Required reading?
By wiccania
@wiccania (3360)
United States
July 26, 2007 11:26pm CST
What books were required reading when you were in high school? I'm just curious. The high school I went to allowed "semesterized English" in your Junior and Senior years, so you could skip the regular English class and take things like Mythology, Creative Writing, etc (I took Creative Writing, Creative Drama, Popular Reading and American Short Stories). So I missed out on all the "required reading" for Juniors and Seniors.
Catcher in the Rye, for example, I didn't read that until... well, last year. So tell me, what was your required reading and what did you think of it?
2 people like this
7 responses
@thefuture (1749)
• Nigeria
27 Jul 07
When I was in high school, the most required books were English and Mathematics. The reason was, they wanted students to have a good knowledge of both subjects in order to help them academically. Thanks and have a nice day.
1 person likes this
@morgandrake (2136)
• United States
27 Jul 07
I am curious what they are required to read in Nigeria too.
@scarywhitegirl (2766)
• United States
27 Jul 07
I don't recall exactly what was required in our high school, but I do think that we had to read one Shakespearean play each year. The only ones I can recall are Romeo & Juliet when we were freshmen, and Julius Caesar at some later point.
I had a really great English teacher from sophomore through senior years though, and we had to read The Shining when we were sophomores. It wasn't required throughout the school, just for the honors level class. We did a whole section on horror, in fact! :)
@wiccania (3360)
• United States
27 Jul 07
In the "American Short Stories" class I took, the teacher (seeing that I was a big Stephen King fan) asked me to recommend some of his short stories because we were doing 2 weeks on King alone and she wasn't familiar with his short stories at all. I tried to be nice and pick ones that weren't too "awful" but I just HAD to put Survivor Type on the list.
1 person likes this
@sarahruthbeth22 (43143)
• United States
29 Jul 07
Move over. I didn't read Catcher In The Rye at school either. And when I finally got a chance to read it, I couldn't get into it.When I was in school, my english teacher would select what we were to read. I don't think it was from a required list.I remember discussing Tess D'Ubervilles, Taming of The Shrew,The Crucible,And Julius Caesar, and having to recite lines from Romeo and Juliet.
@ma_belle (1357)
• United States
4 Aug 07
My last year of high school I remember reading 1984, Madame Bovary, Pride and Prejudice, Slaughterhouse five, and the Handmaid's Tale. I also remember reading some Shakespeare that year, King Lear and As You Like It. There is much more, almost too much to list!
@yamskee (827)
• Philippines
27 Jul 07
when i was in highschool, we were required to read beowulf, and shakespeare's creations. in college, we're required to read greek mythology, catcher in the rye, and philippine literature short stories.
catcher in the rye is one of my favorites. when i read the book, i wanted to kill some people. i dont know, but thats how i feel about it.
1 person likes this
@malijka (140)
• Poland
28 Jul 07
In highschool we had to read a lot of books - polish authors and also foreign countries like Germany, England, Russia :
Shakespeare - Mackbeth
Conrad - Lord Jim
Dostoyewski - Crime and Punishment
Bulhakow - Master and Margaret
Kafka - Process
I don't remember authors of those but: Giaur, Tristan and Iseult
Mythology
Bible (some parts)
And many many more from polish literature ...
@clocks123 (1225)
• United States
28 Jul 07
i remember macbeth romeo and juliet from shakespeare the catcher in the rye as well about a young man i forget what it was about i thought it was ok shakespeare stories were ok i wish we could have had a chance to choose what we wanted instead of required readings that was back in the 70s
