# Favorite novel read in high school **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336 "2005-06-15T04:35:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/61 "2005-06-16T00:03:40Z")
> [@Zahava424](#): > > High school Junior checking in. > > In addition, I think it’d be worhwhile to assign The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon. I wrote a paper on it this year. It’s amazing, and totally unlike anything your students will have read before. It’s a totally different discussion when you’re analyzing a character’s utter LACK of emotion. (The protagonist has Asperger Syndrome. He narrates the book. It’s very interesting to see the events through his worldview.) Thank you so much. Some great advice in your post. Any other tips of likes/dislikes you want to share? I’m really wnating to engage the class as much as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Typically\_Sunday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Typically\_Sunday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typically_Sunday)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/62 "2005-06-16T00:13:25Z")
I would stay away from _Heart Of Darkness_. I read it this year(senior) in English and it was one of the most painfully boring books I’ve ever read for school. It took me forever to get through it and it’s only, what, 70 pages? Ecch. Other books I found irritating: _Jane Eyre Their eyes were watching God_ Books I liked: Wuthering Heights. Some people hate it, but c’mon, what’s not to like? Deceit, betrayal, love polygons, guns with knifes on 'em? The Great Gatsby Ethan Frome. It’s not for everyone, though. Books I read outside of class that I liked. Anything by Shirley Jackson Memoirs of a Geisha ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/63 "2005-06-16T01:53:14Z")
> [@Manda JO](#): > > **marymargaret** , Have you taught before? **no** > I would be very leary of doing **Beloved** , not because it’s not a great book, it is, but because your first year you really, really, really have to pick your battles, and it only takes one parent to make this into a battle. > > \*\*This is very good advice. Thank you. \*\* > > In the meantime, are you teaching AP language and compostion or AP Lit and composition? > > \*\*AP Lit \*\* > What are the demographics of your school? > **Rural, primarily white and hispanic, lower middle-class** > > So freel free to ask any questions you might have. **I will probably be asking you many questions!** Thank you for your help. ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/64 "2005-06-16T01:59:11Z")
> [@cbawlmer](#): > > If you let kids out of high school without having read some Shakespeare, they’re going to be culturally illiterate boobs. I’m just saying. If I teach Shakespeare, I was leaning towards **Twelfth Night, Othello, or King Lear**. Which do you think would be best? I’m pretty certain they will have read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet already. ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/65 "2005-06-16T02:01:00Z")
> [@cbawlmer](#): > > I liked _Heart of Darkness_ and \*The Stranger \* but I was one of exactly two students in my AP English class who felt that way. I was really hoping to teach **Heart of Darkness** , but I’m surprised by how many dislike it. (sigh) ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/66 "2005-06-16T02:15:31Z")
Ah, well, AP lit I know less about than AP lang. Honest to god, us Language teachers think you Lit teachers are a bunch of touchy-feely poetry types, going on about theme, when real men read nonfiction and argue about rhetorical purpose. But Lit is also a neat course, though I would struggle with it. You may notice that the opinions of people about books have varied widely in this thread: there is an important lesson there–one, no book is going to be universally popular and two, how a book is presented makes a big difference. The only things I think are really important are that 1) you have a varied selection of books–not all the sort of book you like, not all boy books or girl books, not all satires or all psychological novels–2) that you evaluate each not in terms of absolute worth, but in terms of opportunity cost. Does _Paradise Lost_ deserve to be read and studied in it’s entirety? Of course it does. Does it deserve it enough to replace the three shorter, simpler works you could have read in the same amount of time? Less obvious. 3) A good book is not the same as a teachable book. Pick each book not just because it’s good (though that’s important) but because it contains certain elements that you want to teach. This will focus your teaching. You can’t teach everything about any book. More general advice: [Ap Central](http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/members) is a great website. Peruse it. If at ALL possible, attend one of the AP seminars this summer. Here in TX, the state pays for them; if your state doesn’t, see if your school will. They are not cheap, but they are extremely helpful. If you ever get a chance to see Jane Schaffer, go. Her approach is a useful way to break down writing for kids who are not natural writers–this is diffucult for those of us who become English teachers, because we WERE natural writers, by and large. ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/67 "2005-06-16T03:14:54Z")
