To Kill a Mockingbird
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Assigned Reading in High School
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Lindsey
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Feb 19, 2008 09:02AM
This would be my number one, but what other books do you think are a MUST to be read in High School?
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As a teacher, I feel "TKAM", "1984" and "Huck Finn", at the bare minimum, are required reading. What do you think?
Add or use these instead (but 1984, TKAM are hard to leave out): 1948, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Hobbitt, The Old Man & the Sea, Of Mice & Men, Animal Farm. Hmm? The list IS endless!
Grapes of Wrath, Pride and Prejudice, Cats Eyes anything by Prosper Merimee and 1984...
I would go with To Kill A Mockingbird, as well, and Huck Finn, but I do think Grapes of Wrath should be in there, as well as Catch-22, actually, and at least one prophetic sci-fi novel like 1984. I like Fahrenheit 451, too. Personally, as a future teacher, I would be inclined to add my favorite book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It deals with both the injustices of WWII and the aftermath of 9/11 in atypical ways.
TKAM and Huck Finn! I also think any Steinbeck novel and at least some exposure to a Shakespeare play. I also got a lot out of Color Purple, Lord of the Flies, and Song of Solomon.
Grapes of Wrath, yes. Do you know Christ in Concrete? The Long Valley? The working man with a little less love for toil but no less need/willingness to work for their daily bread, and to get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
Yes to Fahrenheit 451. Slaughterhouse 5? Some of the anti-war Germans, ie, All Quiet On the Western Front, some of Gunter Grass or Heinrich Boll? Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
by Walter Mosley Teaches something about self-discipline, consequences, and a bit less of the dead old whitemen & a bit closer to today.
I read To Kill A Mockingbird in my last few months of school. I adore that story.
I know other books that should have been read were Lord of the Flies,Much Ado about nothing and Of Mice and Men.
I know other books that should have been read were Lord of the Flies,Much Ado about nothing and Of Mice and Men.
Dickens, London, Steinbeck, Orwell, Lee, Solzhenitsyn were all uncomfortable writers to some in their time. Who is banned today?
I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird for school last year and really liked it. The only other book I was forced to read in school that I actually liked was The Outsiders!!! that book is amazing. everyone should read it.
I taught high school English for five years. Even as an English department we had difficulty agreeing on what was necessary to read. TKAM was originally a 10th grade book but moved to the American Lit class because a group of AL teachers (myself included) were loathe to gived it up. In AL the musts were: Huck Finn, TKAM, The Crucible, Scarlet Letter (for honors kids). Steinbeck if there was time.
Scarlet Letter for the honours kids but the others were for the common herd?
I can't recall reading TKAM in high schoool, but maybe I did. I had honors English and some of the books we read that I liked were Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, Nectar in a Sieve, Cry the Beloved Country, Flowers for Algernon, The Great Gatsby, Romeo & Juliet, All Quiet on the Western. Wow. That's all I remember but I'm sure there are tons more. Oh, and I also read The Outsiders and Catcher in the Rye back in high school and enjoyed them as well.
To clarify - Scarlet Letter was added to the list for the honors kids as they were expected to read more.
I think a must be read in highschool is Romeo and Juliet. :-)
Agreed, great for the young lovers although it would be better to live it (without the killings & suicides) but I would place MacBeth ahead of it - for the black-clad loners & the win-at-all-costs future politicos.
Okay, I'm not a kid any more, but I quite disagree with you, Enid (message 15). As a high school student, I was entranced by "Lord of the Flies," "Of Mice and Men," the plays of Lillian Hellman and Thornton Wilder and, yes, even Shakespeare. And I was totally, completely flabbergasted when I discovered that "The Scarlet Letter" was *not* a dull, boring book about pilgrims. It was that kind of exposure, at that age, that led me to delve deep into the literary classics rather than going straight for the best seller list. Kids need to be pushed out of their worship of all things "modern." JMHO...
I disagree w/ Enid too. High school students, especially should get a feel for classic literature (myself being one of them). Personally, I LOVED TKAM, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Nectar in a Sieve, A Separate Peace, Julius Caesar, Anthem (Ayn Rand), and the Old Man and the Sea. I disliked Animal Farm very much (George Orwell in general, actually). However, I believe more Ayn Rand should be incorporated into highschool English curriculum. Particularly, The Fountainhead--that is a wonderful read, and really gets you thinking. any suggestions??
You dislike George Orwell?!! WHY? Oh, you LIKED Ayn Rand. Hmmm? I will read another A. Rand if you will read another G. Orwell. Deal? Students should get a feel for literature of any kind or their understanding of their own opinions & beliefs, never mind the opinions & beliefs of others, will be sadly compromised.
