I was in a huge rush the last time I blogged. I’d like to go into more detail about the book this time. As I was saying, ”Under the Electric Sun” is available on Kindle now. (There’s a link at the bottom.) It’s a science fiction novel aimed at teenagers — but I don’t recommend it for younger children, because it’s somewhat grim and there are a few violent scenes in it.

The main character is an electronic raccoon named Tristan. His body is covered in lifelike synthetic fur and he behaves just like a real raccoon – except, unlike a real raccoon, he talks. Tristan is an android tutor, commonly known as a “tutroid.” He lives with a boy named Jake Sheldon, giving him lectures and quizzes each day. Over the years, Jake and Tristan have become best friends.

Jake and Tristan live in a vast underground city called Phoenix, located beneath the ruins of Washington, DC. Even though Phoenix is an underground city, it isn’t dark and dirty. It’s like an underground mall. The floors are covered in black and white checkered tiles and the corridors are decorated with synthetic palm trees. Jake and Tristan often spend their afternoons lounging in a place called Bailey Park, a large room with a blue ceiling and fake grass on the floor. Bailey Park is filled with artificial trees and hidden speakers that play the sound of chirping birds.

No one in Phoenix has ever seen the surface of the earth. Nearly a hundred years ago, while a nuclear war was raging, everyone in the White House scrambled down a secret staircase and entered the city of Phoenix, which had been built and prepared many years in advance. While most of the earth’s population perished in the war, the president and the rest of the White House staff began living in the biggest bomb shelter ever created.

Today, their descendants lead lives of quiet desperation. Jake’s father, for example, oversees farming robots of Floor 213. In the evenings, he comes home and drinks beer in front of the mega-screen while he grumbles about his miserable, boring life. Jake’s mother works in a food processing room. She eats mood adjuster tablets every morning and drifts through life in a drug-induced fog.

One day, as Jake and Tristan are relaxing in Bailey Park, a giant silver insect shuffles toward them. Jake is sound asleep, resting against a tree trunk, but Tristan is aware (and terrified) of the strange creature. He nearly falls over backwards as the insect begins to speak to him.

Tristan doesn’t realize it, but their lives are about to change forever.

Here’s the link…

http://www.amazon.com/Under-the-Electric-Sun-ebook/dp/B00C6QZKNI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365148293&sr=8-1&keywords=Under+the+Electric+Sun

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Books and Authors You Had to Read in High School

Book Blogger Confessions is a meme every 1st and 2nd Monday hosted by Karen from For What It’s Worth and the Midnyte Reader.
It’s where book bloggers “confess” and vent about topics that are unique to us.
Feel free to share, vent and offer solutions, and remember to visit For What It’s Worth or the Midnyte Reader for other confessions!

This week’s confession:

Giving thanks: Is there a book that you are thankful you have read?  Maybe it has changed your life in a small or even a large way, or made you see things in a different perspective.

Oh, gosh. I have to remember stuff? There’s a reason I write my review immediately upon finishing the book.

I think the most important book I am thankful to have read is probably Animal Farm by George Orwell. I know it’s a huge analogy for what was going on in Russia at the time but the fact is that history repeats itself and I can easily see this happening again (and again and again). Fiction novels like this make you think about the world at large, how things interact and respond and the way humans and their minds work, even if it’s using animals on a farm in the place of the world. Sure, the parallels will be lost on a lot of people, and I for one have never been a history buff so I probably don’t understand it as well as I should, but for the most part I do.

Animal Farm is the novel to read to help understand that the more things change the more they stay the same and history repeats itself. I would probably not have picked this up as a teen given the choice but I am very thankful it was required reading for my school.

It is traditional in the U.S. for schools to give students a list of books to read during the summer.  The concept is twofold: one, keeping a student’s mind engaged while absent from most intellectual interaction; and two, trying to excite a student to the pleasure of reading.  So the trick is to find titles that are both stimulating and enjoyable and thoughtful.

So in the school I work at, the “Summer Reading List” has just been published. Here are the titles:

For 9th Graders:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Enders’ Game by Orson Scott Card
Ishmael: An Adventure of Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn

For 10th Graders:

Four mandatory short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne and four other Hawthorne stories of the student’s choosing.
Four mandatory short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and four other Poe stories of the student’s choosing.

