What Do They Teach in School These Days?

[Squire]

For the past few weeks, I've been tutoring a Korean girl who attends high school in Wales. She asked me to help her out with the musical they're studying in English class entitled Blood Brothers. The story's great but, to be honest, I'm a little surprised at the profanity - just because this is something they'll be studying with the teacher. (It's a good thing the student asked me what "tits" and "nymphomaniac" meant. I can just imagine the laughter and resulting embarrassment.)

So what novels, plays, musicals, etc. are taught nowadays? When I was in high school, we did a different Shakespearean play each year (Julius Caesar, MacBeth, and Hamlet), a lot of poetry, and at least one novel. (It was a long time ago. The only one I can recall is Lord of the Flies.)

Squire

[virividox]

i suppose its their attempt to be contemporary and capture the interest of the students, i enjoyed doing the classic plays in high school, but we also did more modern ones, but mainstream ones. nothing with swearing tho

[themadchemist]

I just graduated from HS a couple of years ago and we stuck to the basics. Here is some of the stuff we studied:

The Crucible, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, The Scarlet Letter, A Separate Peace, Animal Farm, A Farewell to Arms, Night, The Old Man and the Sea, Ethan Frome, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Crime and Punishment.

[homerjward]

im gonna be a freshman in about 8 days and in the past couple years we studied: animal farm, fahrenheit 451, macbeth, night, alicia: my story, a separate peace, farewell to manzanar, the tempest, my fair lady, the odyssey (english of course), and several others i cant remember at the moment. next year we're studying the house on mango street, a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, and i think romeo and juliet. my favorite one we've done so far is fahrenheit 451 :cool: :cool:

[Abstract]

Yeah, they still teach Shakespeare, but sometimes they're venture into things like Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolfe and such. Not extremely contemporary, but better than Shakespeare. Haaated Shakespeare. I know its important to be exposed to some of his work, but acting it out in English class always seemed a bit unnecessary.

[Squire]

Well, it seems everybody's been studying the mainstream sort of things. Anyone else done anything with profanity or adult content?

Squire

[Daveman Deluxe]

I can't remember everything I've studied in high school, but I'll give it a shot.

Freshman year: Fahrenheit 451 (I never finished it. I hated it.), Winterdance, Romeo and Juliet, one of the works from Oedipus Rex, and Farewell to Manzanar. Oh, and the one about Beowulf.

Sophomore year: I think we only studied Kaffir Boy, but I can't remember for sure.

Junior year: The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, and many short stories and poems.

Senior year (in creative writing): Lord of the Rings, and four other books that elude me right now.

In middle school, I remember studying Animal Farm, several Roald Dahl books, and a few others.

[knicksfan58]

im gonna be a freshman soon and for summer reading i have to read 'east of eden' by john steinbeck. it's one of the most boring books i've ever read, and its 600 pages...

[aethier]

Graduated last year, we still did shakespeare pretty much every grade level

we read novels, shakespeare, short stories, poems

grade 7: the one, a book about a native american girl (i forget what its called), romeo and juliet, short stories.

grade 8: the diary of anne frank, the contender, crab, short stories, poetry.

grade 9: macbeth, tenderness, lord of the flies, ordinary people, the catcher in the rye

grade 10: merchant of venice, all quiet on the western front, the great gatsby

grade 11: the power of one, east of eden, we were the mulvaney's, slaughter house 5.

and well i am no longer in highschool (in quebec we don't have middle school, and we also only go upto grade 11)

anyway, we did lots of reading, and lots of responses and lots of essays durring highschool english class...

aethier

[aethier]

im gonna be a freshman soon and for summer reading i have to read 'east of eden' by john steinbeck. it's one of the most boring books i've ever read, and its 600 pages...

i enjoyed east of eden, you will see, the start is a little slow, but it gets a lot better.

aethier

[King Cobra]

So what novels, plays, musicals, etc. are taught nowadays? When I was in high school, we did a different Shakespearean play each year (Julius Caesar, MacBeth, and Hamlet), a lot of poetry, and at least one novel. (It was a long time ago. The only one I can recall is Lord of the Flies.)
You haven't missed much. :D

I personally hate reading literature, because I'm a slow reader in comparison to the avg. person in a classroom about reading literature, and I lose track of everything. I remember that when I was 5th grade, the class was asked something like which was better: Books or movies, and explain. For the above two explanations for my hate of reading literature, I chose movies. I happened to be the only one in the class to choose movies over books. To this day, I still do, and for almost the same reasons.

