Wild Things: YA Grown-Up discussion
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Summer Reading for School
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I had two summers of assigned reading. None of these were on it, though TKAM was the year before, and the Odyssey was read during one of those years. Nope, Iliad, I lied. I can't remember a single non-western thing we read. I will have to dig out the lists later.
Is it fairly common for AP students to have summer homework? I was surprised to hear my daughter is required to read The Pearl and write a paper before school starts. She will be starting 8th grade. I wasn't aware the schools did this... Just wondering about other schools.
The Iliad was *assigned*?!? This is a staggering eccentricity! I can't believe I. is already invalidated!Heather I'm 'saving my fire' (okay, scratching my arse or, as the robot in Alien puts it, 'still collating' on that one! . . .
yeah natalee, All the AP classes I took, AP students had summer assignments. But AP wasn't until high school. So I'm surprised your daughter has to do it in 8th grade.
Natalee wrote: "Is it fairly common for AP students to have summer homework? I was surprised to hear my daughter is required to read The Pearl and write a paper before school starts. She will be starting 8th gra..."For my Junior Honors class and my Senior AP class, we had a full list of stuff to read (and I mean full), and we had to write response papers to each one and turn them all in the first day of class, or we would immediately be switched to a standard English class.
And Fiona: My 9 yr old neighbor has had nightly homework for the past few years of school. I really don't see the kid out much, and she's beginning to hate reading. It makes me sad.
FOr 11th grade AP, I think it was AP Language I had to read Wuthering Heights and TKAM over the summer. I didn't actually read Wuthering Heights, I spark-noted it.For 12th grade AP (Lit), I had to read The Shipping News and Tess of the D'Urbervilles over the summer. My teacher for that class was a male who also taught undergrad lit at a nearby college.
For AP Euro we were required to read The Prince by Machiavelli and The Communist Manifesto for summer reading.
I feel there is nothing wrong with assigning summer reading. It's pretty much proven that over summer school skills slip, so that's when when kids come back a ton of time is used to review stuff they forgot over the summer.
When my little sister was in Honors English for her summer reading she was assigned The Hobbit and Jane Eyre.
I hate to say this, but for high school students, if they plan on going to college they should have summer reading. They should have homework. Summer reading is great because there isn't someone on your ass telling you when it's due, just like college you are responsible for getting your work done as well as doing the reading for class, whether you like it or not.
I don't disparage the idea that schools should fight to prevent 'slippage' over the summer-- except it seems to dodge the bigger debate of whether American schools should have a seasonal recess at all! It seems to me a little 'neither one thing or the other'; I can see the argument that students should either really be allowed to HAVE their summer, to themselves; or else be made to study-- but trying to have it both ways I don't get!!April, your experience sounds alot like what I see with the local kids. In my initial post I was trying to get at the idea that most of the assigned books are there for an unspoken reason, and often these reasons are garbage. Assigning Machiavelli to hs students (and I *have* seen The Prince on one of these summer reading tables! is exactly what I'm getting at--
Any HS teacher who thinks they can have an honest, useful and unsentimental discussion of that book is deluding themselves! That's what they make COLLEGE for people!
Well, to be honest, AP classes are supposed to be conducted like college classes, which is why if you score a 3 or above on the test, most colleges accept the AP credit.I do think your post is quite funny though!
Fiona, when I was growing up we didn't have homework until 5th or 6th grade. Nowadays, the schools here assign homework as early as preschool (3 and 4 year olds). Luckily Jacob's kindergarten teacher thought homework for 5 year olds to be nuts so she didn't assign any. Jacob had the mean teacher in first grade and she loved assigning nightly homework, which , in my opinion, only led to frustration(for me as well as Jacob). When I was a kid I did ballet and Brownies after school, or simply played with friends outside. I hate that Jacob is loaded down with homework every night. I think it stinks that these young kids are in school from 8:30am-3:00 pm and then have to come home to do more work.
Well . . . that's sort of the 'industry joke' about AP! The stuff in the Education journals I've seen suggests this is another great scandal in American schools--every principal wants the prestige, so more & more classes get tricked up as AP without really meeting any standards.But yeah, I think the bigger and better point is that: high schools shouldn't try *too hard* to make it like college. To everything a season!
Misty, my oldest son was in Honors English classes throughout all his schooling and he always had a ton of reading/paper writing to do over the summer, too. He hated it!