For 11th Graders:  There are two levels of books. The first level has a wide choice. They MUST read the first two and then choose ONE of the remaining six:

Don’t Look Now: Selected Stories of Daphne Du Maurier   by Daphne DuMaurier and Patrick McGrath
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre

Here’s Looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos  (HOW GREAT A TITLE IS THIS!!!!!)
The Devil in the White City  by Erik Larson
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

The other group of 11th graders read these:

Watership Down by Richard Adams
HIGH FIDELITY by Nick Hornby
Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levit

Those in 12th Grade read:

Zeitoun by David Eggers
Like You’d Understand Anyway by James Shepherd

Those in Advanced Placement 12th Grade have a large list to choose from. Some are mandatory and some are choice, but they end up reading 5 titles in all (and for one, reading the book AND watching the film.) They are:

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
The Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
1984 by George Orwell
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
Demian by Hermann Hesse
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Obasan by Joy Kogawa

King Lear by William Shakespeare and the 1985 Akira Kurosawa film Ran
Educating Rita by Willy Russell and the1983 film by the same name
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and the 1994 film by the same name
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle and the 1991 film by the same name
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and the 2000 film by the same name
Equus by Peter Shaffer and the 1977 film by the same name
The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West and the 1975 film by the same name
The Color Purple by Alice Walker and the 1985 film by the same name
Beloved by Toni Morrison and the 1998 film by the same name
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck and the 1937 movie by the same name
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and the 2010 movie by the same name

I must admit, I haven’t read (or watched) all of these titles, but I have read most. It’s a pretty eclectic list…and certainly stimulating. I have my own favorites–Zeitoun for anger, The Commitments for fun, The Hours for tears, The Color Purple for the extraordinary… I could go on, but won’t.  Have fun. Choose something for yourself, if you have the time.

So whether it’s been one year since you’ve been out of high-school or fifty-one years, give the list a look over and maybe you’ll find something to get you through the hot summer days that are already well on their way.

Most children often struggle to remember the different parts of speech no matter how many times they are taught. What kids do find quite easy though is to learn a rhyme or a song. I just love these two parts of speech poems that I found. I use it with much success as I just ask the kids to memorise it and, when in doubt about any parts of speech, to simply just recite the poem. To me, the parts of speech poem is like the timetables in maths. It’s a good idea to enlarge the poems, laminate and use as a placemat or even as a poster so that the kids see it all the time. I would recommend that the child choose ONE poem to learn as learning two may cause confusion.

1. The Parts of Speech

Every name is called a NOUN,
As field and fountain, street and town;

In place of noun the PRONOUN stands
As he and she can clap their hands;

The ADJECTIVE describes a thing,
As magic wand and bridal ring;

The VERB means action, something done-
To read, to write, to jump, to run;

How things are done, the ADVERBS tell,
As quickly, slowly, badly, well;

The PREPOSITION shows relation,
As in the street, or at the station;

CONJUNCTIONS join, in many ways,
Sentences, words, or phrase and phrase;

The INTERJECTION cries out, “Hark!
I need an exclamation mark!”

Through poetry, we learn how each
of these make up THE PARTS OF SPEECH.

2. The Nine Parts of Speech

Three little words you often see,
Are articles- a, an, and the.

A noun‘s the name of anything
As school, garden, hoop, or swing.

An adjective tells the kind of noun-
Great, small, pretty, white, or brown.

Instead of nouns the pronouns stand-
Her head, his face, your arm, my hand.

Verbs tell of something to be done,
To read, sing, jump, or run.

How things are done the adverbs tell,
As slowly, quickly, ill, or well.

Conjunctions join words together,
As men and women, wind or weather.

The prepositions stands before
A noun, as at or through the door.

The interjection shows surprise,
As ah! How pretty- Oh! how wise.

The whole are called nine parts of speech,
Which reading, writing, speaking teach.

Vijay Naidoo – Principal: Kip McGrath Education Centres

Mudgeeraba (5530 4944)     Robina (5535 5002)   Mobile: +61 435 784 775

www.kipmcgrath.com.au/Australia/Mudgeeraba           Facebook: vijay.naidoo1

vijay_naidoo@hotmail.com

High school students today are reading books intended for children with reading levels far below those appropriate for teens, according to a recent report.

A compilation of the top 40 books teens in grades 9-12 are reading in school shows that the average reading level of that list is 5.3 — barely above the fifth grade.

“A fifth-grade reading level is obviously not high enough for college-level reading. Nor is it high enough for high school-level reading, either, or for informed citizenship,” writes Sandra Stotsky, professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas.

The results come from “What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools,” a report by Renaissance Learning, Inc. The data covers book-reading records for the 2010-2011 academic year among 2.6 million students in grades 1-12 from 24,465 schools in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

At the top of the list for high schoolers: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, followed by John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. See the slideshow below for the top 20 books among high schoolers.

To determine a book’s level of complexity, Renaissance uses an ATOS readability formula that takes into account several predictors: average sentence length, average word length, word difficulty level and total number of words in a book or passage. While readability formulas can’t say much for the depth of literary aspects within a text, they offer objective measures of vocabulary and sentence complexity.