With that being said, it's easy for me to recall what I hated doing most in H.S. Though I support H.S., English was never my thing. Titles included: MacBeth, Hamlet, LotF, Old Man and the Sea, and The Scarlet Letter. But then I remember (doing not so well in) reading and trying to understand a best seller called: The Color Of Water.

But my #1 rated literature material for all of my English classes so far is The Catcher in the Rye. Why? Because, well... the original inspiration from reading through the book is lost, but I know that it isn't one of those story books that lecture you for 350 pages. With Catcher in the Rye, you don't have to force yourself to read through the book as much as others, since it's fairly casual, opinionated, and blunt honest (mostly), rather than having the professional and formal attire of most mainstream books.

[jefhatfield]

romeo and juliet, steinbeck, diary of anne frank, catcher in the rye, illustrated man, animal farm

[dethl]

I hated english, but we did do the usual: Romeo and Juliet, etc....

My senior year we had a list from which we could pick. I picked something by Charles Dickens (can't remember title), but I noticed that Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was on the list (a favorite of mine, along with 1984 and Anthem...yeah, so i like the negative utopian series...but they give you a great perspective on the world, because our world isn't like the ones in the book, although 1984 is starting to become more real every day).

I took all the college english I needed the first year of college (now on year two finally!) and we didn't have any major reading assignments. Then again, I attend a college focused into the sciences.

[iMeowbot]

Well, it seems everybody's been studying the mainstream sort of things. Anyone else done anything with profanity or adult content?
Shakespeare used outright filthy language all the time. It doesn't appear that way to current readers, simply because we choose to be offended by different things. The same is true for many other writings now regarded as classics; there are plenty of things that would still be considered naughty today, if figures of speech hadn't evolved.

[MacFan26]

In high school we read a lot of books with profanity and some that were provocative. I was also in the "advanced" classes too, so people were generally more understanding of it. For example, the whole class wouldn't start giggling over stuff. Some of the books we read were: Song of Solomon, Invisible Man, Grapes of Wrath, Ordinary People, Catcher in the Rye (I detest that one), Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, half of Shakespeare's plays, and the list goes on...

[acceber]

Well in Australia...I'm currently doing the HSC (final year of high school, I think in America you call it senior year) and there are three basic streams of english.

1. English Advanced
2. English Standard
3. ESL (English as a Second Language)

I'm not sure about the latter two, but in advanced, one Shakespeare text is a must. We're studying Antony and Cleopatra.
We also have an area of study, ours is Journeys and we have to talk about how journey's are represented in different sorts of texts, the different kinds of journeys, etc etc.
And of course there is Jane Austen. We're studying Emma.

All very very boring. English is overrated. It's a compulsory subject in Australia.

[chewbaccapits]

Shakespeare used outright filthy language all the time. It doesn't appear that way to current readers, simply because we choose to be offended by different things. The same is true for many other writings now regarded as classics; there are plenty of things that would still be considered naughty today, if figures of speech hadn't evolved.
Well posted...Just taught Twelfth Night by Shakespeare and that has a sufficent amounts of homoerotic overtones.

[takao]

hm we read:
catcher in the rye
lord of the flies
brave new world
clockwork orange
lots of edgar a. poe short stories
in the last year we had to choose 3 books everyone : i had blade runner ,2001,on the beach

but i'm sure i missed a few books

of cours we did some more books in german .

[yellow]

Well.. it was a really long time ago for me. I graduated from high school in 1990. But it seems like some of the younger folks that have weighed in with what they were taught are, more or less, being taught the same things that I was taught. I think we had a bit more of "The Classics", but a very nice mix of contemporary novels as well.

I think an interesting follow-up to the original poster's question is, how many of you folks that had to read all this in school still read? Personally, I am a voracious reader. Always have been, always will be. Who cares if 80% of what I read is via Palm eReader on my Tungsten T? :)

[FriarCrazy]

I might be forgetting something but....

6th - Animal Farm, Grapes of Wrath

7th - can't remember

8th - Cry the Beloved Country, Our Town, The Red Pony

9th - Scarlett Letter, Romeo and Juliet, Farenheight 451, To Kill A Mockingbird

10th - The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath (AGAIN!), The Ugly American, All Quiet on the Western Front, Huckleberry Finn, bunches upon bunches of Robet Frost and Ralph Waldo Emmerson

11th - The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Awakening, Crime and Punishment, The Inferno, Dr. Faustus, A Small Place, Still Life With Rice, Candide

12th - Frankenstein, Hamlet, Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, Arcadia (Best play I've EVER read), Anthem

Arcadia should be read by all seniors in high school. It's fun and witty, a great play to study for the end of the year.

