The books you were required to read in high school

[Tink]

Hey gals,

Since I am considering a career teaching English I started thinking the other day about the books and plays I was required to read in high school and decided to try and re-read them.

The ones I remember:

Anthem by Ayn Rand
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams
A Street Car Named Desire by Tennesse Williams
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

What did you all have to read?

[Ysobelle]

Hmmm.

Lord of the Flies
Member of the Wedding
To The Lighthouse
The Scarlet Letter
Heart of Darkness
The Secret Agent
A Farewell to Arms
The Sound and The Fury


Those are the ones that I remember first. I know I had to read Jane Austen first somewhere, but I don't remember when that was. Somehow, though, her novels skyrocketed to the top of my list. I reread them every year or two, two or three at a time. Yay, Jane Austen. When I lived in England, I even got to see the manor where her Mr. Knightly lived, and see the chapel where she worshipped, and walk through the house where she lived. It was amazing. I miss it so.

Sigh. Oh, to be in England in the Spring....

[Morte]

here's some of them..


Night
Dawn
Little Big Man
A Seperate Peace
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliette
1984
Midsummer Nights' Dream
Death of a Salesman
Silas Marner
A Brave New World
The Crucible


and a bunch more.. im having a hard tiem seperating the required reading from the recreational reading... i've always bene such a voracious reader!

[Tink]

Thanks gals!!!

A few you listed I DID have to read...I just forgot... :lol:

[Mad Kestrel]

Let's see...casting the memory net back over twenty years, I seem to recall

Animal Farm
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar
Wuthering Heights
The Glass Menagerie
The Diary of Anne Frank


Unfortunately, since my attention was drawn more toward "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Foundation" and "Dune", some of the required reading left me less than satisfied. Oh well, that was then.

[emalia]

Good question.. After much thought, this is what I came up with, my list includes both summer reading books and regualr though the year books:

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Watership Down
Farenheight 451
Animal Farm
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Ceasar
Antony and Cleopatra
Alas Babylon
Brave New World
The Glass Menagerie
Night
A Separate Peace
The Pearl
Hamlet
Death of a Salesman
Lord of the Rings
The Scarlett Letter
The Great Gatsby
A Streetcar Named desire
A Catcher in the Rye
Fried Green Tomatos...
Red Badge of Courage
A Tale of Two Cities
Cantebury Tales
The Odyssey
Hound of the Baskervilles
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Of Mice and Men
The Crucible


There are many more as most of my English HS classes relied on Books and a grammer helper. I know that each summer we read at least 3 books, then we did approximately one book a month per grade,

[jmthane]

I don't really recall any books that I had to read in High School. However, many of those listed above, I read *before* I was in High School...

[Tink]

Wowo...geez, there are so many I'd forgotten. I guess I have *quite* a bit of reading to do......

Then again....do they still make Cliff Notes? :wink: :lol:

[lauradake]

I had to read most of the ones listed...

and...

On the Beach
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Flowers for Algernon
Siddhartha
A Seperate Peace

....and probally lots more that I am forgetting. ;)

Admittedly--in Middle and High School, I did a lot of "skimming" and asking friends who had read the Cliff's Notes "what happened at the end of chapter 12?"... but 15 years later, I'm starting to rediscover a lot of these books again. :)

-L

[jmthane]

Then again....do they still make Cliff Notes? :wink: :lol:

Yep.

[Devon Dalaigh]

I don't really recall any books that I had to read in High School. However, many of those listed above, I read *before* I was in High School...

Wow ! Same with me - I used to drive everyone crazy 'cause I was in grade scholl and be reading my sister's old highschool books !

[Tink]

I don't really recall any books that I had to read in High School. However, many of those listed above, I read *before* I was in High School...

Wow ! Same with me - I used to drive everyone crazy 'cause I was in grade scholl and be reading my sister's old highschool books !

You know...I went to Catholic School 3rd through 8th and I don't remember ANY required reading.....I know that can't be possible.....hmmmm.....odd.

[Devon Dalaigh]

You know...I went to Catholic School 3rd through 8th and I don't remember ANY required reading.....I know that can't be possible.....hmmmm.....odd.

*LOL*
Yup ! I went 1st through 12th to Catholic school ! All I remember from grade school was that we read greek mythology in 7th and used a book that my sister had used in high school.... one that I had practically memorized :-) Really pissed the teacher off when I kept answering the questions -even though I had forgotten the book at home ! :P But other than that..... *shrugs* nothing I recall either....

[AllieSutherland]

Lysistrata
Oedipus the King
Antigone
A Doll's House
Crime and Punishment
Gulliver's Travels
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Decameron
Canterbury Tales
The Inferno
Madame Bovary
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
Beowulf

(These are just a few that I can remember... and that I thank God I'm done with -- well, most of them!) ;)
XOXOXOXOX
Allie

[Pamela, Strawberry Tart]

What, nobody had to read "To Kill a Mockingbird?" It's one of my favorites!

I had to read most of the others listed, too, as well as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.

And, my personal least favorite book: Heart of Darkness.

