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proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:40 AM Dec 2012

Catcher in the Rye dropped from US school curriculum

American literature classics are to be replaced by insulation manuals and plant inventories in US classrooms by 2014.

A new school curriculum which will affect 46 out of 50 states will make it compulsory for at least 70 per cent of books studied to be non-fiction, in an effort to ready pupils for the workplace.

Books such as JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced by "informational texts" approved by the Common Core State Standards.

Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council.

The new educational standards have the backing of the influential National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and are being part-funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

more ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9729383/Catcher-in-the-Rye-dropped-from-US-school-curriculum.html

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Catcher in the Rye dropped from US school curriculum (Original Post) proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 OP
I'm sure the English Classes will at least read a couple of novels and at least one Shakespeare. WCGreen Dec 2012 #1
No. Probably not. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #4
But 70% of my High School reading was Non-Fiction.... WCGreen Dec 2012 #27
That was then. This is now. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #64
That's a bit like unifying everyone's immune systems... AtheistCrusader Dec 2012 #82
Yes. And scripted lessons too. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #112
I read that piece on Friday about the automated burger making machine... AtheistCrusader Dec 2012 #116
My high school required 3 years of english. AtheistCrusader Dec 2012 #80
I, too, didn't understand Catcher in the Rye when I read it at 16. And I was a pretty SharonAnn Dec 2012 #99
That is one hallmark of a great work of literature, i.e., that one can "re-read coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #148
I believe we had English all through six years of Jr. High and High School hfojvt Dec 2012 #109
100 books? progressoid Dec 2012 #158
I was always a rabid reader and read far more than what was required. WCGreen Dec 2012 #160
not according to the program's website dlwickham Dec 2012 #79
It's not just the notion of reading a couple of pieces of fiction here or there. Skidmore Dec 2012 #14
How many history classes did you take? How many "history" books did you read? AnotherMcIntosh Dec 2012 #22
We were taught History by looking at the great themes that ran through certain ages... WCGreen Dec 2012 #51
. AnotherMcIntosh Dec 2012 #70
This message was self-deleted by its author HiPointDem Dec 2012 #25
This is obscene. Skidmore Dec 2012 #2
Common Core. It's awful. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #5
the dumbing down of americans spanone Dec 2012 #3
Continues.... SammyWinstonJack Dec 2012 #8
Americas' Number One Product. STUPIDITY! n/t RKP5637 Dec 2012 #17
my sentiments exactly! Dalai_1 Dec 2012 #76
I find this really reprehensible lunatica Dec 2012 #6
Doesn't matter whether teachers are outraged or not. Smarmie Doofus Dec 2012 #11
The 70% is not restricted to English classes alcibiades_mystery Dec 2012 #7
This is not nonsense. CC emphasizes non-fiction. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #13
I not sure that is true. Look at the Common Core website. Jennicut Dec 2012 #26
Thanks AlexSatan Dec 2012 #31
look here as well: HiPointDem Dec 2012 #37
This is great literature and English Class is the best way to talk about WCGreen Dec 2012 #41
I have no problem with analyzing these texts. But that used to be done in history/social studies, HiPointDem Dec 2012 #44
It is great writing that has a deep meaning. WCGreen Dec 2012 #45
Regardless, reading historical documents in english class takes class time away from reading HiPointDem Dec 2012 #53
I am of the opinion that Social Studies and English should be integrated exboyfil Dec 2012 #129
They were when I was in high school, all taught in "home room." Eleanors38 Dec 2012 #153
They tried to integrate history and English at my high school XemaSab Dec 2012 #171
I agree the Constitution et al is crucial – but what are they studying in the Poli Sci class? snot Dec 2012 #58
Those things are specifically legal and political documents, they are not literature. Spider Jerusalem Dec 2012 #192
They are, indeed, legal in nature, but the choice of words make them, to me, at WCGreen Dec 2012 #193
Are you sure it won't still be? Just because it's called "reading" doesn't mean pnwmom Dec 2012 #115
Maybe this is more of a "reading across the curriculum" thing. The items here would all fit into pnwmom Dec 2012 #111
Or talk to the teachers who know what's in this curriculum proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #66
CC includes a 'set' of base items. AtheistCrusader Dec 2012 #86
The person who are responding to is a teacher duffyduff Dec 2012 #106
Thank you proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #174
Do we really want a national curriculum? marions ghost Dec 2012 #68
Not me! n/t pnwmom Dec 2012 #113
Don't we want equality? oldhippie Dec 2012 #137
Teachers involved could answer this Q better than I can marions ghost Dec 2012 #154
Bill Gates needs to butt out of education policy duffyduff Dec 2012 #100
Indeed, he only went to elite private schools TexasBushwhacker Dec 2012 #163
We've had almost a national curriculum for a long time... jmowreader Dec 2012 #194
shop classes have nothing to do with common core. HiPointDem Dec 2012 #30
Ah--the Edumaction threads!!! Now, using the Torygraph! nt msanthrope Dec 2012 #75
This of course is not true duffyduff Dec 2012 #105
Killing creativity marions ghost Dec 2012 #9
I just read the English Curriculum for English and it is spelled out very well. WCGreen Dec 2012 #43
you 'just' read all 66 pages of the standards (not a curriculum, btw)? why do i doubt that? HiPointDem Dec 2012 #49
USA, Incorporated, preparing Americas' future serfs and lemmings for their RKP5637 Dec 2012 #10
You forgot the 2nd Commandment: Thou shalt diddle thy smartphone incessantly. - n/t coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #83
Definitely, and that could get one life for disobedience of the 2nd Commandment! n/t RKP5637 Dec 2012 #91
They have been teaching keyboarding and data entry for years in grade school. RC Dec 2012 #12
The Common Core Standards melm00se Dec 2012 #15
Thanks for the link. Very informative Freethinker65 Dec 2012 #23
Goddamned phonies! JVS Dec 2012 #16
Nicely done! Tom Ripley Dec 2012 #19
When will they start recommending that we burn books as in the book "Fahrenheit 451".... OldDem2012 Dec 2012 #18
Didnt Sarah Palin have a banned books list? davidn3600 Dec 2012 #35
Short list - she only "wrote" one book, IIRC JustABozoOnThisBus Dec 2012 #56
It's ironic that book is one of the books studied under this English Language Curriculum. WCGreen Dec 2012 #48
Farenheit 451 Brainstormy Dec 2012 #61
The study of "yellow journalism" should be part of the English curriculum FarCenter Dec 2012 #73
Couldn't students just pick up a copy of any Gannett paper from today and coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #84
The objective should be to analyse the rhetorical techniques of yellow journalism in a class setting FarCenter Dec 2012 #90
I can't imagine what use the California Invasive Plant Inventory would serve XemaSab Dec 2012 #20
The thing about art or music or literature ... LisaLynne Dec 2012 #21
Tough call. sadbear Dec 2012 #24
I'm of a few minds on this XemaSab Dec 2012 #32
Great Expectations. progressoid Dec 2012 #157
I Think It Comes Down RobinA Dec 2012 #110
To be fair, "Invasive Plant Inventory" is a lot more interesting than you might think jberryhill Dec 2012 #28
. XemaSab Dec 2012 #33
you sound bullish on invasive plant species Enrique Dec 2012 #47
I, for one, welcome our Oriental Bittersweet and Porcelain Berry masters FarCenter Dec 2012 #63
Bravo! Instant DUZY! Tip of my hat! - n/t coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #89
Here is where parental involvement Aerows Dec 2012 #29
Yup, but every spring and fall they should be voting the fuckers out that support this horseshit TheKentuckian Dec 2012 #38
Was it ever in the curriculum? Brickbat Dec 2012 #34
To Kill a Mockingbird is standard reading in middle schools around the country, but duffyduff Dec 2012 #59
I've never read either one. We had "Moby Dick" and "Beowulf". TwilightGardener Dec 2012 #87
The prudes will probably zero in on MD next, for all the latent coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #152
Hell, if I had known there were ANY interesting themes in Moby Dick, TwilightGardener Dec 2012 #155