Author Dan Gutman writes in the report’s foreword that kids should be reading “whatever they want,” but Stotsky says high school students should be reading “books above a sixth-grade reading level, for sure.”

Click here to read the rest of this story

Join us at the 2011 Reading and Writing Conference, featuring a keynote address from Ian Jukes, focusing on “Understanding the Digital Generation: Teaching and Learning in the New Digital Landscape”.

In addition, Mr. Jukes will be conducting a set of breakout sessions titled “Literacy is Not Enough”, focusing on the essential skills and mindsets that students need to survive and thrive in the 21^st century.

Event will be held in Houston on November 3, 2011. For more information, visit www.esc4.net/RLA or contact reading@esc4.net.

By Vijay Naidoo

Kip McGrath Education Centres – Mudgeeraba

Before I start this next LMV entry, let’s take note of the above image. Who would’ve thought that I Am Charlotte Simmons, a novel that tackles race, sex, and class politics at Ivy League colleges, was written by the lovechild of Mark Twain and Colonel Sanders.

And in a way, I Am Charlotte Simmons even sounds like it was written between a cross between those two. Tom Wolfe has the sharp wit of Mark Twain and the…home-y-ness (?)…of Colonel Sanders. Is that right? Is fried chicken home-y?

What I mean to say is that Tom Wolfe’s voices as the books main characters, noob social-climber Charlotte, power Frat Packer Hoyt, Great White Hope Jojo, and narcissist nerd Adam ring so true. They are incredibly round, and hit so close to home. Home-y. (Plus, Charlotte is from North Carolina and there’s a lot of fun dialect peppered in the novel).

If you are looking for the perfect time of year to read this book, might I suggest now (during March Madness)? I first read this book a couple of years in March. I watched the basketball tourney and read this book in my free time, and I tell you—it built some crazy excitement. This also could be because my alma mater was named-checked in it.

Let me preface the rest of this entry by saying that I Am Charlotte Simmons is not about NCAA. Or college basketball, really, despite one of the main characters being on the basketball team. Like I said earlier, the book is really a critique of college-kid behavior (especially in Ivy League schools, where Americans have an assumption that these kids are “classier” and “know better”), and the methods of doing so through the plot are deliciously, shamefully fun—brainy Charlotte latches onto womanizer fratboy Hoyt for recognition, Hoyt comes across a politician getting a blow job, Jojo battles an upstart basketball star while being white, and Adam balances being Jojo’s bitchboy, Hoyt’s power-trip of a story and a crush on Charlotte.

It’s like Degrassi! But in college! And sophisticated!

And for those sketpics who doubt an “old fogie” like Tom Wolfe can effectively write in a voice that rings true of a college student…there is an incident called “The Night of the Skullfuck.”

Enough said.

WHY  I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS?

Though I got an amazingly awesome (almost…scary) rush reading this book while reading this as a college student, I really wish I would have read this book before I went to college. I glided through high-school with intellectual, tea-drinking friends and was blissfully unaware of what college social lives were made of…and when I actually got to my university, I shut down.

I see this book as high quality high-school required reading. I know it’s got lots of sexual content and coarse language…but so does “Skins”, and “Jersey Shore”, and everything else on MTV. At least with putting I Am Charlotte Simmons in a school setting, you get to read about the same situations seen on television AND get a good teacher-led discussion.  The students read something that is stimulating for them and learn something in the process! I feel like if I’d read something like this before I’d left, I’d be more prepared. (Trust me, it still would’ve been rough, I was never at the level of your average college lush).

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart.
Alvarez, Julia. How The García Girls Lost Their Accents.
Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg,Ohio.
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Bagdad.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.
Baker, Russell. Growing Up.
Blais, Madeleine. In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights.
Brooks, Polly Schoyer. Queen Eleanor, Independent Spirit of The Medieval World: Biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth.
Cather, Willa. O Pioneers!
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales.
Cisneros, Sandra. The House On Mango Street.
Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim.
Cooper, James Fenimore. Last of the Mohicans.
Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
Delany, Sarah and Elizabeth. Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years.
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment.
Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie.
Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca.
Eliot, George. Silas Marner.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.
Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face.
Gunther, John. Death Be Not Proud.
Haley, Alex. Roots.
Hardy, Thomas. Return of the Native.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of Seven Gables.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter.
Heinlein, Robert A. Stranger in a Strange Land.
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms.
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises.
Homer. The Iliad.
Homer. The Odyssey.
Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Joyce, James. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Knowles, John. A Separate Peace.
Kuralt, Charles. Charles Kuralt’s America.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
London, Jack. The Sea Wolf.
Malamud, Bernard. The Natural.
McCaffrey, Anne. Dragonsong.
McCullers, Carson. Member of the Wedding.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible.
Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind.
Myers, Walter Dean. The Glory Field.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.
Orwell, George. 1984.
Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country.
Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Tales and Poems.
Potok, Chaim. My Name is Asher Lev.
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen.
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front.
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye.
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.
Shepard, Alan and Deke Slayton. Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon.
Shute, Nevil. On the Beach.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex.
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath.
Steinbeck, John. The Pearl.
Steinbeck, John. The Red Pony.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Stoll, Clifford. Silicon Snake Oil.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden.
Thurber, James. My Life and Hard Times.
Thurber, James. The Thurber Carnival.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome.
Wilder, Thornton. Our Town.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie.
Wright, Richard. Black Boy.
Wright, Richard. Native Son.