> [@marymargaret](#): > > If I teach Shakespeare, I was leaning towards **Twelfth Night, Othello, or King Lear**. Which do you think would be best? I’m pretty certain they will have read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet already. Speaking as a student (up to recently, anyway), I vote for Twelfth Night. Actually, I would recommend the Merchant of Venice or Much Ado About Nothing. I like Othello, but it always depresses the hell out of me, more than any other play. As for the OP, the greatest thing I read in high school was All Quiet on the Western Front followed closely by The Miller’s Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Bear in mind that I went to a Christian high school and was specifically told _not_ to read it. I, being me, of course, read it. I fucking died. I still die every time I read that story. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Black\_Hand\_Gang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@The\_Black\_Hand\_Gang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Black_Hand_Gang)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/68 "2005-06-16T03:35:40Z")
_Grendel_ / _Beowulf_ is a very good combination. We read _The Sirens of Titan_ instead of the more well known Vonnegut choices. I liked _Heart of Darkness_ and _The Great Gatsby_. We read _1984_ and _Animal Farm_ one after the other. _Lord of the Flies_ and _Catcher in the Rye_ are good for high school, while _Crime and Punishment_, my favorite novel, might be appreciated more in college. We also read _Ender’s Game_ my sophomore year. You can go with that if you are having trouble getting students interested in a book. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/69 "2005-06-16T04:51:02Z")
> [@marymargaret](#): > > If I teach Shakespeare, I was leaning towards **Twelfth Night, Othello, or King Lear**. Which do you think would be best? I’m pretty certain they will have read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet already. Are you sure they will have read Hamlet? We read it in 12th grade and most of the students knew the basuics, but I think only the actors had read it. Hamlet has the most to analyze, too. (By contrast, we read R&J in 9th grade.) I’m going to counter-recommend **Hung Mung** and say stick with a tragedy. You know how a joke isn’t funny if somebody has to explain it to you? I love Shakespeare, but if you have to explain most of the jokes (which you will), they won’t be funny. So a whole comedy of them will not be interesting to most of them, especially those without a previous interest in Shakespeare, and I think those are the main targets. His comedies just aren’t funny on the page. Not that they’re supposed to be. If you took your class to a performance after spending a few days going over the gist of the play, that’d be different. It’s always better to see a play instead of reading it. Since distopian novels are a requirement in high school for some reason, maybe just to make the students bitter at the world, let me say this: I read Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, and 1984 for school. Brave New World (which I read on my own this year) is better than any of them. Please go with that instead. Rather than being heavy-handed and depressing - okay, it’s heavy-handed sometimes - it’s funny, for one, and more importantly _it comes much, much closer to what America is like today_. All of your kids will probably agree that a government that tells everybody what to think and disappears people is bad, but the whole ‘control through hedonism’ thing is more interesting and more relevant. ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/70 "2005-06-16T04:59:33Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Are you sure they will have read Hamlet? We read it in 12th grade and most of the students knew the basuics, but I think only the actors had read it. Hamlet has the most to analyze, too. (By contrast, we read R&J in 9th grade.) No, I’m not certain. This was just what one of librarian’s told me she “thought” they did. I have a meeting with the department head and the principal in about two weeks to iron all of these details out. ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/71 "2005-06-16T05:29:50Z")
My class read R&J in 9th grade, Macbeth in 10th (holy moly, how did I forget Macbeth? Between that and Merchant, you’ve got two awesome plays) and Hamlet and Henry IV pt.1 in 12th. Measure for Measure is an absolutely eerie problem comedy and good for debate. The histories are pretty dry for high school. And avoid Antony and Cleopatra at all costs. Unless you like to see kids passing out from sheer boredom. ---