MD is a wonderful novel and bears repeated readings. Unfortunately, its length and complexity coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #165
Good TuxedoKat Dec 2012 #181
Moby Dick is the greatest book I've ever read CrawlingChaos Dec 2012 #190
In My School RobinA Dec 2012 #114
We read To Kill a Mockingbird in 6th grade in a Catholic school proud2BlibKansan Dec 2012 #119
I just went through the list of the Fiction for the high school aged kids and there was a lot of WCGreen Dec 2012 #36
The book is titled 'The Catcher in the Rye' and the article gets that wrong... Bluenorthwest Dec 2012 #39
"Catcher in the Rye" is an acceptable short-form title in popular parlance, methinks. Not coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #92
It seems like they want to kill all beauty, art, and the human imagination. sinkingfeeling Dec 2012 #40
They want a nation of compliant worker drones woo me with science Dec 2012 #132
"The Catcher in The Rye" is a horrible book. FarCenter Dec 2012 #42
We read A Separate Peace instead.... WCGreen Dec 2012 #50
I read both... sadbear Dec 2012 #52
I Suppose If Someone Has To Explain It To You... WiffenPoof Dec 2012 #54
What percent of public HS students have the experience to relate to Holden Caulfield? FarCenter Dec 2012 #65
Yeah, but that goes for pretty much every piece of literature they make kids read. sadbear Dec 2012 #77
Oh, I'd guess about 99%. But I'm assuming that the prevalence of phonies is coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #95
Phonies... sadbear Dec 2012 #97
This Minute Percentage RobinA Dec 2012 #118
Me too...^^This^^! Surya Gayatri Dec 2012 #128
(*sigh*). WiffenPoof Dec 2012 #122
I imagine many people believe the reading lists should indeed be dumbed down LanternWaste Dec 2012 #166
Our English class read The Sound and the Fury junior year. Starry Messenger Dec 2012 #179
Ha-ha. I get to tell my Faulkner joke. Turns out William sent the galleys of coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #186
OMG. Starry Messenger Dec 2012 #189
I didn't like it either, far better options out there. KurtNYC Dec 2012 #62
Ever since Charles Manson, the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" has been on my coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #98
Your reading assignment this week, should you accept it, is to coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #94
I'm busy with "Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence" FarCenter Dec 2012 #169
OK, you're excused this week. But I will expect it re-read over the holidays and coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #176
"Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Physics of the Future" are already in queue FarCenter Dec 2012 #180
i didn't have to read it for school ... chose to read it on my own ... wanted to slap that spoiled Scout Dec 2012 #96
OMG. Holden is John Lauber to Stradlater's Mitt Romney. You coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #101
LOL Scout Dec 2012 #142
OK. I live my life vicariously through the protagonists of novels and histories, I confess. But coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #144
Second your sentiment exboyfil Dec 2012 #172
Joyce more overrated than, say, Horatio Alger? More overrated than, oh, coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #175
Most best novels list exboyfil Dec 2012 #178
Technical note: JC and RandJ are 'plays,' not 'novels'. If I were going coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #185
My daughter loved Julius Caesar exboyfil Dec 2012 #188
"Midsummer Night's Dream" is an eminently watchable play. I vastly prefer seeing it to coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #191
I don't think that was part of the reading list when I went quinnox Dec 2012 #46
Long before there was DU, there was 'Catcher in the Rye Underground.' I went coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #104
I didn't read it at school either. And I can just imagine the complaints that classmates would have JVS Dec 2012 #136
This sounds incredibly misguided frazzled Dec 2012 #55
Common Core is a Bill Gates scam duffyduff Dec 2012 #57
curriculum is definitely one of the issues that needs to be addressed liberal_at_heart Dec 2012 #60
Has always been this way. One of the most read and most banned books for harun Dec 2012 #67
yeah you can't have controversial books in the school curriculum liberal_at_heart Dec 2012 #85
This is outrage! RoccoR5955 Dec 2012 #69
i just figured out what to give my grandsons for christmas. barbtries Dec 2012 #71
Ridiculous, uninformed hysteria. There's no such thing as a "US school curriculum" Bucky Dec 2012 #72
Not here in Texas... sadbear Dec 2012 #78
Ironically, I teach in Texas. Plenty of them assign Catcher in the Rye to read. Bucky Dec 2012 #146
you're a teacher and you've never heard of common core? no, it's not a curriculum -- but HiPointDem Dec 2012 #139
They probably keep Bob Ueker's Catcher in the Wry. n/t brewens Dec 2012 #74
Heretical notion here. "Catcher in the Rye" should not be 'taught' in coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #81
These people are frickin' mental. jonthebru Dec 2012 #88
Yeah, 'cause fuck the arts Matariki Dec 2012 #93
Maybe we could find a way to sneak Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" in to the curriculum... cascadiance Dec 2012 #102
Or any article by Chris Heges in the past 10 years.- n/t coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #107
It's the Telegraph. Say no more. Say no more. struggle4progress Dec 2012 #103
And of course this news comes from offshore, but thank God for it! ReRe Dec 2012 #108
Other than saying that Catcher in the Rye has been banned in many schools, can anyone explain why AnotherMcIntosh Dec 2012 #117
I Can Tell You Why RobinA Dec 2012 #121
It's not. It's just a lousy whinefest Arkana Dec 2012 #124
It's just a lousy whinefest about some overpivileged white kid . . . who suffers coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #127
Yeah, I read Huck Finn and Grapes of Wrath, and those are different Arkana Dec 2012 #138
Have you ever known someone whom you saw headed for potential coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #141
Holden stands among giants like Ignatius Reilly, he doesn't need redemption. JVS Dec 2012 #145
Holden stands on the shoulders of Huckleberry Finn, imho. - n/t coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #149
What precisely leads you to that conclusion? LanternWaste Dec 2012 #167
Both Huck and Holden are willing to throw themselves away to rescue coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #170
Hmm, not sure I can answer why the book is "important." I can tell you that I have read it coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #140
This message was self-deleted by its author Surya Gayatri Dec 2012 #120
I can see dropping Catcher in the Rye Arkana Dec 2012 #123
Sad commentary on the state of American education--true education Surya Gayatri Dec 2012 #125
Big Brother hates the Arts. Rex Dec 2012 #126
I did bother to go to the site and print out and read these new curriculum standards. Not as bad as kelliekat44 Dec 2012 #130
this article is bullshitty. Warren Stupidity Dec 2012 #131
This message was self-deleted by its author devilgrrl Dec 2012 #133
Read that, didn't think much of it but had a great time. JVS Dec 2012 #134
This message was self-deleted by its author devilgrrl Dec 2012 #135
Remind me to avoid your DU movie coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #143
I don't give the 42 'fucks' that are in it; I'd teach it anyway. Point of view, irony are crucial to ancianita Dec 2012 #147
LOL Ever hear of Camazotz? Puglover Dec 2012 #150
I was a book worm as a kid in the 50s HockeyMom Dec 2012 #151
George Carlin put it best once.... AnneD Dec 2012 #156
Yet another reason to homeschool your chilren if possible. nt kelly1mm Dec 2012 #159
Ugh - informational texts? Politicub Dec 2012 #161
Everyone should be able to read and understand IRS Publication 17 before they can graduate FarCenter Dec 2012 #162
Lots of literature, lots of writing in high school Thirties Child Dec 2012 #164
I read Catcher in the Rye during my first year of High School. bluestate10 Dec 2012 #168
Yeah. Wouldn't want to stimulate anyone's imagination now, would we? WhoIsNumberNone Dec 2012 #173
it's all about militaristic schooling Mothdust Dec 2012 #177
"Facts. What I want are facts. Nothing but facts." Um, that was from coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #183
Teach kids to be slaves to the machine instead of enriching their creative senses. Roland99 Dec 2012 #182
Read Dickens' "Hard Times." He nailed it 150 years ago. - n/t coalition_unwilling Dec 2012 #184
sad news njcamden_25884 Dec 2012 #187

WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
1. I'm sure the English Classes will at least read a couple of novels and at least one Shakespeare.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:45 AM
Dec 2012

I didn't read any fiction in any other class beside English.

WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
27. But 70% of my High School reading was Non-Fiction....
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:27 AM
Dec 2012

In my English Class we read about 35 books ranging from Walden to To Kill A Mockingbird and six of the bards best.

And all the text books in Math, History, Science were all Non-fiction Books.

You stated 70% of all the books would be non-fiction.

If a student is exposed to 100 books in the four years of high school that would still make 30 books of non-fiction.

I'm not taking their side, I just wanted to point that out.

Now most kids don't take four years of English anymore.

I graduated in 1975 and we had English in 10th grade and then you were allowed to take different English orientated classes and Senior English was an elective.

I took it for all four years.

A lot of the people I hung with have never read a fiction book outside of school. They are very functional in the work place. In fact, I can honestly say that of all my friends in High School are doing a lot better in their careers than I am but then again, I don't crave piles of money and define myself by my title. Again, my life took a strange path ten years ago and wiped me out of the game just when I was starting to make real money.

Anyway, I find the situation sad because there is so much you can learn from reading the great works of literature. I make it a point to read at least two classics every year.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
82. That's a bit like unifying everyone's immune systems...
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:35 PM
Dec 2012

That's just a bad, bad damn stupid idea. I just had a look through the Common Core State Standards, do they really try to get every student to read the same base set of books? For why?

Are we producing homogeneous robots now? Literature influences ideas, desires, you name it. We benefit, as a species, from a diversity of ideas, just like we benefit as a herd from a diversity of immune responses.

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)
112. Yes. And scripted lessons too.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:25 PM
Dec 2012

So not only are all the kids studying the same thing at the same time but their teachers are saying the same thing.

Hey I know! Let's get robots to do that!!

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
116. I read that piece on Friday about the automated burger making machine...
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:33 PM
Dec 2012

Got me thinking.. It really did.

There is nothing they cannot automate with a machine, if you can get away with sufficiently constraining the criteria on what you want the end product to look like.

Applies to education, hell, every market. Someday even my job could be replaced with machines that troubleshoot other broken machines.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
80. My high school required 3 years of english.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:30 PM
Dec 2012

11th grade college prep English, we read Romeo And Juliet.

11th damn grade. I read that book when I was probably 10 years old. I was also one of two students in the class that could read it out loud without stammering over every third word. That was a special kind of torture to listen to.

We never read Catcher. I picked it up later on, off some 'influential books' list. Couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell it was about. I picked up on hints of loss of innocence, and maybe some sexual abuse, but I couldn't tie it all together. I've discussed it with some friends that grew up suffering abuse, or questioning their sense of self purpose, who had issues with that transition from teen to adult, and they helped explain it a bit. Perhaps with that in mind, if I read it again, I might pick up on more cues that I missed the first time.

Overall, it's my impression the book is largely popular specifically because it was banned.

SharonAnn

(13,756 posts)
99. I, too, didn't understand Catcher in the Rye when I read it at 16. And I was a pretty
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:02 PM
Dec 2012

good English Literature student. I just didn't have the life experience and maturity to really "get it". I understood the plot and some of the motivation, but the rest was for a later time.

Nonetheless, I gained something from it and knew enough to go back and reread it later.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
148. That is one hallmark of a great work of literature, i.e., that one can "re-read
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:25 PM
Dec 2012

it later" and still be moved by the re-reading.

N.B.: others downthread have dismissed it as, among other things, a 'lousy whinefest.'

hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
109. I believe we had English all through six years of Jr. High and High School
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:20 PM
Dec 2012

7th-9th was Junior High and 10th-12th was high school. At least I can remember American Lit in the 8th grade and debate in the 9th grade. Then in High School there was a semester of English required every year, and then you had to take an elective English class for the other semester.

At this point my memory fails, so I checked my old report cards. Heck, I had English and Speech (which I remembered as debate) in the 9th grade. Then took reading improvment in 10th, creative writing in 11th and exposition in 12th. I think those were electives chosen out of a pool of six perhaps.

I do remember we did McBeth in English Lit in 12th grade, and I was picked to read about three parts. So I was McBeth and McDuff fighting a duel with myself.

I cannot remember a lot of required reading. A bunch of short stories maybe that were in the English textbooks, but not really novels. I guess I can remember Treasure Island and Great Expectations from Junior High, and in the 10th grade we read "Alas, Babylon". In English lit we had a long list of novels to choose from and I picked, sort of at random "Devil's Cub" which was hardly a classic. More like a 19th century harlequin it seems to me.

And West Side Story was in there somewhere as well.

Hence my obsession with the Jets.

I graduated in 1980 and read "Catcher in the Rye" when I was in my 30s and owned a bookstore. I wasn't that impressed either. I think people read it when they are teenagers and thus think it is the coolest thing ever and really profound.

Whereas for me, that book is "The Outsiders". Which I think my little brother was reading for school, but I never did.

Oh, and I think Reading Improvement required you to read three books per semester, and I read about 8 in my first semester - all by HG Wells. My teacher was not impressed, and I got a B, so I had to bear down the 2nd semester, although I cannot remember what I read for that one. I had a notebook at one time listing over 100 novels I had read, mostly science fiction I would guess, but I cannot remember most of it, except for the Asimov. I read some of his non-fiction essays as well. I remember once reading "Pebble in the Sky" and decided to write down every word I didn't understand and look it up. I did not think there would be any, since I normally read Asimov without any trouble. But there were almost ten such words. Funny, because normally I would have just jumped over them and kept reading.

I also ploughed through a bunch of my dad's old National Geographics which he kept on a shelf in order, actually several shelves.

progressoid

(49,758 posts)
158. 100 books?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 05:27 PM
Dec 2012

Thankfully my kids were exposed to more than that.

Sadly, I doubt that is true for most students. The majority of students today will be exposed to more video games than books.

Skidmore

(37,364 posts)
14. It's not just the notion of reading a couple of pieces of fiction here or there.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:04 AM
Dec 2012

Some of the greatest introductions to the problems addressed during history were through works of fiction which were part of the curriculum. Whether it was reading works of Dickens or Austen or more modern writers like Hemingway or Orwell, these writers helped us look into the mindset of eras in a way that straight history texts cannot and that a technical book never will. Great works of literature tap into our humanity and its progression through time. When I was a kid in school, we were very fortunate to have teachers and a curriculum which introduced us to English and American, classical, and world literatures. In addition to the targeted classes, we had reading lists for outside reading. Up through eighth grade, the period after lunch was devoted discussions of what we had read that week and what we had gained from it. These were some of the most instructive periods of my life. I learned to love literature and appreciate the stories of us. I learned that you can tease out an author's thought processes and learn something about a time and a place. This reductive approach to teaching will have an impact.

 

AnotherMcIntosh

(11,064 posts)
22. How many history classes did you take? How many "history" books did you read?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:21 AM
Dec 2012

I'll bet some of it was fiction.

Response to WCGreen (Reply #1)

Skidmore

(37,364 posts)
2. This is obscene.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:48 AM
Dec 2012

Absolutely obscene. Creating worker drones without aspirations or the ability to critically think. Thank you, Bill Gates.

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)
5. Common Core. It's awful.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:54 AM
Dec 2012

Listen to your teacher friends. What is happening to our children's schools is positively obscene.

I realize you know this. Just speaking to whoever is reading this and may be unaware of what is going on with our curriculum.

I'm just ill over this. Common Core is probably the worst of all the 'reforms'.

lunatica

(53,410 posts)
6. I find this really reprehensible
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:55 AM
Dec 2012

And I imagine there are a lot of teachers out there who will be outraged by this.

We never, ever had a problem with the work force in this country. We've been among the best and we didn't have to be trained with fucking information textbooks.

This is beyond sad.

 

Smarmie Doofus

(14,498 posts)
11. Doesn't matter whether teachers are outraged or not.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:03 AM
Dec 2012

>>>And I imagine there are a lot of teachers out there who will be outraged by this. >>>>

The truth is: they have no power... or even any influence anymore... over what they teach and how.

Who does?

Obama, Duncan, Gates.... and a demographic of people like them: well-heeled, insulated, self-satisfied, ignorant.

 

alcibiades_mystery

(36,437 posts)
7. The 70% is not restricted to English classes
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:57 AM
Dec 2012

It refers to all disciplines. That's why these articles are deceptive. They attempt to portray the Common Core as requiring 70% of English class texts to be "insulation manuals" and the like, whereas those could easily be introduced in science or shop classes.

The Common Core also doesn't dictate which fiction can be chosen locally, so the notion that Salinger's text (which is titled "THE Catcher in the Rye," not "Catcher in the Rye," by the way) has somehow been "dropped" from any school curriculum is patent nonsense.

So, what do we get out of this article? A false discussion of the core standards, a deceptive picture of how schools select texts for curriculum, and even a mis-titling of one of the most famous texts in American literature! Pretty dismal performance, all around.

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)
13. This is not nonsense. CC emphasizes non-fiction.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:04 AM
Dec 2012

In order to meet the requirements for non-fiction, classic fiction literature is being dropped. I've seen the standards. Have you?

The larger picture of course is - do we really need/want a national curriculum? All kids dong the same thing at the same time? Is that what you want for YOUR child?

Jennicut

(25,415 posts)
26. I not sure that is true. Look at the Common Core website.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:25 AM
Dec 2012

"There is no reading list to accompany the reading standards. Instead, students are simply expected to read a range of classic and contemporary literature as well as challenging informative texts from an array of subjects. This is so that students can acquire new knowledge, insights, and consider varying perspectives as they read. Teachers, school districts, and states are expected to decide on the appropriate curriculum, but sample texts are included to help teachers, students, and parents prepare for the year ahead.