True, I definately agree that if a class is going to be called AP it should meet some sort of standards. With my school you could only be in APs if you have a certain GPA and were recommended by a teacher, for AP English you had to apply and make a portfolio. I'm not sure if that meets the standards.I think with high school you shouldn't teach the freshman as though they are college students. Seniors, on the other hand really should know how to be articulate in their writing and reading comprehension. I mean I remember this one girl at my college orientation who legitimately asked, "Western Civilization? Isn't that in Asia or something?" I think it's a shame she never learned what is East and what is West.
That being said, I know some kids can handle it and some can not. Granted, tracking doesn't benefit all students. I forget the term for classes with students of varying abilities, integration or something like that, it's been awhile since ED-Psych lol.
I think what we need to get away from a little bit is the idea of teaching canonical works. Yes, they are often classic for a reason, but they offer a very limited view (basically rich white male), and they ignore and even belittle all of the other great work out there. I think it is fine, and even good, to expose kids to the classics, but mix it up a little. So many people end up hating reading because of the books they are "forced" to read, and a lot of great discussions are missed by not reading works that are newer/offer a different viewpoint/are a little controversial or experimental, etc. Why not teach up and coming classics as well? While I loved most of what I read for school, I also had great teachers who made it fun, and I liked classics anyway. But how many people on here have said at one time or another, I had to read [To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, etc:] for school and hated it, and when I gave it a try years later, I loved it. When they're forced on you, especially before you're really ready to understand them or appreciate them, it just makes you bitter on all classics.And re;April -- I was helping my aunt get her GED and she didn't know what was north and what was south here in the US. Or what other countries were not a part of the US (answer: none!)
I think teachers have to bite the bullit and acknowledge that assigning any given book is going to take *something* away from the experience of reading it. The trade-off is: in the interests of an education, what is important enough to read that it's worth frustrating a student over in the process of getting it down them?I think Lord Byron made some quip about his schoolday agonies parsing Horace-- but of course without that training what kind of poet would he be? Hopefully we all live to find some authors on our own, but also I think we get over the trauma of an initial forced acquaintance, if the book is good enough & if we're receptive to it.
Wuthering Heights would be an example of a book I think should NOT be assigned in hs: there are a certain number of students who are going to be drawn to it on their own, and for the rest it's completely lost on them.
Education is a complicated thing. I do not envy the Sec. of Ed's job at all, ha ha.
Re: Misty-- I think there actually is alot of "mixing it up"-- but with mixed results.Unfortunately teachers usually deserve the satire the rest of the adult (also child) population heaps on them! A lot of the attempts at 'relevance' or at being multicultural come off as flaky, insincere or condescending.
I think, esp. where multiculturalism is concerned, the emphasis on (relatively) contemporary books misfires. When a culture is thousands of years old, representing it to American kids solely through the prism of a mid-20th Cent. novel is misleading; it's also often an exercise in (quietly condescending) white liberal guilt, reducing, say, South Asia to a victim of colonialism (re: Train to Pakistan) while leaving students ignorant of the vast cultural heritage(s) that have grown there.
There's one other thing to think about in terms of what teachers assign in HS: access to materials. Now, I don't know exactly how much of a problem this is because I'm at the upper elementary level, but I know that when I was in school most of the books we were assigned were assigned because the school had copies of them. And all the ones I got were tatty and dog-eared. And any book I've wanted to do of my own volition, I've had to buy totally on my own. 25 copies x $7 - %20 is a lot, especially when the district doesn't reimburse me, and may yell at me for not sticking to curriculum....Are kids expected to get ahold of the summer reading list on their own? Because that's a whole seperate sort of hell. I know that we've had parents go to the school board with private advocates saying that their child should be exempted from an assignment because it's unfair for a child to be penalized because their family is "incapable of providing them" with materials the school should b paying for.
Around here, kids are expected to get it on their own (I bought most of mine at a book warehouse, fairly cheap since classics normally are), but the local library gathers up all their copies and makes a display, and asks that no on check them out unless they are doing so for summer reading.But I think you're right, cost plays into it quite a bit. Schools are struggling, and their options are teach what they have, or ask everyone to purchase a copy, which we had to do in my AP class. At the time, we weren't doing so well, so it was an added burden for sure.