[Squire]

I think an interesting follow-up to the original poster's question is, how many of you folks that had to read all this in school still read? Personally, I am a voracious reader. Always have been, always will be. Who cares if 80% of what I read is via Palm eReader on my Tungsten T? :)

Interesting question. I started reading a lot more as soon as I didn't have to read. Funny, when I was supposed to read something it took forever but once I did it for pleasure, I cruised right along. When I got to Korea, I read tons of books because I spent so much time on public transportation. Nowadays, I don't read as much. (I've got wheels.) I had a roommate, though, who would literally read about 5 books a week. And the guy would read anything.

Squire

[LimeiBook86]

I'm entering my senior year in high school. But don't ask me anything, I have no idea what goes on. I just learn some math, english, and some science, etc with the old books form the early 80's or 90's.

Heh, back to school for me soon... <shivers>

:o

[mouchoir]

they were using 'blood brothers' when I was at school about 12 yrs ago, so it's not quite a new and edgy bit of curricular programming.

hated fahrenheit 451?! It is a fantastic book, and very important – almost up there with 1984 and brave new world...

[ejb190]

they were using 'blood brothers' when I was at school about 12 yrs ago, so it's not quite a new and edgy bit of curricular programming.

hated fahrenheit 451?! It is a fantastic book, and very important – almost up there with 1984 and brave new world...

Personally, I will take 1984 over Fahrenheit 451 any day. To me it has a much more developed theme.

I read a lot - espically now that I am out of work for a week (had a ruptured disk in my neck worked on). I have been meaning to get back to the classics, but lately I have been reading stuff like "The Purpose Driven Life" and "Case for Faith".

My biggest problem with reading in school was the part where the teachers would make you take a book you didn't quite understand and try and break it into all of the parts and themes. Takes all the enjoyment out of it, personally.

[stevehaslip]

they were using 'blood brothers' when I was at school about 12 yrs ago, so it's not quite a new and edgy bit of curricular programming.
Same although not 12 years ago, 4 for me. I read "Of Mice and Men" and "Blood Brothers" at school. Its not like that bad, they are well respected books and we were teenagers who demanded to be taught! or at least thats what my English teacher said. (on a regular basis:rolleyes:) I'm not sure but i think we might have had a letter go home about it, asking if any parents had any issues about it.

[stevietheb]

I've been out of HS for a while now...but here's the stuff I remember reading:

Huckleberry Finn, Native Son, ******, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Our Town, The Crucible, The Elephant Man, Cyrano de Bergerac , For Whom the Bell Tolls, Beowulf, Julius Caesar, MacBeth, Hamlet, A Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Wuthering Heights, Inherit the Wind, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, Henry V, Richard III, Canterbury Tales, Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Catcher in the Rye, All the King's Men...

That's all that comes to mind at the moment--I know there were more.

[iGav]

I haven't the foggiest... I've totally forgotten, although I don't recall doing alot of "novels, plays, musicals" at my school, which is kind of handy considering I don't have an interest in any of them.

The one thing I do recall being "taught" at school, and fiercely resenting it, was RE, I have absolutely no interest in Religion and I resent being forced to learn about it. A waste of a subject for me, and looking back I should have asked my parents to arrange for me to be removed from that subject and into a more interesting or beneficial one that may have been some use to me.

[Jaffa Cake]

Well, it seems everybody's been studying the mainstream sort of things. Anyone else done anything with profanity or adult content?

Squire

We studied Loot by Joe Orton at 'A' Level (a good ten years ago now). If I remember rightly it was originally banned by the Lord Chamberlain during the 1960s because of its content – murder, homosexuality, jokes about necrophilia and religion. Quite what it says about my old English teacher I don't know...

That aside, it was pretty standard fare – Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Nights Dream), plus a bit of Orwell, Austen and Chaucer.

[stevietheb]

At the risk of sounding like a loser--

I just thought I'd point out to the lover of the Catcher in the Rye (forgot the poster's name) who liked it for being casual and "bluntly honest," that the reason the Catcher in the Rye is read in high school English classes is to point out the dubious nature of 1st person narrative. Throughout the entire novel you have to ask yourself whether or not Holden is telling the truth...therefore, isn't it an extremely dishonest book--hahaha....

Looking back at some of these lists, a bunch of books we read jump out at me--Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath...my schoool stuck to the classics...I can't think of anything too profane--though we did do some edgy material