The standards mandate certain critical types of content for all students, including classic myths and stories from around the world, foundational U.S. documents, seminal works of American literature, and the writings of Shakespeare. The standards appropriately defer the many remaining decisions about what and how to teach to states, districts, and schools."
http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/key-points-in-english-language-arts

Are they lying or is the article in The Telegraph incorrect?

The suggested information texts are for more then just English classes, they are for social studies/history, science, and math classes as well.

 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
37. look here as well:
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:48 AM
Dec 2012

reading: informational text

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.8 Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning (e.g., in U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents) and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public advocacy (e.g., The Federalist, presidential addresses).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.9 Analyze seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (including The Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address) for their themes, purposes, and rhetorical features.

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/11-12


i studied similar texts in HS, but not in english class. to the extent that such texts are studied in english, less literature is being studied.



WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
41. This is great literature and English Class is the best way to talk about
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:03 AM
Dec 2012

all of the nuance that is glossed over in History class.

The imagery of the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Washington's Farewell Speech are important to be studied so that people truly understand what was going on back then.

 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
44. I have no problem with analyzing these texts. But that used to be done in history/social studies,
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:10 AM
Dec 2012

not in english classes.

and to the extent that it's done in english classes, it takes time from other texts. which is the point: non-fiction texts are being emphasized over fiction texts.

WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
45. It is great writing that has a deep meaning.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:15 AM
Dec 2012

Someone who knows and understands what these great Americans actually said and how they choose their words to speech to the country is a great way to fall in love with the richness of the English Language.

 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
53. Regardless, reading historical documents in english class takes class time away from reading
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:27 AM
Dec 2012

literature: WHICH IS WHAT THIS OP IS ABOUT.

And if you're reading the declaration of independence in english class, what are you doing in history class?

I personally would argue that it's counterproductive to study such texts in english class as understanding them at a serious level requires teaching the historical background simultaneously. which wastes time in an english class and isn't always easy to coordinate with the history class.

and their recommendation to read supreme court cases in english class seems to me to be a recommendation to turn off most of the class, as the language used is rarely beautiful and often obscure. history is a better place to read landmark cases.

exboyfil

(17,853 posts)
129. I am of the opinion that Social Studies and English should be integrated
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 02:08 PM
Dec 2012

I did this for two years with my daughter for Homeschool, and it turned out very well. As we were studying eras in history, we studied the literature of the time (Greek studied the Iliad, Odyssey, and Oedipus Rex, Julius Caesar and I Claudius video for Rome, How the Irish Saved Civilization for the Dark Ages, Undaunted Courage for early American history (along with Washington Irving short stories), and Poe for early/mid-18th century literature.

This was when she was a 7th-8th grader. She is back in the school system, and that link is broken (Romeo and Juliet at the same time as the Civil War for example).

The problem I have is that literature teachers destroy the learning process for literature. I absolutely do not like the detailed questions about irrelevant facts which are asked for the quizes. I had my daughter write compare and contrast essays on pieces of work (for example comparing a literature text with a modern text).

XemaSab

(60,212 posts)
171. They tried to integrate history and English at my high school
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 09:51 PM
Dec 2012

IMHO, it didn't work very well.

When we were studying ancient civilizations we read "Antigone," when we studied the Renaissance we read "Romeo and Juliet," when we studied the industrial revolution we read "Great Expectations," when we studied WWI we read "All Quiet on the Western Front," and I really don't remember what else we read but there wasn't much else assigned.

It felt like the history held back the study of English literature, and it didn't contribute enough to learning the books or vice versa to make it worthwhile.

snot

(10,475 posts)
58. I agree the Constitution et al is crucial – but what are they studying in the Poli Sci class?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:40 AM
Dec 2012

Or is that gone, too?

pnwmom

(108,915 posts)
115. Are you sure it won't still be? Just because it's called "reading" doesn't mean
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:26 PM
Dec 2012

it can't take place in a social studies class, i.e., "reading across the curriculum."

pnwmom

(108,915 posts)
111. Maybe this is more of a "reading across the curriculum" thing. The items here would all fit into
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:25 PM
Dec 2012

a social studies or history class, which would deliberately incorporate reading and analysis of texts.

I agree that it would be a tragedy if students were expected to read about insulation in English literature class.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
86. CC includes a 'set' of base items.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:40 PM
Dec 2012
"• Complexity. Appendix A describes in detail a three-part model of measuring text complexity based on qualitative and quantitative indices of inherent text difficulty balanced with educators’ professional judgment in matching readers and texts in light of particular tasks. In selecting texts to serve as exemplars, the work group began by soliciting contributions from teachers, educational leaders, and researchers who have experience working with students in the grades for which the texts have been selected. These contributors were asked to recommend texts that they or their colleagues have used successfully with students in a given grade band. The work group made final selections based in part on whether qualitative and quantitative measures indicated that the recommended texts were of sufficient complexity for the grade band. For those types of texts—particularly poetry and multimedia sources—for which these measures are not as well suited, professional judgment necessarily played a greater role in selection.
• Quality. While it is possible to have high-complexity texts of low inherent quality, the work group solicited only texts of recognized value. From the pool of submissions gathered from outside contributors, the work group selected classic or historically significant texts as well as contemporary works of comparable literary merit, cultural significance, and rich content.
• Range. After identifying texts of appropriate complexity and quality, the work group applied other criteria to ensure that the samples presented in each band represented as broad a range of sufficiently complex, high- quality texts as possible. Among the factors considered were initial publication date, authorship, and subject matter"


http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards
 

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)
106. The person who are responding to is a teacher
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:11 PM
Dec 2012

ALL teachers are familiar with it. Do not post Bill Gates-inspired hogwash.

 

oldhippie

(3,249 posts)
137. Don't we want equality?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 03:18 PM
Dec 2012

Aren't we for equality for all? Equal rights and opportunity? Don't we advocate national standards for civil rights (reproductive choice, gay marriage, labor laws) and national standards for environmental protection? Aren't we always pushing for equal standards in almost everything else? Why is education different?

marions ghost

(19,841 posts)
154. Teachers involved could answer this Q better than I can
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 05:02 PM
Dec 2012

--but my answer is that while national guidelines are fine, one size does not fit all. It's the lack of flexibility. With-holding funds for systems that fail can lead to an overemphasis on testing, promoting teaching "to the test." Many educators feel this is unfair to students. Too much rigidity in testing can foster mediocrity and not really help the "child left behind"... and lead to burdensome complexity in administration. And with corporations in control of the government, this lays a foundation for corporates deciding what constitutes an education.

Read up on the pros and cons.

 

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)
100. Bill Gates needs to butt out of education policy
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:05 PM
Dec 2012

This ignoramus and his ilk are doing untold damage to education in this country.

"Common core" is a bunch of nonsense which disregards local and regional differences. We are a far more diverse country than those countries in Europe.

Furthermore, companies need to go back to training on the job and not rely on schools to do their work for them.

TexasBushwhacker

(20,010 posts)
163. Indeed, he only went to elite private schools
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 06:20 PM
Dec 2012

He doesn't have a clue about the needs and challenges of public school students and teachers.

jmowreader

(50,419 posts)
194. We've had almost a national curriculum for a long time...
Wed Dec 12, 2012, 05:05 PM
Dec 2012

...but it hasn't come from the federal government. It's come from the Texas state board of education.

I don't want Great Books replaced with books on insulation, no. I also don't want science books replaced with "there are many theories on the creation of the universe and none of them have been proven correct so none of them will be presented in this course" because seven fundamentalist Christians in Texas are pissed they can't use Genesis 1 as a science book. So...how do we fix it?

And Catcher? Come on. Can't they teach books NOT narrated by whiny assholes, like The Grapes of Wrath?

 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
30. shop classes have nothing to do with common core.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:34 AM
Dec 2012
Key Points In English Language Arts

Through reading a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as challenging informational texts in a range of subjects, students are expected to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspective...

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/key-points-in-english-language-arts
 

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)
105. This of course is not true
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:09 PM
Dec 2012

"Common Core" is a Bill and Melinda Gates-style load of hogwash where everybody in every school district in the United States is taught the same thing at the same time.

Standardized curriculum which ignores regional and local differences, to say nothing of differences BETWEEN students, so the purveyors of textbooks and testing materials (i.e., Pearson) can get even more rich.

You have to be in the field to truly understand what this is all about.

marions ghost

(19,841 posts)
9. Killing creativity
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:00 AM
Dec 2012

and lateral thinking. Also those books teach the history of our society.

