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Friday, August 24, 2012



TGIF is a weekly meme to re-cap the week’s posts & to propose a question for our followers. It is run by Ginger at GReads.
This Friday's Question:

Back to School Reading: Which books would you like to see 
in today's high school Literature classrooms? 

Wow! Great question from GReads! Considering I was a student English teacher for a very short time in our local high schools, I feel like I could say a lot on this subject. We all know the standard books that we were forced to read (and I still love these books but a lot of folks hated them):
The Scarlet Letter
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Tale of Two Cities
1984
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Crucible
The Great Gatsby

But it's now 2012 and not the early 90s like when I was in high school. I'm not saying we should throw out copies of 50 Shades of Gray or anything (and geez, with that writing, you could actually lose IQ points). However, there is more to the literary world than just the classics and when you are in high school, you want a good story, so here goes...

Per my friend, Kim at On The Wings of Books, I am stealing her idea of The Help. What a great way to learn about the 60s, prejudism, bigotry and race relations while enjoying a story and some "chocolate pie."

Others that I like:

Any of Bill Bryson's books - kids can learn about different countries, traveling and still be entertained.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (is this being taught anywhere? It should be)

The Book Thief (this WWII piece of fiction may be taught in schools but if it isn't, it most definitely should be read and discussed at length, along with Night by Elie Wiesel)

Go Ask Alice (I think this was banned when I was in high school but it should be a must-read for students to wake them up to the horrors of addiction)



3 comments:

Kate @Midnight Book Girl said...

Yes! Book Theif and The Help are great picks! I think Go Ask Alice should be read before high school though, because it has not aged well and teens would just make fun of it. I read it in grade school and it totally kept me from drugs.

Katie Pomroy said...

I've been at work too long. I read that last sentence as "I read it in grade school and it totally kept me into drugs." :)

Unknown said...

Scarlet Letter is a good one!

Here's mine: http://fiktishuhs.blogspot.com/2012/08/tgif_24.html