**Author:** ![TheOnlySaneOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/67e7ee/32.png) [@TheOnlySaneOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheOnlySaneOne)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/72 "2005-06-16T07:27:20Z")
Of the ones assigned? I’d have to say _Life of Pi_ by Yann Martel. Any and all Shakespeare was well appreciated as well. Just as a personal rule of thumb, Hawthorne and Hemmingway and Faulkner? Oh, no. ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/73 "2005-06-16T17:23:54Z")
Do most of you think **Animal Farm** would interest the class? I loved it, but wonder if it would be liked as well by todays students. ---
**Author:** ![cbawlmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cbawlmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbawlmer)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/74 "2005-06-16T19:12:22Z")
> [@marymargaret](#): > > Do most of you think **Animal Farm** would interest the class? I loved it, but wonder if it would be liked as well by todays students. I loved it when I read it in 7th grade, but like I said before, I was one of two weird kids who also liked _Heart of Darkness_. Heh. I almost typed _Army of Darkness_. That would’ve been a very atypical curriculum choice. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/75 "2005-06-16T19:35:49Z")
> [@cbawlmer](#): > > I loved it when I read it in 7th grade, but like I said before, I was one of two weird kids who also liked _Heart of Darkness_. It just seems like there is so much you can do with the novella and symbolism, colonialism, etc. But the last thing I wnat to do is bore a class to tears. Maybe they will appreciate it when they are older. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/76 "2005-06-16T20:30:09Z")
The only assigned book I really remember from high school is **The Crystal Cave** by Mary Stewart. I just couldn’t put it down. In fact, by the time we were supposed to have finished the book, I had read the other three books of the series. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/77 "2005-06-16T20:36:56Z")
I loved **Bridge to Terabithia** **1984** **The Outsider/Le Estranger** Can you see I really like depressing books? ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/78 "2005-06-16T21:02:48Z")
> [@Manda JO](#): > > I teach Junior level English, and I use _the Princess Bride_ as my summer reading. It is a smashing success: the kids love it–probably 85% read it, which is phenomenal for summer reading, and it is stylistically rich enough to give me a way to introduce close analysis. That does make me happy to see. [Assigning a Shakespearean Comedy rant] Some of Shakespeare’s comedies work upon reading. Some don’t. _Much Ado About Nothing_ will, indeed, mean nothing to your class (not to say I don’t enjoy it, but I also performed in it). _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, which I and many others in this thread suggested, works brilliantly on paper (and even more brilliantly on stage!) Whereas, for example, _Much Ado_ has Dogberry and Conrad for very limited crude slapstick, _Midsummer_ has the six mechanicals, particularly Bottom, who are juvenilely funny throughout. The fact that the nobles basically MST3K the Pyramus and Thisbe play is very easy to understand the humor. And it has Puck, which might fly over some of their heads, but is pretty accessibly mischievous. If they can keep track of which of the four lovers goes with which, the kids will get that mess, too. It’s a GREAT comedy for high schoolers because it’s probably the one that Shakespeare played the most to the low sensibilities of the masses. [/Assigning a Shakespearean Comedy rant] And I agree with **Marley23** : If you’re going to go with a dystopian story, make it **Brave New World**. It offers the most unique spin, when everything’s so controllably sensible and GOOD that it’s a disaster. ---
**Author:** ![OhFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecccb3/32.png) [@OhFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OhFace)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/79 "2005-06-16T23:08:26Z")
I just finished a Britsh Lit course as a 27 year old junior in college, and even I couldn’t stand to read one more word by Conrad. We read Youth, Hearth of Darkness, and Lord Jim. If your students aren’t educated in boating then they’ll be somewhat lost. What I didn’t like was that not only could I not follow the language of boating terminology, but he is so wordy that I had to reread many sentences. Not to mention I’d reread the last ten pages every so often because nothing happens the majority of the time, it’s just a lot of descriptions. I found it boring, but that’s just me. Books I loved: The Hobbit The Great Gatsby Of Mice and Men Lord of the Flies ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336/80 "2005-06-16T23:28:07Z")
It seems like many of you like **Lord of the Flies** and **Of Mice and Men** , so I will definitely reconsider these. Enough of you have said you dislike Heart of Darkness to make me pretty certain not to have the class read it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-novel-read-in-high-school/308336.md?page=5)