Terrible. I support public education but this is insanity.

The Gates Foundation-- how "philanthropy" can be used to further corporate interests.

WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
43. I just read the English Curriculum for English and it is spelled out very well.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:09 AM
Dec 2012

Look for yourself and see the wide range of literature the students are exposed too.

It's a great way to cross study a curriculum.

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

Just look at it. It is very goal oriented and pretty demanding.

Hell they have Walden as a book.

And that is for the regular run of the mill student.

The closest most of my piers in high school came to Thoreau was the street in Lakewood, Ohio.

 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
49. you 'just' read all 66 pages of the standards (not a curriculum, btw)? why do i doubt that?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:18 AM
Dec 2012

you missed the point about that list of texts being 'illustrative' btw. that is not a recommended reading list, it's a list of examples of texts at the recommended complexity level for each grade level.

each district/school still has to write its own curriculum in fulfillment of the standards -- another unfunded expense in this boondoggle.

RKP5637

(67,008 posts)
10. USA, Incorporated, preparing Americas' future serfs and lemmings for their
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:01 AM
Dec 2012

lot in life as worker bees scumming to authoritarianism and the stifling of being creative.

Thou will worship $$$$, repeat, thou will worship $$$$$. There is zero tolerance for non-conformity to the norm.

I wonder if there will also be required reading of 'prison life,' as the USA, Incorporated prison establishment expands for greater profitability and incarceration of the masses for profit $$$$$.


 

RC

(25,592 posts)
12. They have been teaching keyboarding and data entry for years in grade school.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:03 AM
Dec 2012

Play activities have been cut back. Everything is geared toward teaching to the tests, which the kids need to pass for the school to get the money they need just to stay open. And as mentioned in another thread, charter schools, which is another name for corporate owned schools, keep stealing the money needed to educate our children.

OldDem2012

(3,526 posts)
18. When will they start recommending that we burn books as in the book "Fahrenheit 451"....
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:08 AM
Dec 2012

....that don't conform to these so-called standards?

This is truly obscene.

JustABozoOnThisBus

(23,266 posts)
56. Short list - she only "wrote" one book, IIRC
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:34 AM
Dec 2012

Anyway, "Going Rogue" is on my list of books I'll never read.

Er, wait, you mean she has a list of books she doesn't want to read? Probably every book that doesn't talk about hunting or fishing.

Brainstormy

(2,379 posts)
61. Farenheit 451
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:45 AM
Dec 2012

is one of the books suggested in the curriculum. What's obscene is the yellow journalism is the original article.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
84. Couldn't students just pick up a copy of any Gannett paper from today and
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:38 PM
Dec 2012

have 'yellow journalism' down pat?

JK

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
90. The objective should be to analyse the rhetorical techniques of yellow journalism in a class setting
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:45 PM
Dec 2012

Not just read it.

Is rhetoric taught anymore?

XemaSab

(60,212 posts)
20. I can't imagine what use the California Invasive Plant Inventory would serve
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:11 AM
Dec 2012

Don't get me wrong, I use it for work, but it's not particularly interesting or well written.

If the goal is to expose students to decent nonfiction, have them read books about history or science or other cultures or something that will capture the imaginations of the students.

In one of my high school classes, the teacher read excerpts from "The Hot Zone" every Wednesday. That class ruled.

Students will have the whole rest of their lives to read boring technical manuals.

LisaLynne

(14,554 posts)
21. The thing about art or music or literature ...
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:17 AM
Dec 2012

is that it opens your mind. The results are not always measurable perhaps, but cultivating an imagination and a sense of what may be possible can change a child's (or adult's) entire life. Art and music classes have been being chipped away for years now. Very practicle people are sometimes fooled into thinking this is a good thing, because it saves money, but I think the quality of the education drops. I think the student's quality of life is improved by having been exposed to art and literature in a classroom setting, early on. It teaches you to think. It really does.

But, without going too conspiratorial here, many of the powers that be don't want a free-thinking, inspired, and creative populous. They want robots who don't know their lives could be more.

sadbear

(4,340 posts)
24. Tough call.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:24 AM
Dec 2012

With nearly 20 years under my belt since high school graduation, I can see how A LOT of novels and other literature were totally lost on me (and I was no academic slouch, either.) I didn't really begin to understand and appreciate literature until a few years after college. Now, who knows if what I read in high school and college prepared me for that, but in retrospect, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Because of my own experiences, I'm all for students reading material that interests them (of course insulation and invasive plants probably don't qualify). Shakespeare and 'Death Be Not Proud' were torture in high school. They can, and should, find something that might accomplish the goal, not hinder it.

XemaSab

(60,212 posts)
32. I'm of a few minds on this
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:39 AM
Dec 2012

Kids should read the classics, but the way they're "taught" is awful.

I still remember an assignment from freshman English in high school where I had to write a paragraph about every single character in "Great Expectations," even the characters who only have one scene in the entire book. I also recall discussions about, say, chapter 5 of "1984," where you couldn't talk about what happens in chapters 6 onward when analyzing the chapter because most of the students hadn't read past chapter 5.

A good part of my brain thinks that if you're going to try to do hardcore literary analysis, you may as well assign something like "Teh Lion, teh Witch, and teh Wardrobe," have the kids read the whole thing over the weekend, and then spend a week or two picking the corpse clean. There's enough there to look at that the class will be kept busy, but it's easy enough and the metaphors are ham-handed enough that even the slower learners will be able to participate in the discussion. Then after the class has finished that, then use what you've learned to go on to something harder, like Steinbeck.

progressoid

(49,758 posts)
157. Great Expectations.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 05:24 PM
Dec 2012

As a 15 year old bored me stiff. I suppose I should re-read it just to see if my 15 year old self was right.

RobinA

(9,862 posts)
110. I Think It Comes Down
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:20 PM
Dec 2012

to choosing appropriate books for highschoolers. Not only the hardness and complexity of the book, but the subject matter itself. I remember slogging through "Return of the Native" in 10th grade. We could read the book and understand the surface, but we didn't have the life experience to understand what was really going on, as it commented on adult society. Consequently, it was a horrible bore about people in old-fashioned clothes and I swore I hated anything by Thomas Hardy. I got absolutely nothing out of it. Much, much later I saw the movie "Jude" and decided to read Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure." I LOVED it. Of course, I was in my 40's and knew what the hell they were talking about, also a comment on adult society which I then understood.

I was in a "special" reading group in 6th grade where we read adult novels, including Shakespeare, but the teacher picked books in which the subject matter would be of interest to intelligent 6th graders. We read about 10 books, none of which turned me off the way "Return" did.

 

jberryhill

(62,444 posts)
28. To be fair, "Invasive Plant Inventory" is a lot more interesting than you might think
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:28 AM
Dec 2012

It's a lot like Grapes of Wrath, but told from the point of view of the grapes.

Those invasive plants are going places.
 

Aerows

(39,961 posts)
29. Here is where parental involvement
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:29 AM
Dec 2012

is key. Take the kids to the library. We went every Saturday. It's free, and everyone gets to learn something.

TheKentuckian

(24,904 posts)
38. Yup, but every spring and fall they should be voting the fuckers out that support this horseshit
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:51 AM
Dec 2012

From the library they can spend a few minuets writing letters to the said fuckers demanding they stop gutting our education system and trying to turn all the poor and working class kids into drones for the Wally World hive.

Brickbat

(19,339 posts)
34. Was it ever in the curriculum?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:41 AM
Dec 2012

I read neither "To Kill a Mockingbird" nor "Catcher in the Rye" in high school -- and I went to an excellent high school.

 

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)
59. To Kill a Mockingbird is standard reading in middle schools around the country, but
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:42 AM
Dec 2012

Catcher in the Rye would usually be on a reading list but not required of students. This book, if you recall, has been on many censorship lists throughout the country.

Typically students had to get parental consent to read this book because of the foul language and of Holden Caulfiend's encounter with a prostitute.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
152. The prudes will probably zero in on MD next, for all the latent
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:49 PM
Dec 2012

gay themes. Ishmael, Ahab and Starbuck - a menage a trois for the ages.

OTOH, Starbucks may use its corporate influence to keep MD in the curriculum and go for some nifty product placement.

TwilightGardener

(46,416 posts)
155. Hell, if I had known there were ANY interesting themes in Moby Dick,
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 05:05 PM
Dec 2012

I might have actually READ the damn book. Instead of random chapters and Cliff's Notes--just enough to do the paper.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
165. MD is a wonderful novel and bears repeated readings. Unfortunately, its length and complexity
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 06:50 PM
Dec 2012

deter many people from diving in (npi). One of Melville's later novels, The Confidence Man, anticipates modernist and post-modernist fiction in the 20th Century and would do Nabokov proud.