I think that some of the books that require a mature class setting for discussion are great in a Junior/Senior AP class, but not in the younger years.I took AP English as a Senior, and we had to buy our own copy of the books because the library didn't have enough to go around, and the teacher wanted us to be able to annotate them if we chose to. But, the teacher also bought the copies for us from a school supplier or something like that, so we only had to pay between $1.50 and $3 per book. And that was only the main classic novels we read. Others we either got papers printed off, or we read from a 'reader' type book.
In various HS english classes, I read Antigone, Shakespeare, The Poisonwood Bible (because way to many parents in my conservative little town complained about the sexual subject matter and language in The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath... I know, right?! Lame...)... We also read The Return of the Native, Heart of Darkenss (the only one I hated, and couldn't really read), Wuthering Heights, The Scarlett Letter, The Giver, The Crucible, Huckleberry Finn, etc.
Most of them I really liked. I can't think of many that I hated, but I really like books, and I have discovered that I generally love the books considered classics.
One thing that I really liked about my AP and Honors classes was that they would assign a few books to read as a class and discuss, but all the books we had to write big thesis papers on were books that we got to select off a list of classics, come more recent, and some old. It was also nice, because if we wanted to use a book not on the list, we had to be able to justify it to the teacher based on certain criteria, and if he thought it would work, the teacher added it to the approved list.
I like that they gave us a choice, because what has bene said is very true- some of these books are definitely not for everyone. There are some assigned books that not many people will like, and although you do need some assigned to everyone, it is nice that we were given a level of choice when it was more than just discussion.
Ashley wrote: "the teacher also bought the copies for us from a school supplier or something like that, so we only had to pay between $1.50 and $3 per book."See, that's not bad. Some of ours were Dover Thrift, so they were ok, but some were like 12 bucks. Not every kid can afford that for multiple books throughout the year.
And I wish that we could have had a class structured more like yours:
"they would assign a few books to read as a class and discuss, but all the books we had to write big thesis papers on were books that we got to select off a list of classics, come more recent, and some old. It was also nice, because if we wanted to use a book not on the list, we had to be able to justify it to the teacher based on certain criteria, and if he thought it would work, the teacher added it to the approved list."
I think that's the way it should be.
There were a lot of things that I didn't love about my HS (the super conservative parents who wanted to censor everything, and were terrified about what their kids would pick up in books... Ugh) But, overall, I really liked the set up of the English classes. Most of the teachers, especially in the Honors type classes gave you a lot of freedom in what you chose to read.
Taejas wrote: "There's one other thing to think about in terms of what teachers assign in HS: access to materials. Now, I don't know exactly how much of a problem this is because I'm at the upper elementary level..."Our school just shifted our summer reading. There was a choice of 12 books, 11 of which they would have to get on their own. If they chose what was previously assigned in the past years, then it would be provided for them. The distict partnered with a local BN and had a kick off night which had student performances and featured the books. There were a lot of interesting choices this time.
That sounds, Vicki,like a fun night for the kids, but did they all have to read a dozen books for summer reading, or was it pick out from 12?12 sounds like such a big number. I know, some people are going to go through 75 books a year, so its no sacrifice of their time to read a dozen over the summer. But I want to say to teachers like that, Less is More, people!!
I've got to agree with you Charlizechat. I guess it depends on the age, but that's still a book a week, which can be a lot for most people. Some people don't read all that fast, some people like to process and savor a book, and what are the chances that those students are a)going to remember all 12 books clearly by the next school year, and b)are going to read them well-spaced throughout the summer, rather than cramming them in in the last month or so...
They chose one of 12. The honors choose 2 and I think AP is 5 but its a different list and I never taught AP. We were looking at giving them a choice and venturing away from the more traditional summer reading.
Okay, much more manageable. That's actually a nice idea, then. I am always a fan of giving kids choice.
Much better. I'd think even 5 may be 'a lot', not from the personal perspective of the student maybe, but from the 'classroom' perspective.Judging from how many college students come to class next week with the "I don't understand this" blahs, I think teachers should draw a line btw. what the students can digest on their own, and what they think needs tackling in a classroom-discussion setting.
And god bless YA fiction, but let's face it: it's not often good training for digesting gobs of descriptive prose, or noted for its vast subtleties!
Fiona wrote: "My niece, who is 7 gets homework already. She does go to a private school though but I have heard homework isn't uncommon anymore anyway.
We didn't get homework until we were in secondary school. ..."
