SURE I read Julius Caesar but can't remember if that was 9th or 10th grade. Probably 10th (I think we were supposed to read at least one Shakespeare a year excluding American Lit year). Also, I had the same teacher in the same classroom location for 11th and 12th grades so those two years blend together in my mind a little.

Let's see...

12th grade was Non-American Lit- Beowulf, MacBeth (summer reading), Hamlet, King Lear, Shakespeare sonnets, the Canterbury Tales, Much Ado About Nothing (summer reading- pick a play that you haven't read yet and that isn't one we're covering this year), Oedipus Rex, Antigone, The Oresteia, Dante's Inferno (summer reading), Crime and Punishment, some of Le Morte d'Arthur (summer reading), The Metamorphosis
(I also opted to go see The Tempest and Electra with classmates in Washington DC)

11th grade was American Lit- the Scarlet Letter, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, some but not all of Walden Pond, Brave New World, The Grapes of Wrath, The Sound and the Fury, The Great Gatsby, The Heart of Darkness (maybe this was 12th grade?), Native Son (summer reading), Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, The Crucible, Invisible Man (somehow I remember this being 12th grade but it's American Lit so I can't be sure)

10th grade- Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Lord of the Flies, The Winter of Our Discontent (for summer reading we had to choose a John Steinbeck book that wasn't Grapes of Wrath, Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, or the Pearl), Twelve Angry Men
(I also read Wuthering Heights- my choice- for Creative Writing class)

9th grade- A Separate Peace, Great Expectations, lots of short stories.
We were supposed to read A Tale of Two Cities and Romeo & Juliet but my teacher showed us the movies instead. I remember listening to poetry recordings (Richard Cory was particularly memorable). I read R&J on my own. I was not thrilled with the little amount my teacher taught, but to balance it out she wrote the style manual for paper writing that I used throughout middle school and high school.

People in the regular (non-gifted & talented program) at my school got to read awesome books like Animal Farm, Of Mice & Men, and Catch-22. Those were deemed "too easy" for people in my class. I read Animal Farm for the first time just a few years ago and the other two are on Mt. TBR.


Middle School- Frankenstein, The Odyssey, A Christmas Carol, lots of Edgar Allan Poe short stories (Creative Writing class), Rebecca (my choice), Tom Sawyer (I read Huckleberry Finn by choice since it was a book that contained both), The Jungle (in history class), Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Black Feeling Black Talk (my choice during poetry unit), Stepping on Cracks (my choice), ABC Murders (my choice), Flowers for Algernon, The Lady or the Tiger (I think that was for Creative Writing class)


Elementary School- the first few books in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Phantom Tollbooth (a re-read once I got to that unit), Jurassic Park (that was part of the "pick a book out of this box the teacher brought in and write a report on it"), Sign of the Beaver, Wizard of Earthsea (my choice), The Trumpet of the Swans, A Joyful Noise, Mrs. Frisbee & the Rats of Nymph, Stuart Little, Caddie Woodlawn, Hitty Her First Hundred Years (my choice), Dear Mr. Henshaw (my choice, a re-read), The Chocolate Touch, The Indian in the Cupboard, Number the Stars (my choice), Sounder, A Castle in the Attic, A Wrinkle in Time, gazillions more that I can't remember off the top of my head!!!


PS- In my school, it was a very set curriculum. But usually there was only one GT teacher per level so he/she had a little more leeway than the other teachers in the school (which is the only reason I assume my 9th grade teacher got away with showing us movies in place of reading).

Comments

This was my response to that thread

[melydia.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez, there were so many. I'll try just for titles, not authors, and I'll only count stuff we read as a class, not on my own for a book report. Let's see...

Grades K-8: Johnny Tremain, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Cay, The Door in the Wall, The Whipping Boy, The Incredible Journey, various Edgar Allen Poe stories, Summer of my German Soldier, The Lady or the Tiger, A Separate Peace, Huckleberry Finn, Sarah Plain and Tall, My Side of the Moutain, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (I think), The Warlock Rock, Anne of Green Gables, Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Sign of the Beaver, The Lottery

High school: Romeo & Juliet, Great Expectations, Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Sense & Sensibility, The Jungle, The Scarlet Letter, Of Mice and Men (I *think*), Macbeth, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Oedipus Rex, Lysistrata, The Inferno, Le Morte d'Arthur, A Separate Peace (again), Waiting for Godot, Ethan Frome, Fahrenheit 451, Beloved, The Joy Luck Club, assorted political speeches, Anne Frank: a Diary of a Young Girl

Though I might be confusing a couple of the high school ones with the humanities classes I took in college. It's all a blur....

Re: This was my response to that thread

[katekintailbc.livejournal.com]

Oohhh I forgot about reading The Diary of Anne Frank in 8th grade! Which is REALLY ironic since I am in the middle of earreading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

How was The Lottery? Is that the one where they have a festival each year and someone gets the black dot and dies? Or is that something else?

Re: This was my response to that thread

[melydia.livejournal.com]

Is that the one where they have a festival each year and someone gets the black dot and dies?

That's the one. It's pretty good, somewhat grim. Just a short story.