TuxedoKat

(3,818 posts)
181. Good
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 10:55 AM
Dec 2012

to seen another MD fan as they seem few and far between. I read it for a course and the the professor had written his dissertation using MD as one of his sources. He really helped me appreciate it and discover interesting insights in it. I wrote a paper about MD having modernist elements.

CrawlingChaos

(1,893 posts)
190. Moby Dick is the greatest book I've ever read
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 05:48 PM
Dec 2012

And I'm a girly-girl type whose tastes don't normally run toward swarthy sea adventures.

The last three chapters are so blazingly brilliant, I was literally awestruck. It gave me a new awareness of the soaring heights that can be reached with the written word. I finished the last page and turned right back to page one.

RobinA

(9,862 posts)
114. In My School
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:25 PM
Dec 2012

in the '70's both were in the curriculum. I did not read "Mockingbird" in my class, but did read "Catcher." I happen to love "Catcher" and always have. It gave me permission to have an attitude that I naturally had, but felt alone in having. It was the first time I ever saw myself in literature.

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)
119. We read To Kill a Mockingbird in 6th grade in a Catholic school
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:36 PM
Dec 2012

My public school friends read it in high school.

WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
36. I just went through the list of the Fiction for the high school aged kids and there was a lot of
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:46 AM
Dec 2012

good stuff.

It's structured but they do have The Grapes of Wraith, MacBeth, Little Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Fahrenheit 451, A Raisin in the Sun and The Great Gatsby.

Some of the non-fiction reading include the Gettysburg Address, Harriett Tubman: Conductor on the underground Rail Road, George Washington's Farewell Address, Common Sense, Walden and Politics and the English Language.

It's pretty comprehensive list of American Literature and letters.

And this is for all the kids in High School. I wish they had this structure so that many of my friends who were not required to take regular English Classes after 10th grade were taught how to read and understand these important American letters.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
39. The book is titled 'The Catcher in the Rye' and the article gets that wrong...
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:59 AM
Dec 2012

This is from The Telegraph, not a paper that has much use for specificity or nuance in language but still if your point is that a book is very important and you fail to get so much as the title correct that's just lazy.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
92. "Catcher in the Rye" is an acceptable short-form title in popular parlance, methinks. Not
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:48 PM
Dec 2012

that I'm disagreeing with you about overall journalistic laziness, mind you. I'd wager the person who wrote the article has not read Catcher (How's that for short-form? Not to be confused with Catch, the short-form title for Catch 22, another title which should absolutely be available to high school students, preferably before they enlist

woo me with science

(32,139 posts)
132. They want a nation of compliant worker drones
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 02:39 PM
Dec 2012

who will not question their roles.

Their children will still study these things, in their gated private schools.

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
42. "The Catcher in The Rye" is a horrible book.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:08 AM
Dec 2012

I had to read it in college freshman English.

Who the hell wants to read about the imaginary travails of some upper middle class preppy adolescent from New York?

I'd rather read about insulation and invasive species.

WCGreen

(45,558 posts)
50. We read A Separate Peace instead....
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:20 AM
Dec 2012

I guess this take on upper class privileged kids in the 60's would speak to us better than Holden could.

sadbear

(4,340 posts)
77. Yeah, but that goes for pretty much every piece of literature they make kids read.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:18 PM
Dec 2012

I gotta tell ya, Lord of the Flies didn't mean that much to me as a high school freshman. And Hamlet? Forget about it.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
95. Oh, I'd guess about 99%. But I'm assuming that the prevalence of phonies is
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:55 PM
Dec 2012

as high now as it was when I was in high school.

Note my clever appropriation of Occupy's '99%" trope? Come on, you can at least give me a pat on the back for that

RobinA

(9,862 posts)
118. This Minute Percentage
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:34 PM
Dec 2012

I was a teenage middle class female when I read "Catcher" and I related to it completely. The prep school and the NYC setting meant nothing to me. Here was a person who was learning that much of the adult world was BS, something I was learning at the time, but felt alone in feeling. It made me realize that other people had these same thoughts.

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
166. I imagine many people believe the reading lists should indeed be dumbed down
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 06:53 PM
Dec 2012

I imagine many people believe the reading lists should indeed be dumbed down to better accommodate their own personal reading tastes...

On the other hand, many students are given the experience through the book itself. Quite the novel idea to some, but there it is.

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
179. Our English class read The Sound and the Fury junior year.
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 10:27 AM
Dec 2012

Not many kids in CA relate to the experience of being a family of decaying Southern aristocrats. But we enjoyed it.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
186. Ha-ha. I get to tell my Faulkner joke. Turns out William sent the galleys of
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 12:59 PM
Dec 2012
The Sound and the Fury to his mother before final printing.

"I like it, Bill," his mother wrote to him. "But the first chapter sounds like it was written by an idiot."

KurtNYC

(14,549 posts)
62. I didn't like it either, far better options out there.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:50 AM
Dec 2012

And ever since that a-hole shot John Lennon, "The Catcher in the Rye" has been on my shit list.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
98. Ever since Charles Manson, the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" has been on my
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:01 PM
Dec 2012

shit list.

Ever since Altamont, I can't get no satisfaction.

(in case it's needed)

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
94. Your reading assignment this week, should you accept it, is to
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:52 PM
Dec 2012

re-read "CitR". I'll bet you won't think it's so horrible now, upon re-reading it, especially after having watched Romney and BushCo in action over the past 12 years.

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
169. I'm busy with "Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence"
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 07:14 PM
Dec 2012

It is really a treatment of the period 1783 through 1815, which relates the key events as a series of biographical vignettes of notable figures.

Among them are politcians as phony as any we have currently.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
176. OK, you're excused this week. But I will expect it re-read over the holidays and
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 04:55 AM
Dec 2012

a book report no later than Jan 1

On a serious note, that period of American history is one I could do with some further exposure to. I tend to focus almost exclusively on the Civil War era. Too many books, too little time, eh?

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
180. "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Physics of the Future" are already in queue
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 10:54 AM
Dec 2012

I'm not sure why I'd want to go back and re-read old fiction.

(Well, OK, I guess Michio Kaku might be considered fiction.)

Scout

(8,624 posts)
96. i didn't have to read it for school ... chose to read it on my own ... wanted to slap that spoiled
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:59 PM
Dec 2012

whiney brat Holden.

did not see the big deal about that book

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
101. OMG. Holden is John Lauber to Stradlater's Mitt Romney. You
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:05 PM
Dec 2012

really need to re-read it, methinks.

Stradlater is dating\having sex with a girl whose first name he can't even remember correctly, for fuck's sake.

Scout

(8,624 posts)
142. LOL
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:03 PM
Dec 2012

didn't even remember what the fuck you are referring to ... that's how much of an impression it did not make on me.

methinks you take it way too seriously. YMMV.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
144. OK. I live my life vicariously through the protagonists of novels and histories, I confess. But
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:06 PM
Dec 2012

seriously, I'm pretty sure you would enjoy re-reading it now and would not think of Holden quite so cavalierly.

exboyfil

(17,853 posts)
172. Second your sentiment
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:13 PM
Dec 2012

So much better literature out there to read. I also think James Joyce is the most overrated writer in history.

exboyfil

(17,853 posts)
178. Most best novels list
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 09:20 AM
Dec 2012

have two of his novels (Ulysses and Portrait) in the top three (I found both to be nearly unreadable). I would not put either one even in the top 10. That is overrated. I am uncertain of an order, but I would list novels like Huck Finn, The Sun Also Rises, I, Claudius, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and Blood Meridian as my personal favorites.

I am more into non-fiction these days. I probably should read more literature. I often read the novels/plays that my children are studying in school and discuss the novels with them. Now to find my copy of Romeo and Juliet (which is vastly inferior in my opinion to Julius Caesar which should be the entry level novel into Shakespeare). My younger daughter feels the same (she read Julius Caesar with me in 8th grade and is doing Romeo and Juliet this year with her 9th grade class).

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
185. Technical note: JC and RandJ are 'plays,' not 'novels'. If I were going
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 12:56 PM
Dec 2012

to teach Shakespeare to 8th graders, I'd start them with "Midsummer Night's Dream" (probably watching a film version, rather than reading it in Elizabethan English.) Once you have them laughing at the antics of Bottom and Hippolyta, they're putty in your hands.

