Conquer Club

Apparently 43 U.S. states require students in levels 9 and 10 to read the following 33 books, plays, short stories and poems. If you couldn't increase the total beyond 33, and couldn't add The Secret, Fifty Shades of Grey, or Harry Potter and the Whatever Whatever - which ones would you replace and with what would you replace them? For obvious reasons, the list is tilted toward American authors (highlighted in red) ... I'm assuming Mark Twain and Jack London must be read at some point prior to grade 9?

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/062 ... y-by-Homer

1. The Odyssey (Homer)
2. Metamorphoses (Ovid)
3. Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)
4. Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
5. Sonnet 73 (William Shakespeare)
6. A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)
7. The Nose (Nikolai Gogol)
8. Candide (Voltaire)
9. Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev)
10. The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)
11. Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
12. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
13. Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
14. I Stand Here Ironing (Tillie Olsen)
15. Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
16. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
17. The Killer Angels (Michael Shaara)
18. The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
19. In the Time of Butterflies (Julia Álvarez)
20. The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak)
21. The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams)
22. Rhinoceros (Eugene Ionesco)
23. Master Harold (Athol Fugard)
24. Song (John Donne)
25. Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
26. The Raven (Edgar Allen Poe)
27. We Grow Accustomed to the Dark (Emily Dickinson)
28. Loveliest of Trees (A. E. Houseman)
29. Life Every Voice and Sing (James Weldon Johnson)
30. Yet Do I Marvel (Countee Cullen)
31. Musée des Beaux Arts (Wysten Hugh Auden)
32. Women (Alice Walker)
33. I Am Offering This Poem to You (Jimmy Santiago Baca)

Not sure which one to kick off the list, given I have not read half of them.

BMO

I would axe these:
- The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)
- In the Time of Butterflies (Julia Álvarez)
- The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak)
- The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams)
- Rhinoceros (Eugene Ionesco)
- Master Harold (Athol Fugard)
- Loveliest of Trees (A. E. Houseman)
- Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
- I Stand Here Ironing (Tillie Olsen)
- The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)

to be fair I haven't heard of, let alone read, most any of these ... though I think I saw the movie version of The Joy Luck Club

And replace them with these:
- Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein)
- Shikasta (Lessing)
- The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
- Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
- Rabbit is Rich (Updike)
- The Jungle (Sinclair)
- White Noise (DeLillo)
- On the Road (Kerouac)
- The Godfather (Puzzo)

also one of those poems I've never heard of on the list with an Allan Ginsberg poem

Phatscotty wrote:

+500 SaxBucks

rdsrds2120 wrote:

BMO

never heard of it but will give you +100 SaxBucks participation prize

saxitoxin wrote:I would axe these:
- The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)
- In the Time of Butterflies (Julia Álvarez)
- The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak)
- The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams)
- Rhinoceros (Eugene Ionesco)
- Master Harold (Athol Fugard)
- Loveliest of Trees (A. E. Houseman)
- Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
- I Stand Here Ironing (Tillie Olsen)
- The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)

to be fair I haven't heard of, let alone read, most of these

And replace them with these:
- Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein)
- Shikasta (Lessing)
- The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
- Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
- Rabbit is Rich (Updike)
- The Jungle (Sinclair)
- White Noise (DeLillo)
- On the Road (Kerouac)
- The Godfather (Puzzo)

also one of those poems I've never heard of on the list with an Allan Ginsberg poem

they've changed the reading list since I went through... of course that was... er... half my life ago... but still
most of the ones that were on the list when I went through are the ones you DIDN'T axe, and a lot of the ones you added back on were also on the list I went though...

I would axe The Grapes of Wrath. That book sucked. It was so damn long and boring.

And I know this isn't on the list, be we had to read it in high school, and I would axe it too. The Scarlet Letter. f*ck that book.

At least Clifford would be slightly entertaining.

saxitoxin wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:

+500 SaxBucks

tkr4lf wrote:



I would axe The Grapes of Wrath. That book sucked. It was so damn long and boring.

And I know this isn't on the list, be we had to read it in high school, and I would axe it too. The Scarlet Letter. f*ck that book.

At least Clifford would be slightly entertaining.

yeah I remember the scarlet letter... it used to be on the list

fadedpsychosis wrote:

tkr4lf wrote:



I would axe The Grapes of Wrath. That book sucked. It was so damn long and boring.

And I know this isn't on the list, be we had to read it in high school, and I would axe it too. The Scarlet Letter. f*ck that book.

At least Clifford would be slightly entertaining.

yeah I remember the scarlet letter... it used to be on the list

It could have been 11th grade when we read that, which would be why it's not on the list, but still, seriously, f*ck that book.

