English Class Page 2

What Book Was The Biggest Waste of Time? (13 titles)

The worst injustice of being a student is that you have to read what the teacher tells you to. I myself thought The Pearl was pointless when I read it as a teenager. So many books are just plain out of date and are on the curriculum because an English teacher was too complacent to try anything new.

One thing that is sad to see is the almost despised sentiment of Shakespeare. Ol' Will just isn't all that interesting to a lot of people. I tend to agree with Rory's English teacher on The Gilmore Girls who said, "Shakespeare is not meant to be read. His plays were meant to be experienced, lived." (For more on Shakespeare's work, follow this link.)

A Separate Peace, John Knowles
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
Animal Farm, George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
SHAKESPEARE (x4)
The Light in the Forest, Conrad Richter
The Pearl, John Steinbeck (x2)
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

What Book Did You Dismiss As A Child, Only To Rediscover It As An Adult? (9 titles)

We give people second chances, why not books? I remember trying to read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I could only make it through 40 pages before becoming bored with it. Two years down the road, I decided to pick it up again and read it in three days. (Interestingly, no J. A. mentioned in the responses, even after her Hollywood blitz a few years ago had her topping bestseller lists.) Based on only nine titles mentioned here, it seems we are not going back to the dreaded books of our youth and reading them again. Perhaps it was our mood or maturity that prevented us from enjoying them the first time through.

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank, et al.
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Jonny Tremain, Esther Forbes
Mutiny On the Bounty, William Bligh
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse (x2)
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

What Book Would You Recommend That Everyone Should Read? (24 titles)

No more reading what teacher assigns, we're reading for pleasure! But, ironically, we're thirsting for knowledge and understanding - of our choosing. I found themes haven't really changed from a fourth grade reading level to an advanced, adult one. The situations are more complex (Catch-22) and the metaphors are a little larger (Moby Dick), but dealing with loss is just as powerful a theme in Charlotte's Web as it is in A Death in the Family.

In general, spirituality and self-improvement are much more prominent subjects. We realize the world doesn't revolve around us (no really, it doesn't). We're questioning God's existence, dealing with our mortality, exploring our value systems, and seeking truth and beauty. As Joseph Campbell said in The Power of Myth, words are just symbols. They enable us to express what we feel inside but in a very limited way. When someone manages to string together words in a way that not only educates or entertains us but changes the way we perceive the world and our very existence, then that's a book well worth experiencing.

A Death in the Family, James Agee
Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison (x4)
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger (x2)
Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (x2)
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (x2)
Malcolm X, Malcolm X
Me Talk Pretty, David Sedaris (x2)
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
Nine Stories, J. D. Salinger
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
Tae Te Ching, Lao Tzu
The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
The Stranger, Albert Camus
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence, Robert M. Pirsig (x2)

Everyone has an opinion. Let us know yours. Did we leave off the great American novel? Where in heck is the Bible on our list? If you decide to read The Pearl again and end up loving it, let annabelle know. But, above all, get out there and read!

Get Deep With Shakespeare, Go To Page 3 | Back

home room | morning announcements | home ec. | geography | english | chemistry | detention | student store | faculty lounge