Mistah Lawrence, he boring!

[emalia]

I read To Kill in 7th or 8th grade, so it wasn't on my HS list of books read.. But I forgot Beowulf and Grendal (the Book).. I have to say, I actually liked Both of them, but Grendal was quite sad.

[Ysobelle]

What, nobody had to read "To Kill a Mockingbird?" It's one of my favorites!

I had to read most of the others listed, too, as well as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.

And, my personal least favorite book: Heart of Darkness.

Mistah Lawrence, he boring!


Oh, G-d, yes-- all of those. And the Shakespeare. And the Chaucer. And the Greeks. And the poetry.


Mmmm...Edna St. Vincent Millay....

[Alianne]

:: putting thinking cap on head::

Let's see....

Beowulf (and Grendel for extra credit)
Hamlet
MacBeth
Romeo and Juliet
Billy Budd
The House of Seven Gables
The Great Gatsby
Flowers for Algernon (it *still* makes me cry like a baby)
Shakespeare's sonnets
Where the Red Fern Grows
Lord of the Flies
1984 (which hadn't yet happened... :wink: )
Farenheit 451
Stranger in a Strange Land
Oliver Twist (and David Copperfield for extra credit -- though I didn't tell my English teacher that I'd already read it when I was 8 :) )
Tom Sawyer
The Diary of Anne Frank
Uncle Tom's Cabin

[Kiza]

I think just about all of my high school / early college required reading has already been listed. Something fabulous to reread as an adult: The Chronicles of Narnia - all of them. I devoured them as a child and reread them in my early twenties. They were completely different books! I've been thinking about picking them up again . . .

Kiza
#1523

[Ysobelle]

I think just about all of my high school / early college required reading has already been listed. Something fabulous to reread as an adult: The Chronicles of Narnia - all of them. I devoured them as a child and reread them in my early twenties. They were completely different books! I've been thinking about picking them up again . . .

Kiza
#1523


That's funny-- I just pulled them all off my shelves and started reading them.

What's even odder is that the set I have now starts with "The Magician's Nephew" as #1, not "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe." Is it like that with all sets?

[Bonnie]

Yeah, I've noticed that on other sets of the Chronicles. I bought it for a girlfriend's daughter, and her set started the same way. I don't like reading them in that order. I read my set about once a year, and love it more each time. It's about time, actually, to turn in the dogeared set and invest in a new one.

I used to wish, fiercly, that *I* could just walk into a wardrobe and find myself in Narnia. I have faint memories of actually trying it once. Damn. Now I want to read the series again! But I have a school paper to write! After the paper...after the paper....

[Kiza]

I remember reading that they had renumbered the books a few years ago. It was part of a big "find a new audience" push. Supposedly they came out with stuffed animals and everything, but I never saw any of them. I was a little horrified that someone might try to Disney-ize Narnia . . .

I've read the books in both orders and I have to agree, I like the old way better. True, it's not in chronological order, but I guess it feels right since that's how I read it the first time around.


I used to wish, fiercly, that *I* could just walk into a wardrobe and find myself in Narnia. I have faint memories of actually trying it once.

I have faith. :D My mother told me once, when I made the same lament, that a wardrobe made from the tree in the backyard DID actually exsist. And while it may not be a portal, I know I always felt safest as a child when I would crawl all the way to the back of my closet and let my imagination go wild. Maybe my daughters will find it one day. :D

Kiza
#1523

[Ysobelle]

I also heard-- and this has the whiff of hearsay, so take it as you will-- that there was a plan to make them more secular, as well.

Now, granted, it's not my theology to begin with, but for heaven's sake! What a silly idea!

[Bonnie]

I sincerely hope it was heresay and not actual fact. To make the books more secular would destroy a part of the magic. True, it is a Christian based mythology, but there is a basic theme in there that is universal and pure Narnian. In many ways, MY personal belief system was shaped by the books, and The Last Battle, in particular. Really, there IS no way to make them more secular without altering them beyond recognition.

And I'm getting nauseus thinking about it...damn PC Liberals. :yuck:

[CelticBombshell]

Just wondering if I'm the only one who was very disturbed by brave new world
:yuck:

Melinda

[Avhiennda]

Hmmm...everyone pretty much covered what I had to read...

However I don't recall anyone mentioning Gone with the Wind, A Raisin in the Sun and To Kill a Mockingbird. I had to read that too.

My favorite English class, however, was one where we didn't read a single book. It was a critique class on classic film, where we learned to look at things like camera angles and perception, the use of light and shadow, etc. Plus we learned some filming terms.

While I had an appreciation for the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals due to my singing in Grammar School, this opened up a whole new appreciation for movies of that time in general. We saw

Rebecca
Rear Window
Notorious, North by Northwest, Vertigo and several other Hitchcock Movies
Two different versions of Macbeth (B&W and Color)
Two different versions of Jane Eyre (B&W and Color)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Heiress (wherein began my adoration of Olivia DeHavilland)
Wuthering Heights
12 Angry Men
To Kill a Mockingbird

It really made me look at movies in a whole new way.