Pay no attention to 'Best Novels' lists and suchlike. They're usually constructed around highly arbitrary and non-transparent criteria. But I challenge you to read any dreck by Alger and still think Joyce not worth the trouble If you want something by Joyce that's a little more readily accessible, try his 'Dubliners' short-story collection, specifically "Araby." Or his short novel, "The Dead." (John Huston directed a wonderful film version of it, btw.)

exboyfil

(17,853 posts)
188. My daughter loved Julius Caesar
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 03:35 PM
Dec 2012

of course we read it and watched the play as well. Discussed it thoroughly. Advantage to Homeschooling. I will try out your Joyce recommendations. Thanks. I was also going to give Ulysses another try now that I am ten years older. I don't know much about Alger since I never read any of his books (just heard them being lambasted as formulaic) - most of the stuff I read as kid could be classified in the formula variety though (why a 24th Tarzan novel for example). I still will put up Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Twain, and Fitzgerald (even Cormac McCarthy) to Joyce.

I was never that fond of Shakespeare's comedies. I do love his tragedies though (especially King Lear and Macbeth). Macbeth was my favorite as a teenager and King Lear my favorite as an adult with children. Not sure what that says about me and my relationship with my children.

At some point you hopefully mature (I still love my Harry Bosch though - kind of like drinking alone so that your friends don't know.).

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
191. "Midsummer Night's Dream" is an eminently watchable play. I vastly prefer seeing it to
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 06:55 PM
Dec 2012

reading it. My wife and I saw a production at Theatricum Botannicum in Malibu a few years ago that had both of us rolling in the aisles we were laughing so hard. TB out here has a very Elizabethan feel to it, as it is theater in round with no proscenium arch.

Glad your daughter liked JC. Now that she's a little older, you might run Henry V by her (the film version directed by and starring Kenneth Brannagh). I will never read or see that play the same way ever again after seeing the Brannagh film.

When it comes to thrillers, I'm more a fan of Lee Child and (more recently) Tana French. The latter is an Irish novelist and writes gripping psychological thrillers. Lee Child (whose character Jack Reacher is going to be featured in some new Hollywood blockbuster with Tom Cruise soon) is a guilty pleasure. Thinking man's liberal crime writer.

 

quinnox

(20,600 posts)
46. I don't think that was part of the reading list when I went
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:15 AM
Dec 2012

To h.s. I read the catcher in the rye after I got out of high school on my own. Great book, but not required, at least, not in my school, which was a good one.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
104. Long before there was DU, there was 'Catcher in the Rye Underground.' I went
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:08 PM
Dec 2012

to high school in the Bible Belt with the crazies. Fortunately, my parents turned me on to it when I was a freshman or sophomore.

JVS

(61,935 posts)
136. I didn't read it at school either. And I can just imagine the complaints that classmates would have
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 03:16 PM
Dec 2012

But it's a great book. Hilarious and students would be well served to read it as an example of the unreliable narrator.

frazzled

(18,402 posts)
55. This sounds incredibly misguided
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:31 AM
Dec 2012

I can't imagine staying awake myself through the EPA "Recommended Levels of Insulation" document, much less the "Invasive Plant Inventory" paper. A teenager is just going to zone out.

I think non-fiction reading is important, but it should be incorporated into biology and history classes, etc.* Adolescents need to be engaged by good literature and their imaginations need to be fed. We will regret creating a generation of policy wonkish, noncreative citizens.

*My daughter attended an IB program at a public high school. The focus of that curriculum is text based, so history classes and science classes had no textbooks but rather used primary documents and papers, much like a college course in science or history. (Also, rather than objective tests, the students had to write papers and essays.) That's where they got those kinds of nonfiction, technical reading and analytic skills. But English class was all about fiction and poetry.

 

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)
57. Common Core is a Bill Gates scam
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:37 AM
Dec 2012

It needs to be fought tooth and nail.

Reading novels is important in K-12, not just so students can appreciate the cultural foundations of this country, but it also helps them with their creativity and imagination. Reading in general improves writing ability.

liberal_at_heart

(12,081 posts)
60. curriculum is definitely one of the issues that needs to be addressed
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 11:43 AM
Dec 2012

We need to quit trying to see how much information we can cram down the kids' throats and focus more on critical thinking.

liberal_at_heart

(12,081 posts)
85. yeah you can't have controversial books in the school curriculum
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:39 PM
Dec 2012

That would create people who think for themselves.


I love the fact that public libraries encourage people to read banned books. Who knew public libraries could be such rebels?

 

RoccoR5955

(12,471 posts)
69. This is outrage!
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:01 PM
Dec 2012

We need to have these works of fiction being read by students, or we will lose our culture?
This is a war on culture.
What are we going to do, teach legalese, and techno, BEFORE we teach plain English?
This will, no doubt, backfire.

Bucky

(53,759 posts)
72. Ridiculous, uninformed hysteria. There's no such thing as a "US school curriculum"
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:08 PM
Dec 2012

English teachers will still have their kids read Catcher in the Rye. There is no single binding curriculum for all US schools. Whoever told this British reporter that the Governor's Association is influential is either some podunk governor's aid or the mewling idiot he works for. I've been a certified English teacher for 24 years and I've never even heard of the Council of Chief State School Officers making curriculum recommendations. It was probably a report submitted to the CCSSO, which is an non-binding administrative support organization.

Nothing that led to this news report has any teeth to it.

sadbear

(4,340 posts)
78. Not here in Texas...
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:26 PM
Dec 2012

Holden says goddamn too many times, and we must protect our precious young Texans' eyes.

Seriously, even if a senior-level English teacher tried to assign The Catcher in the Rye to graduating seniors, we'd have too many parents up in arms about it. And in Texas, most school districts simply don't care enough to take on ignorant parents.

Bucky

(53,759 posts)
146. Ironically, I teach in Texas. Plenty of them assign Catcher in the Rye to read.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:16 PM
Dec 2012

This is Houston, mind you, but it's a bigger part of Texas than anywhere else.

 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
139. you're a teacher and you've never heard of common core? no, it's not a curriculum -- but
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 03:58 PM
Dec 2012

curriculums in most states will need to be written in accordance with it -- or be denied funding.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
81. Heretical notion here. "Catcher in the Rye" should not be 'taught' in
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 12:30 PM
Dec 2012

high-school English classes, because parental and community pressures would inevitably cause a Bowdlerization in its presentation. Instead, enterprising (and subversive) high-school English teachers who frequent DU should purchase paperback copies of same and give as gifts to their prized students, said paper-back copies then to be passed around like some high-school samizdat to subvert the 'phonies' whenever and wherever they might arise.

Teaching CITR in high school seems akin to Constantine's making Christianity the official state religion of Rome. But maybe that's just me.

Go Phoebe! Go Holden! Down with the phonies.

 

cascadiance

(19,537 posts)
102. Maybe we could find a way to sneak Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" in to the curriculum...
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:06 PM
Dec 2012

... if these are taken out? Of course not as a book for "literature" but as a historical text...

That book even in my days of youth when the curriculum was more "liberal" and informing would definitely have woken me up earlier to what's been going on.



I know there's probably no chance... But one can still have some wishful thinking!

ReRe

(10,597 posts)
108. And of course this news comes from offshore, but thank God for it!
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:13 PM
Dec 2012

If OPs are intros to an article with a link attached, my eye immediately goes to the source of the article first. More and more of the news about our country comes from other countries.

Our America is being changed, slowly but surely. They took away phys.ed., and now our children are overweight. Art, Music, some schools now don't even have libraries. And now this. Taking away literature. Literature teaches you to think and to feel. To concentrate and put two and two together. You learn how to write by reading fiction, It builds your vocabulary. It puts you in someone else's shoes. It opens your mind.

Nonfiction is good too, buttttt.

 

AnotherMcIntosh

(11,064 posts)
117. Other than saying that Catcher in the Rye has been banned in many schools, can anyone explain why
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:33 PM
Dec 2012

that book is important?

Does the author introduce particular concepts? From a rhetorical point of view, is the book particularly well-written? What, exactly, is the importance of the book?

RobinA

(9,862 posts)
121. I Can Tell You Why
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:39 PM
Dec 2012

it was when I read it in the early '70's and still is today important to me. It is because it was the first time I read something that reflected my own feelings of disaffection. I had a lot of thoughts and felt I must be crazy. But here was an adult male writing a book about a character who had the same feelings. I felt enormously validated and a lot less crazy. It helped me realize that one can look to books for more than just a good story.

Arkana

(24,347 posts)
124. It's not. It's just a lousy whinefest
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:50 PM
Dec 2012

about some overprivileged white kid who hates everyone and everything around him.

