Inspired by the “Books you read in high school that you absolutely hated” thread, what do you think are books that should be read in high school?
I’d like to see The Long Walk taught. The way Stephen King makes the characters sympathetic, builds tension, and turns what could have been a story into a thriller novel, should teach the students about writing as a craft, not just an assignment.
1984 by George Orwell. Should engender a lot of class discussion. What is the dividing line between what the state wants us to think, and what we actually do? (Remember, Winston has doubts about what he puts down the memory hole.) I’ve got a lot to say about 1984, but I’ll leave it there for now.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. This will make students think about what lies ahead for them if they like that sort of thing, and I’ll stop here on that.
What books would you like to see today’s high school students read?
Mediaspeak: How Television Makes Up Your Mind by Donna W. Cross. I had to read it in 9th grade as part of the Communications/Humanities magnet program I was in, but it should be required reading for everyone.
I haven’t read “The Long Walk”, but I have read other Stephen King works, and I wholly agree that he’s as much of a master of the writing craft as any other writer, and there’s no good reason why his works shouldn’t be used in English classes. In fact, students might be more engaged than they are reading older, dustier stuff that is so popular among English teachers.
We did read Orwell’s 1984 in my high school. I loved it.
I’m not sure which books I’d list as “should reads”. Tastes vary, and I wouldn’t want to impose books that were too long. I’d be okay with excerpts in many cases. So in the list that olows, imagine “all or excerpts”
The Odyssey – Fitzgerald or Fagles translation, for choice.
Candide – it’s short, so read the whole thing
Gulliver’s Travels
Life on the Mississippi or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Could be excerpts. If you want to assign Huckleberry Finn because it’s “The Great American Novel”, only do excerpts.
Some Shakespeare Plays – MacBeth, The Tempest, A Comedy of Errors. Don’t make them read Hamlet. If you do Taming of the Shrew or Othello, expect a lot of side-issue discussion.
Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde or Kidnapped or Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson in a helluva read.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – ought to get a WTF reaction out of the kids, but worth it.
Many years ago, my older brother was very pleased with himself for finishing the Odyssey. When he reported this accomplishment to my father (who attended Boston Latin), the response was, “in the original Greek, right?”
As I noted in the other thread, we had 1984 assigned, too, and did not hate it. (I have a lot of issues with the details in the world of Winston Smith, which I outlined in my HS paper, but in general it is a good book. ) I think, now that I am here in this thread, I remember that we also were assigned Animal Farm, which is another good choice.
One of my favorite books is The Little Prince, but it might be too poetic or even boring for HSers.
Dune might be a good one for HSers. It’s complex, has a great world building, and you can get a lot of discussion out of whether the Fremen are actually the bad guys.
Honestly, I think the average teenager is already busy and crammed enough with stuff to read that they should only be assigned books in high school that have direct practical relevance to modern life or today’s world. Yes, this would mean missing out on classics, but time is always a finite resource, and something has to be sacrificed. So I’d ditch all the Shakespeare, Hemingway, etc.
I would assign:
Books about personal finance, especially investing and credit card debt
Books about healthcare, insurance, personal health
Books about contemporary politics.
Books like Escape from Camp 14 (by a North Korean defector,) books about Ukraine, the Middle East, the ongoing AI revolution, climate change, etc.
So no fiction at all? There’s a lot of evidence that reading fiction is strongly correlated with compassion for others, because it requires the reader to imagine being a different person.
For similar reasons, I’d recommend After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection by James Davidson and Mark Lytle. The stated subject is examining historical evidence but the principles it discusses have much wider application.
Nobody can read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the way that people read it back in nineteenth century. What was written as a shock twist ending has been spoilered by the story entering popular culture so deeply.
OK, I stand corrected. But - forcing someone to read fiction that they are going to find old and stuffy is likely to backfire by making them dislike reading fiction. It’s like introducing someone to music but the first thing you make them hear is a dozen old boring Bach pieces. It could actually '“vaccinate” them against reading fiction in the future.