Avhi

[Magpie]

Strawberry Tart Pamela wrote:

What, nobody had to read "To Kill a Mockingbird?" It's one of my favorites!

I had to read most of the others listed, too, as well as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.

And, my personal least favorite book: Heart of Darkness.

Mistah Lawrence, he boring!

Yeah, I think Heart of Darkness is the number one LEAST favorite book of all time. And this from the woman who will read just about *anything* if she is bored enough!)[/quote]

[Maewyn]

Strangely, we didn't read much...even though I was in the Honors English class. What I remember:

Lord of the Flies
the Odyssey (and not the Iliad, strangely enough)
Jane Eyre
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Native Son
Night

What I think people SHOULD read includes:

1984
Fahrenheit 451
Animal Farm
Just about anything by an author they hate. (I have personal issues with Harlan Ellison and Robert Heinlein, but they are fantastic writers. End of rant, for now; I'm supposed to be writing a paper - shh!! )

What did I read recreationally? lol...that's a long list, most of which I don't remember. ;) Though I do remember reading lots and lots of books, especially in elementary school. I wrote most of the Accelerated Reader tests for them, too. The standout memory is reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" in class (4th grade) and crying at the ending, and nobody could understand that I was crying at the book. :sigh:

[Kiza]

The standout memory is reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" in class (4th grade) and crying at the ending, and nobody could understand that I was crying at the book. :sigh:

YES! My forth grade teacher read us "Where the Red Fern Grows", too - and I vaguely remember being one of the only kids really torn up by it. He read the Wrinkle in Time books to us, too. I was already a voracious reader, but he introduced me to some great new stuff. Oddly enough, when I reached seventh grade, I had his wife for my English teacher and she turned me on to "1984", "Farenheight 451" and other goodies. (I went back to her for years for reading suggestions.) With the possible exception of my senior English teacher - who inadvertantly gave me a love of Shakespeare - no one else has ever turned me on to reading like that.

Kiza

[Morte]

The standout memory is reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" in class (4th grade) and crying at the ending, and nobody could understand that I was crying at the book. :sigh:

YES! My forth grade teacher read us "Where the Red Fern Grows", too - and I vaguely remember being one of the only kids really torn up by it.


It always amazes me that people can't undertsand how a "mere book" can make me laugh and cry! noone thinks it's weird to laugh or cry at a movie or teevee show *grumble* so many people ahve given em the "it's JUST a book" line and heck there are books that STILL make em cry or laugh after more than 5 readings (and soem that ONLY make you laugh in repeat readings b/c of in-jokes that you don't get the first time around)

[Isabella]

Something Wicked this Way Comes (Brabury anything is good writing.)
Moby Dick
Scarlet Letter
Rain of Gold (Awesome book on South American Gold Rush, true story.)
Woman Warrior (Chinese American girl's story.)
Huckleberry Finn
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Catcher in the Rye
Brave New World (The movie made of this was Logan's Run. Book very different, very strange, but strangely good.)
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
MacBeth
Shakespears Sonnets
Hamlet
Walden
Frankenstien
Letters from Viet Nam (Soilder's letters home from Viet Nam, and their families.)
Flowers for Algernon
All Quiet on the Western Front (very sad book, starling perspective of young German soilder's lives during Nazi Germany.)


Poetry:
Leaves in the Grass-Witman
Richard Bocaski ( very strange man, but great poet. Very sexist, but goes well with Witman. Good for observing men of the 19 century and men of the 20th century and their views.
The Rhyme of the Ancient Marnier (*laughs* Everyone that I said this to said, "The Iron Maiden song!" ROFLMAO!*

I had alot of AP classes in school mostly english, so my brain isn't remember all the books. We read 4 books a semester, so I'm stumped. It's been nearly six years since I graduated, haven't had to think about it.

Books I didn't have to read in school but worth reading.

The Good Earth
The Illid
Age of Innocence
The Phantom of the Opera
Bram Stocker's Dracula

That's all I can think of. There are so many that have impacted something important. I know the Good Earth made me mad, but it was worth the read. It helped me justify Chinese Culture during the 1900's. Very good book.

Hope that helps!
Pinay

[Isabella]

The Invisible Man by Langston Hughs. Not the Sci Fi Novel...the novel about Racial relations in the 1930's. Powerful book.

[Jayden2298]

I remember reading To Kill a Mocking buird in Middle School, along with Johnny Tremain. Never mind I did a book report on "Gone With the Wind" in 7th grade.

Read a good number of the ones listed, and then some. Read "Lord of the Rings", Narnia Chronicles, L'Engle all before I got out of 6th grade.

I'll see if I can think of what I read in high school...


Jayden

[toosha]

This was always my favorite and my sister hated that I would put it in for charades.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds

I also had to read Cyrano twice (moved half way though high school) which I love.

[Tempest_Gypsy]

This was always my favorite and my sister hated that I would put it in for charades.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds

I also had to read Cyrano twice (moved half way though high school) which I love.

Cyrano is one of my all time favorite (non Shakespeare) plays. such a good read, adn I always ball :tantrum: at the end.