I read some books in high school I couldn't stand--Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies--but I understood why we read them. They're rich with literary concepts and they present them in such a ham-fisted manner that you'd have to be a real putz not to see them.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
127. It's just a lousy whinefest about some overpivileged white kid . . . who suffers
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 02:00 PM
Dec 2012

a nervous breakdown but is determined to save his younger sister Phoebe from suffering the same alienation and disillusionment he has experienced.

Other lousy whinefests in American literature: Huckleberry Finn - whinefest about slavery, A Farewell to Arms - whinefest about World War I, Grapes of Wrath - whinefest about poverty, Catch 22 - whinefest about modern American capitalism and militarism.

(in case it's needed).



Arkana

(24,347 posts)
138. Yeah, I read Huck Finn and Grapes of Wrath, and those are different
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 03:25 PM
Dec 2012

because they were actually good stories.

But there's nothing redeeming about Holden Caulfield. At all.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
141. Have you ever known someone whom you saw headed for potential
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:00 PM
Dec 2012

disaster and tried to warn him or her off or save him or her from it? If so, how did it turn out for you? I really think you owe Catcher a re-read.

Just a friendly suggestion

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
167. What precisely leads you to that conclusion?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 07:05 PM
Dec 2012

What precisely leads you to that conclusion?

As Huck seemed to observe without judgement his culture, while Holden appeared to judge his culture and himself more than observing...

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
170. Both Huck and Holden are willing to throw themselves away to rescue
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 07:20 PM
Dec 2012

someone whom they love (Jim in Huck's case, Phoebe in Holden's). I'd say that shared willingness to sacrifice themselves matters far more than either's judgmentalism or lack thereof. Read the Ackley toenail scene (as seen through Holden's eyes) and tell me he isn't 'observing'

'Stand on the shoulders,' however, means that Holden has a great literary forbear on whose shoulders he stands, yes?

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
140. Hmm, not sure I can answer why the book is "important." I can tell you that I have read it
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 03:59 PM
Dec 2012

at several distinct points in my life (early teen years, early 20s, 40s) and each time the novel still speaks to me. Funny thing is that each time it speaks differently. Thus, as an early teen, I read in it a manifesto of adolescent rebellion. In my 20s, I read it as a declaration of the alienation and loneliness of modern life. In my 40s, I read it while feeling intense 'regret' for all those I had not been able to save, all the Phoebes who must of necessity grow up to experience alienation and disillusionment.

So i think that is the mark of a great work of literature. That we can read it at different points in our lives and have it continue to speak to us, sometimes quite differently. I've had the same experience with other consensus great works, like Huck Fin and The Tempest, so I don't think I'm hallucinating.

Response to proud2BlibKansan (Original post)

Arkana

(24,347 posts)
123. I can see dropping Catcher in the Rye
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:46 PM
Dec 2012

because it was a terrible book about a whiny, privileged asshole, but why To Kill A Mockingbird? Atticus Finch is easily one of my favorite literary characters ever.

 

Surya Gayatri

(15,445 posts)
125. Sad commentary on the state of American education--true education
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:55 PM
Dec 2012

does not just teach how to make a living, but how to live.

Literature and art teach us what it means to be fully human, to imagine and dream. When we cease to imagine, we become just programmed drones, little more than a colony of insects.

If the teaching of Science and Technology is not balanced by the teaching of the Humanities, our future as human beings will be in dire jeopardy.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
126. Big Brother hates the Arts.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 01:58 PM
Dec 2012

Probably would do away with the Art and Literature in schools as well. Just as long as we have fooooooooot ball!!! YEEHAA!!!

 

kelliekat44

(7,759 posts)
130. I did bother to go to the site and print out and read these new curriculum standards. Not as bad as
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 02:13 PM
Dec 2012

OP suggests. Before making any comments sight unseen and content not understood, I suggest that interested parties take time and read the propose Core Standards.

 

Warren Stupidity

(48,181 posts)
131. this article is bullshitty.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 02:36 PM
Dec 2012

literature classics are not being dropped. What a waste of time. The knee-jerking here is abysmal. There undoubtedly are many valid criticisms of the proposed core curriculum, confusing the issues with absolute bullshit like this article is not helpful.

Response to proud2BlibKansan (Original post)

JVS

(61,935 posts)
134. Read that, didn't think much of it but had a great time.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 02:52 PM
Dec 2012

I had rescheduled my classes that grade in order to be in a better chemistry class and needed to shift into another English class (the guidance counselor for gifted students helped us make big adjustments with lots of leeway at my school). I was rapidly shifted from reading the Iliad to having to catch up to a class that was closing in on A Separate Peace. Since I had to read a lot of it at once to catch up, I just finished the book. I walk into class the next day and shout "Finny dies!" and listened to a bunch of grumbles that I'd just spoiled the book for them.

Response to JVS (Reply #134)

ancianita

(35,711 posts)
147. I don't give the 42 'fucks' that are in it; I'd teach it anyway. Point of view, irony are crucial to
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:23 PM
Dec 2012

understanding the writing art. This kind of reading helps with grasping biased language of non-fiction, as well. A good teacher will just keep on rolling with it, no matter what the bureaucrats say. Fuck Bill and Melinda Gates and the Governors' Association and their kissass Council officers. They're all people who wouldn't be caught dead in a classroom, anyway.

 

HockeyMom

(14,337 posts)
151. I was a book worm as a kid in the 50s
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 04:48 PM
Dec 2012

I also went to Catholic school where a lot of these books were banned. All that did was perk my interest. I read most of these banned books before I was even in HS. I also had a Public Library card so I could just take these books out myself. I had a friend whose Mom was a Public HS English teacher and would recommend books to us. I LOVED that. Screw the Catholic schools. While their students were watching TV, I was reading, reading, reading.

AnneD

(15,774 posts)
156. George Carlin put it best once....
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 05:23 PM
Dec 2012

"They want you just smart enough to run the machines but not smart enough to realize how badly you're being fucked over."

Politicub

(12,162 posts)
161. Ugh - informational texts?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 06:13 PM
Dec 2012

It's sad that great literature is being cast aside to accommodate how-to books.

I doubt there's anything we can do about it, and I hope good teachers continue to teach students how to think instead of only what to think.

Thirties Child

(543 posts)
164. Lots of literature, lots of writing in high school
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 06:21 PM
Dec 2012

Graduated 1953, small town Texas. Four years of English was required, one semester of grammar, one semester of literature. Read Shakespeare each year, had to subscribe to Atlantic Monthly senior year, wrote a theme each week during grammar semester. Emphasis on poetry senior year - each of us had to write a sonnet. (I wrote maybe 10, one for myself, nine for boys who had no clue.) Small school (300 students) but felt I came out of it with a good education.

If anyone reads this and knows how I can contact DU admin, I'd appreciate help. DU no longer recognizes my membership - member since 2004. I had to rejoin and attempts to get my lost memberslhip back have fallen on deaf ears.

bluestate10

(10,942 posts)
168. I read Catcher in the Rye during my first year of High School.
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 07:07 PM
Dec 2012

I found the moral that was being made confusing. If a teacher is not skilled, most students completely miss the moral of the story. A Catcher in the Rye needs to be presented with an interpretive manual that explains each part of the book and what moral is being touched upon.

I had read The Pearl before high school as part of my Middle School training. I found The Pearl to be a much better book in terms of driving home the moral of what the story was about. To me The Pearl drove home the importance of people and values in our lives that we don't fully appreciate until we have lost them. The book also taught me about the importance of not blindly pursuing wealth without counter-balancing that with down to earth humanity.

WhoIsNumberNone

(7,875 posts)
173. Yeah. Wouldn't want to stimulate anyone's imagination now, would we?
Mon Dec 10, 2012, 10:32 PM
Dec 2012

That might lead to critical thinking, and we all know how the military/industrial complex feels about that.

Mothdust

(133 posts)
177. it's all about militaristic schooling
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 05:26 AM
Dec 2012

For training public school kids to follow orders without questioning or even wondering. Meanwhile the private school rich kids will be giving the orders to benefit their own interests. That's the aim of replacing literature with nonfiction.

 

coalition_unwilling

(14,180 posts)
183. "Facts. What I want are facts. Nothing but facts." Um, that was from
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 12:40 PM
Dec 2012

Thomas Gradgrind, memorialized in Charles Dickens' Hard Times, published about 150 years ago. Dickens had the wonderful ability to divine the future, even as he eviscerated the soul-sucking quality of Victorian public education in his day.

Roland99

(53,342 posts)
182. Teach kids to be slaves to the machine instead of enriching their creative senses.
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 10:58 AM
Dec 2012

What could go wrong???

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