I'll probably get clobbered for this, but I'm not sure most high school students are sophisticated enough to get (or care about) the political philosophy underlying Ayn Rand's works. Ditto "Animal Farm": it's a pretty cynical view and somewhat of its time. If I were going to assign Orwell, would have to go with "1984." I first read it in high school and was strongly affected. My personal favorite of Orwell's is "Down & Out in Paris & London" but, again, not for a high school lit class...Does anybody assign "Brave New World" these days?
Madisen, thanks for mentioning "A Separate Peace" -- another favorite from my soph English lit class. But I have never heard of "Nectar in a Sieve." Can you tell me who wrote it, and maybe a quick synopsis? Thanks!
Pat
Pat, I have to agree with you, but some of Rand's works (including "The Fountainhead" and "Anthem"--their underlying theme carried through is all about the ego and individualism) have no political philosophy behind them (as far as I can see). I have not yet read "1984" but I plan to, though I very much disliked "Animal Farm." And just for kicks, I'll try "Down and Out in Paris and London." But, though I do want highschool students to get a feel for classical literature (which most don't care remotely about), it's almost better that my favorites are discluded from the curriculum list because English teachers (no offense) and anyone who has a good understanding of literature tends to deconstruct the book until the reader is left trying to piece it back together and find some sort of meaning.
Nectar in a Sieve, a novel by Kamala MarkandayaRukmandi lives in a remote Indian village, married as a childbride to a man she has never met, a tenant farmer named Nathan. Through her life, she struggles to survive and care for her children.
Well, it's been a looong time since I read either "Anthem" or "The Fountainhead", but I would have to disagree that they are apolitical. Certainly less doggedly capitalistic/objectivist than "Atlas Shrugged" (the only other of her work that I've read), but the themes are similar. That said, & having thought it over, I agree that "Anthem" is an apt choice for a high school lit class. But then, I'll vote for just about any science fiction that can pass as literature. ;)
As a high school student, I was required to read (through tenth grade) TKAM in 8th grade, Of Mice and Men, the Great Gatsby, Huck Finn, Romeo and Juliet, All quiet on the Western Front, and Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
Loved this book! It wasn't required reading in my high school - I didn't read it until I was in my 30's. Wish it would've been a required book read in high school (or college).
I just read A Separate Peace. Seems like the perfect choice for high school reading. I think there are some new books that should make the list, but a full range of classics - from Shakespeare to Dostovesky to Steinbeck - should be required. And to Kill a Mockingbird.
I taught for seven years in the ghetto, Bed Stuy Brooklyn, and my kids hated TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for the very reasons I have never thought it much of a book: the easy morality. I've long thought it was childrens literature for that very reason; adult literature is much less black and white, much more comples. Meanwhile, the book they loved unanimously was THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. I also taught Baldwin's NOTES OF A NATIVE SON, which they loved, especially the title essay; they clung to the line, "To smash something is the ghetto's chronic need." Surprisingly enough, I always did an extensive unit on Hemingway's short stories and Dickinson's poems, which they loved, but they never did warm up to Frost's poetry. And to chime in on Shakespeare, my kids loved it, especially A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
i wish we could sit down across a table with a cup of coffee and discuss this post. The Catcher..., i just did not get at all, though i adore all the author's others works. i saved it for last to read, and it fell totally flat for me. i enjoyed all the rst yu list, but never read Baldwin. i am shocked by your view of Mockingbird. I find such depth in it, and take it for in the time it was written as well. did ghetto kids get the history of how blacks lived then? maybe the book sails by today, because of the movie--Bo speaks for me, for i had my own Bo growing up, in a way, then she suddenly moved away one day. I might have been wooed by seeing the movie several several times, before reading the book finally, when chicago started its one book one city reading program several years ago. yet, i have read alot of books, that movies were based on, that hated the book. i so enjoyed the book. teaching in the ghetto--wow to make such connections and have them enjoy reading such classics -- wow! i applaud you. shakespeare has everything, that r rated films have today--i realized that as a teen and i just could not understand why more people were not into him!
Hi, Noran:
Yes, they fully understood how life was before Civil Rights. Many of them were grandchildren of people who had moved up from the South, and many of them visited relatives down South, so they were certainly aware of life in the South. In addition, I always showed the Eyes On the Prize video, so they saw what it was like. It was all just too pat for them. Many of them came from tough circumstances, as you can imagine, and they didn't like easy answers or easy stories--anything they deemed false. They're attitude was, "Of course Tom's innocent. Tell us something we don't know."