Brave New World should be required

Army of GOD wrote:Brave New World should be required

it was for us, or else my teacher chose it in 11th

that was the best teacher from my high school

Why is there no Vonnegut on the list? Is it too mature?

Also, I had to wikipedia The Killer Angels:

The Killer Angels (1974) is a historical novel by Michael Shaara that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. The book tells the story of the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War: June 30, 1863, as the troops of both the Union and the Confederacy move into battle around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and July 1, July 2, and July 3, when the battle was fought. The story is character driven and told from the perspective of various protagonists.

This seems like a fine novel for a literature class for an obligatory Civil War narrative fiction, but why is it on the list and The Red Badge of Courage is not? Or is that read prior to grade 9?

Sirens of Titan was nice on the imagination, but I don't know about required....

Phatscotty wrote:Sirens of Titan was nice on the imagination, but I don't know about required....

Slaughterhouse 5?

saxitoxin wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:Sirens of Titan was nice on the imagination, but I don't know about required....

Slaughterhouse 5?

Oh yeah, that's the one everybody raves about.



Let ya know in a couple hours

Here's the list of books that I can remember from 7th grade on:

7th: The Outsiders, can't remember any others atm

8th: Some Holocaust book...don't remember

9th: Animal Farm, the Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, the Giver, Anthem, the Cay

10th: Night, Much Ado About Nothing, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, In the Time of the Butterflies, Things Fall Apart (for history class)

11th: Scarlet Letter, 1984, Old Man and the Sea, this one book about this hispanic girl living in NYC, Great Gatsby (for history), The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Harrison Bergeron, Macbeth

12th: Siddartha, Tale of Two Cities, Metamorphosis, Jane Eyre (oh god), Pride and Prejudice (OH GOD), Hamlet, Othello

I know I'm missing a bunch but that's the gist of it. Keep in mind I was in AP English for the last two years so the books I read were more "advanced". Also holy f*ck Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice sucked ass.

Drop the Shakespeare works, they are lost to most high-schoolers anyway and add more Kafka. Leave Shakespeare for those who want to actively pursue it. No sense shoveling against the tide.

I'm so jealous of that list and of all of you. I think I was required to read 1 book at that grade.

nietzsche wrote:required

FunkyTerrance wrote:No sense shoveling against the tide.

Should high school students be required to read any specific books at all? Is this a good approach, to give a list of 33 different works and say "you must read all of these in the next 2 years" or should you give them a list of 200 different works and say "you must read 33 of these in the next 2 years?" Is this list so vital that every book needs to be read by every student regardless of their interest level in it or should a more fluid approach be taken?

Army of GOD wrote:Siddartha

You read Siddartha in high school? AoG must have been in the smart class.

I don't like your tone...

Army of GOD wrote:I don't like your tone...

IF YOU ARE TRYING TO CYBER-BULLY ME, I WILL REPORT YOU. NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTS.

Army of GOD wrote:Here's the list of books that I can remember from 7th grade on:

7th: The Outsiders, can't remember any others atm

8th: Some Holocaust book...don't remember

9th: Animal Farm, the Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, the Giver, Anthem, the Cay

I used to tease CayManMew with this....

I want chicken, I want liver
Mew-mix mew-mix please deliver

saxitoxin wrote:

nietzsche wrote:required

FunkyTerrance wrote:No sense shoveling against the tide.

Should high school students be required to read any specific books at all? Is this a good approach, to give a list of 33 different works and say "you must read all of these in the next 2 years" or should you give them a list of 200 different works and say "you must read 33 of these in the next 2 years?" Is this list so vital that every book needs to be read by every student regardless of their interest level in it or should a more fluid approach be taken?

Why am I starting to feel like this is a trap?
As far as interest level, that's precisely the reason why I opted to leave Shakespeare out of the list. Generally speaking I think Kafka would be found to be more meaningful to your typical high school student but that's just my opinion. Sure a bigger list with more options would be nice but you would then endanger the "roundness" of the list chosen. It also makes me wonder how many students would merely choose those selections with the least amount of pages. How would this benefit anyone?
I suppose I assumed that the question implied that there had to be a list of that many selections. What's stopping anyone from reading additional books in their free time anyway?

Yeah, I can't hardly remember which books I read for what class for the most part.

I do remember these;
Animal Farm
The Odyssey
Romeo and Juliet
1984
Brave New World
Huck Finn (Tom Sawyer was Junior High or Elementary Schoo for me)
Romeo & Juliet (seriously, most stories now seem to based on some Shakespeare play it seems)
Old Man & The Sea
Various short stories and poems (Edgar Allen Poe for example)

After that, things get mixed up with college and personal.