My son has to do so much work this summer and he's going into 7th grade (state school): 4 books to read, history and geography to review, french and english exercises and 2 Books in to read in English, a whole book of math exercises... He's freaking out about it, and I'm trying to get him to relax. I think it's too much. They're on vacation, for crying out loud!
We didn't get homework until we were in secondary school. ..."
My son has to do so much work this summer and he's going into 7th grade (state school): 4 books to read, history and geography to review, french and english exercises and 2 Books in to read in English, a whole book of math exercises... He's freaking out about it, and I'm trying to get him to relax. I think it's too much. They're on vacation, for crying out loud!
I never had summer homework. Not even for AP or Honors classes. Our year was broken into 3 trimesters and for AP and Honors English we had to read a book or 2 and complete the assignments that went with it the trimester before the class actually started. Hayes, I think that being assigned that much homework at that age is ridiculous! One of those things on its own might be ok, but I never liked the idea or giving lots of homework over vacations. Reading lists, I understand a lot more than homework. What if they have questions, or don't know how to do something? Who are they supposed to ask to explain it to them? I know parents should be willing to help their kids, but I don't remember everything I learned at that age, and I'll bet most people don't either. That's just sad.
My little brothers have been getting homework since they were in Kindergarten, and my mom is really mad about it, and I have to agree. Some things are too much for kids that age. Blech... Glad I'm out of secondary ed schools.
I totally agree Ashley! I remember loving the summer reading list they gave us when I was in school. Starting in 4th grade there was a mega list, about 15 typed pages, and even back then I always loved checking off how many I had read, which ones I would look for in the library, which ones were possible birthday presents (one of the only good things about a summer birthday when I was a kid... now it just s***s!)
Fortunately the son is a big reader even at the age of 12... he read 3 men in a boat and laughed all the way through. Now he's reading a calvino and loving that too...
Fortunately the son is a big reader even at the age of 12... he read 3 men in a boat and laughed all the way through. Now he's reading a calvino and loving that too...
Summer reading was great, because it wasn't forced at all. It is just an idea of stuff you might like to read or something. And anything that encourages kids to read is great by me! But I don't like the idea of forcing that much extra work on kids. Reading has never felt like homework to me. I know there are lots of kids who think it does, but to me it is still on a different level, because we shouldn't be graded on how we read a story. (I HATE AR reading...! ) Giving a kid that much summer work is awful, no matter how old they are, but especially for someone not even in HS yet! I feel for your son! It's great that he is a reader though! Yay for books! ;)
Summer reading is wonderful but I agree that the homework thing is bad. My 8 year old does the library summer reading club every year and loves it. He finished this year's a couple of weeks ago and still enjoys reading every night before bed. I think when summer work is forced on kids they learn to resent school.
I didn't take AP English is High School, but I did take AP Calc, Spanish, and American History, and we didn't have homework for those the summer beforehand. I'm glad I skipped the English class because I actually enjoyed the classes I had in college, even though I had to read a few "classics." A lot of the books they make you read for the AP English class I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. I think it's funny how they try to prepare you for college in high school, and yet, they don't even really come close to doing so.
I feel like it's so easy to critcize teaching when you've never actually taught. Yes, some teachers are terrible, but others are doing the best they can with slashed budgets and that may mean assigning reading with the tattered books one has to work with.Honestly, try and create a whole curriculum which addresses IEPs, gifted children, state standards, and national standards. Try and create a curriculum with an outdated, biased textbook which will make the students interested. Try to clear it through the department head. Try to clear it through the curriculum committee. Teaching is hard work, and it really bothers me when people sit and bitch about it, when really they have no clue. I mean, I hate to say this, but in the United States school budgets are getting slashed and if you want to teach something other than To Kill A Mockingbird that you already have 80 classroom copies of, you'd probably have to purchase those books for your classroom out of your own money, because what district is going to approve the extra funds for new books at this point in time?
Ugh, maybe I'm being oversensative because I start student-teaching in four weeks.
Good luck with student teaching April, what are you teaching? You give a very realistic look at the school system. Where I work I am impressed with the way the English Department spreads the money, considering a large portion of the district is low income. There are novels that are not always as common and there are of course an adundance of the classics. A lot of them are already found in textbooks, which is why they were taught. It is certainly not easy and for newer teachers, these curriculum choices were set before they get there. I taught Things Fall Apart this year, and personally I found it difficult to get through the first time I read it in college. It was extrememly tough getting through it with my juniors because of the inaccessibility. I wouldn't have chose it, but this is what was decided several years ago. I advocated for change this year, but due to massive budget cuts, the change had to be on our already approved list. Overall, I think schools are making improvements where they can, as they can.
