Never bring a knife to a gun fight.
(draws gun)
Never draw a gun on the man who poisoned your coffee 20 minutes ago - 
How you feel’in?
…turns and walks away 
Seriously folks. Those of you who were required to read The catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, The scarlet Letter, Night, The Bacchae - are you seriously any worse the wear?
Reading these literary classics is what makes us free thinkers…amongst other things.
I don’t know but I’ll make you a copy and send it to you. I’m going to grab one for myself on Monday.
Bah. I HATED Catcher in the Rye. Freakin’ whiny bastard Holden. “Ooh, woe is me. Oh, I’m so angsty!” Damn idiot.
So, yes, I am worse for wear.
Considering my cousins…
I’m in the cousin=icky squared crowd.
Make that cousin=icky cubed.
And I’m from the south…
Nah, just licked the tip a little. Or was that licked a little tip? The words are so similar in the original Quenya.
Enjoy,
Steven
Comparing The Diary of Anne Frank to a minor novel published to mixed reviews in 1992 is what literary scholars refer to as “really stretching it”. Cocksucking is not a viewpoint. If the school wants kids to learn about the relationship between Islam and India, they ought to assign something by Naipaul or Rushdie, preferably both. It would be a lot easier to defend those authors against an attempted book-banning.
That is the dumbest possible reason for deciding which books to read.
Why is that dumb? When you consider that such children’s classics as Little House on the Prairie and The Phantom Tollbooth were both banned at one time–the lists of banned books piques my curiosity no end.
What the hell is wrong with people --how does a BOOK threaten someone?
I don’t see how an “alternate” assignment is in the kid’s best interests at all. How does s/he then discuss and debate theme, plot and character?
Oh, yeah–those who support banned books also don’t support different points of view and opening of young minds. My bad. I keep forgetting.
They don’t they are left out, and other students are left to discern for themselves why little Tammy can’t read the book with naked people in it.
Or hopefully little Tammy is discusted with her Mother’s tyranny and rebels and starts reading the book anyway…
You want them to select the books on the basis that they’re defendable? The banners will have already won.
No, but a young woman in a nascent Islamic state certainly has a point of view.
What do you suppose the reader is supposed to make of the almost “cocksucking?” Did you get the sense that it was intended to have prurient appeal? Or were we meant to feel that the protagonist was imperilled in some way?
What conditions led her to blithely take her cousin’s penis in her hand? What information does this vignette convey about her environment? Do you think the author believes that complete naivete about sexual matters serves a twelve-year-old-girl well?
I wouldn’t try to control that mother’s parenting choices (as long as they weren’t abusive) any more than she should try to dictate anyone else’s.
And anyway, what if the daughter wanted to read something different? There should always be another reading choice for classroom assignments.
What if the daughter wanted to continue reading the assigned work but momm
y didn’t want her to?
No there should not, if the reading is going to be further discussed in class. The entire class needs to be on the same page (pun intended). If the purpose is just to write a report at the end, I can see offering alternative choices.
Not if the class is reading and discussing a book together, as happens in most high school english classes.
And where did the idea that classroom assignments should be voluntary come from? What if the daughter doesn’t want to do a given algebra assignment, or chemistry lab, or read a given history book? Students don’t get to pick and choose what they learn.
Yeah, I’m really not getting that. Part of what literature is, at least to me, is a mirror that is held up to the world. It is a way for us to see our society better. The fact that a group of people are up in arms enough that they don’t want anyone else to look is very interesting and, as far as I am concerned, is an indication that those particular books have the potential to be more interesting and important than others simply because of the dialog and backlash that they have caused with society.
And tapdancing around my question is what we here at the Dope call “avoidance.” So how about you answer, huh? Why is it appropriate for a 6th grade history teacher to use Diary of Anne Frank as a tool for 12 year olds to gain perspective on what it was like to be Jewish in Germany during the reign of Adolph Hitler, but inappropriate for a senior high school lit teacher to choose a book which, in their opinion, illustrates the religious mores and interpersonal relationships in India? Bearing in mind that when it comes to Lit teachers, opinions count for a great deal of what ends up on the syllabus.
Really? Ever open a locked thread just on the basis that it was locked? How come? Reading a book on the sole basis that it’s been banned is no worse a reason than solely reading books because someone says it’s a classic. Reading a banned book tells whoever it is trying to ban it that they are not allowed to make your choices for you. That you are not going to be led by their views of what is and what is not acceptable reading material. In short; that you can think for yourself. They hate that.
Certainly.
I suggest we stick with Dick & Jane (all 8 pages) as an alternative choice all throughout primary and secondary education.
Of course, we’ll have to change the name to make it less offensive, but what are you gonna do? Nothing’s perfect.
Of course, any book that mentions religion must have an alternative that doesn’t. And, well, I just don’t like them negroes, so anything that has anything other than lily-white folks just won’t do. And you can’t mention the USA because it’ll piss off foreigners since so many of them hate the USA, and besides, mentioning the USA could offend some southern folks…you don’t want to remind them that they lost the War of Northern Aggression.
I guess the only solution is to read nothing at all.
-Joe
Are you sure that isn’t testimony from the Clinton impeachment? 
How on earth is a student supposed to take part in class discussions if they don’t read the same book? You seem to have a fundemental lack of understanding about how a high school eEnglish class works.
If a parent is that insistent on choosing the reading material for her child, perhaps she should look into home schooling.