Yes, they fully understood how life was before Civil Rights. Many of them were grandchildren of people who had moved up from the South, and many of them visited relatives down South, so they were certainly aware of life in the South. In addition, I always showed the Eyes On the Prize video, so they saw what it was like. It was all just too pat for them. Many of them came from tough circumstances, as you can imagine, and they didn't like easy answers or easy stories--anything they deemed false. They're attitude was, "Of course Tom's innocent. Tell us something we don't know."
Erik, it has never occurred to me that the morality of TKAM was "easy," I guess largely because I identified so strongly with Scout v. other characters (having once upon a time been a very white, very Southern little girl myself). Anyhow, I didn't see Tom's innocence as a central moral issue, but simply as a (locale- and era-appropriate) device for mirroring at the adult/community levels what Scout was experiencing as a child/individual. Perhaps that's why your students didn't resonate to it: the book really isn't about race or civil rights per se. I'm also wondering if your own lack of enthusiasm may have shone through a bit. It'd be tough to have to teach something for which you don't have true passion. Noran, it's nice to learn I'm not the only one who was underwhelmed by _Catcher_. Read it in college and could never figure what all the hoopla was about. BTW, did anyone else draw a parallel between Holden's ducks in the pond Central Park and Tony's ducks in the swimming pool in the HBO series "The Sopranos"?
Cheers,
Pat
I Agree about TKAM. The book just has so many layers that you really can't look at it just as a race and civil rights piece. I do, however, strongly disagree with your view of high school students as unsophisticated. As a high school student myself, Hunter College High School, I think you severely underestimate what they are capable of, indeed this may be a reason they are not more engaged. I read To Kill a Mockingbird, House on Mango Street, Of Mice and Men, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in seventh grade and found it very engaging. I think that one of the greatest problems with the school system is that too many teachers take that kind of view with students.
I'm a freshman and we read this book this year, and I enjoyed it very much. We have also read "Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare, "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, and "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" by Stephen King (summer reading book) in english class.Last year, in eighth grade, I read "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare in english class.
Gabriel, the intent wasn't to offend. But capability and sophistication are two different things. The latter comes from life experience which, by definition, teenagers don't have a lot of, particularly regarding political philosopy (which is what I was talking about). That's not to say you're not intelligent, aware, and insightful--just that you probably haven't had a lot of exposure to politics either directly or through reading. Heck, _Animal Farm_ would sail right over the heads of many adults, I'm sure. I sure as heck couldn't get into it...That aside, I do agree that many teachers underestimate their pupils, and that's a crying shame.
Hi, Pat:
It wasn't the morality of Tom's innocence that bored them; what bored them was the whole don't-be-mean-to-others-just-because-they're-different aspect. No kidding, was their response, and this from kids who, when they walk into the Gap in Manhattan, are immediately followed throughout the store. And yes, it's possible that my own boredome with the novel shone through. And for what it's worth, I never thought you implied that students were unsophisticated. Gabriel is right, though; I learned early never to figure out what they might like. I remember the day I brought in Edna St. Vincent Millay's "You all have lied who told me time would ease me of my pain." I thought, they being high school students, they would really enjoy the broken-hearted poem. They were bored silly. However, they loved Auden's "Musee De Beaux Arts," which I didn't see coming. But I do agree with you on the political thing. I was amazed at how poorly versed, politically, my students were.
It wasn't the morality of Tom's innocence that bored them; what bored them was the whole don't-be-mean-to-others-just-because-they're-different aspect. No kidding, was their response, and this from kids who, when they walk into the Gap in Manhattan, are immediately followed throughout the store. And yes, it's possible that my own boredome with the novel shone through. And for what it's worth, I never thought you implied that students were unsophisticated. Gabriel is right, though; I learned early never to figure out what they might like. I remember the day I brought in Edna St. Vincent Millay's "You all have lied who told me time would ease me of my pain." I thought, they being high school students, they would really enjoy the broken-hearted poem. They were bored silly. However, they loved Auden's "Musee De Beaux Arts," which I didn't see coming. But I do agree with you on the political thing. I was amazed at how poorly versed, politically, my students were.
TKM is a great choice for high school because it teaches important lessons without being heavy handed and it is so well written- the characters, the story are wonderful. If I was designing a high school curriculum I would pick 1984, Silas Marner, Romeo and Juliet, Death of a Salesman, Lord of the Flies, Oliver Twist, Huck Finn, Man's Search for Meaning, Pride and Prejudice and Mice and Men. Great Gatsby is good for the style but the message isn't the best.
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