I'll be teaching social studies. :-) I'm lucky in that regard because there are so many online resources for Primary Source documents, like the Library of Congress and Modern History Sourcebook.
April, you might want to check out Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity One Season in a Progressive School before/during your student-teaching. I can't say its *encouraging*-- but it's very amusing, and unfortunately too true to life.I actually got to do part of my student-teaching toil in an IB classroom, which was a rather *pampered* experience; but even so, I sometimes quietly chafed under the load of paperwork & bureaucracy, particularly where my Ed dept. was concerned.
I think, unfortunately, that Ed Departments are partly to blame, because they do have a double influence, not only on the future teachers they train, but in their advisory capacity as an 'authority' on curricular issues & such, that creates a dogged mentality that overloads both teachers and students.
Though I agreed with my Ed profs that there are professors in other departments who could benefit from a few pointers on 'classroom management' & keeping to the syllabus, etc., I also think the Education Establishment is *much* too uptight about these things-- and that goes for the public school adminsitrators who demand a blueprint for everything.
Sigh. No, the problems are much too thick for me to even begin to unravel their outline (let alone implement changes!). But I think that, to keep sanity & to do students some good, you have to keep things as minimal as feasible. If your hierarchs learn to trust your results, you can probably, over time, get them to let you cut a few corners.
Thank you for the tips. I am always willing to learn from others and definately to read books pertaining to teaching :-D
Mind you, Elizabeth Gold *is* a terrible teacher; she admits that herself. But the whole setting, the students & administration headaches--and particularly the school books (or lack thereof) are very pertinent.Plus its just a very funny book. Typifies why I'm not pursueing teaching at the moment! Good luck out there!
April wrote: "I feel like it's so easy to critcize teaching when you've never actually taught. Yes, some teachers are terrible, but others are doing the best they can with slashed budgets and that may mean assig..."One Suggestions for teachers is after you have the ok on a book from your HIGHER-UPs...talk to an "Independant Book Seller." I work for one and we give the public school a big discount and sometimes if they buy 10 books they can get 2 copies free.
The other day I stopped to really peruse one of these things & reflect on why they disgust me so. The lack of imagination or coordination in the picks boggles me. I was wondering if people have thoughts on this. Here is my breakdown:
I. The epic.The Odyssey, period. Level of classroom discussion: Shia LeBoeuf would make a hot Tele-tele--whatshisname?!? in the Michael Bay movie. If they did one. Oo, the Pussycat Dolls should play the Sirens. I'm gonna right that in my essay.
II. To Kill a Mockingbird. Problem: it's like drinking from a lead-tainted waterfountain. Most kids read it and decide it's the greatest book. Ever. This juvenile opinion will last through Yale classroom discussions of Brothers Karamazov.
III. Lost boys: Lord of the Flies. Because this is the only High Lit you can sell teenage boys. Message to girls: we left you behind to get nuked.
IV. Other Cultures: strangely, all other cultures seem to have been started in the 20th Century, as a result of white people trying to destroy them. Asia has produced no books, unless you count The Good Earth. Things Fall Apart is the story of all Africa, and is way better than Heart of Darkness because Conrad was a guiltridden racist whereas Achebe is a guilt-free misogynist.
V. Teacher's Pick, Cat Lady Edition: "The Shipping News" or something by Jane Smiley. The CatLady wants students to know that well-reviewed books today are Every Bit As Good As The So-Called Classics. Because really the CatLady Teacher doesn't understand many So-Called Classics.
VI. Teacher's Pick, Mr. Groovy. Here's where you see Love in the Time of Cholera or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or, god help us, Lolita. Mr. Groovy is not disheartened by the fact that the High Modernist novels he assigns were written by polymaths gaming on every book previously written for 4,000 years. He never spotted the references to Homer, Virgil, Dante or the Old Testament, but carrying these novels around, along with a pack of cloves, proved really helpful in college when trying to get laid. Mr. Groovy is most likely to go back for his PhD or wind up on Dateline: To Catch a Predator.
And finally . . .
VII. The After-School Special. Because that is ALL the fudge John Steinbeck is!!!