This list reflects the particular preference of one school district. But since when did they pull out James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, and Toni Morrison, or was my high school way more advanced? I do fairly well in the department of popular titles: Austen, Dickens, Hemingway, Lee, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck. Surprisingly, I happened to have read all Shakespeare’s titles on this list, plus a few others. Faulkner, who always intimidates me, is a work in progress. Currently perusing The Sound and the Fury, which actually doesn’t hammer my head as much as it did in high school. As I Lay Dying I have avoided since my last encounter with him. I would like to tackle some of the titles from this list, more urgently The Glass Menagerie, The Things They Carried, The House On Mango Street, Autobiography of a Face, and Death Be Not Proud.

Move over Tom Sawyer and hello Vladimir Tod? With all of the Facebook-ing, tweeting, and video gaming, how do we keep kids interested in books and reading?

It seems that library and schools are moving with the times and providing reading lists tailored to the modern youth. With the ‘new’ required reading titles such as Lovely Bones, Persepolis, Holes, in addition to the evergreen standards such as 1984, The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse Five, we are providing readers with a well rounded and modern perspective on literature.

Who cares if Sebold or Twain hooked them on reading-they are reading!

Here are some recommended modern classics for a mix of ages:

• Peace, Locamotion by Jacqueline Woodson
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
• Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
• Monster by Walter Dean Meyers

You can find these modern classics above in our eMedia Catalog.  What books published within the last 10 years would you consider as a modern classic?

When in high school, however, I took little pleasure in reading.  It seemed so much of my reading was forced on me.  I might now enjoy great British or American authors but in school, it was stilted and boring.  I remember dreading American Authors class and “The Red Badge of Courage,”  by Stephen Crane, described as one of the most influential books in American literature; a book my 8 year old son might grow to love.  But at the time, that and “The Scarlett Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, were simply dreadful.  Which, by the way is interesting because I think “The Scarlett Letter” is one of the most intriguing books about Puritanism and the psychology of sin. Somehow, I don’t think it was quite presented to me that way in high school.  I think my dislike of literature grew because of the way I was expected to learn about these works.  It was not for the enjoyment at all.

In college, any book I read had great deep meaning, of course.  “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald holds a special place for me, as it reignited my interest in literature that was killed in high school.  I must admit though, I read way too much Hemingway and certainly carried some affect regarding this.  As I became an adult, my penchant for reading that I had as a child had diminished greatly.  I still read a lot, but not with the same fervor.  I forced myself to read books I “should” read, rather than what really grabbed me.  The first time I ever put a book down, without finishing it, was when I started “Presumed Innocent” by Scott Turow, an author I grew to relish later in life.  Today, I believe I have read every Scott Turow book there is, from “One L” to “Limitations,” some more than twice.  I began to enjoy his books and exceptional vocabulary when I let go of what was expected of me, what I believed I “should” be doing.  There are so so many wonderful books to read, sometimes it’s overwhelming.

Lately, I have a new love for children’s chapter books.  A few authors have brought me tears.  There are those authors, like the timeless Beverly Cleary, and the brilliant Kate DiCamillo (author of “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, “  “Because of Winn Dixie” and more) who truly understand children.  You never get the feeling, when reading these books, that an adult is behind all those words and all those feelings and expression.  As a parent, when reading how Ramona became concerned about her parents financial situation, in her innocence and honesty but protectiveness of her parents, it helped me remember just how children see the world. They don’t necessarily need to be shielded from every reality, but they simply require patience and need love.  Edward Tulane, a fancy china-bunny doll learns unconditional love through an extraordinary, “miraculous” adventure thrust upon him.  Kate DiCamillo has the same uncanny ability that Beverly Clearly has to transport the unwitting and jaded adult into the sweet and innocent child world.   Ramona, and many other characters in these great works, have helped me be a better parent, to better understand children.  And these characters remind me that sometimes its just simple.

When Mae was 8 or 9, we read “Esperanza Rising,” by Pam Muñoz Ryan, which we have since re-read a few times.  It is the fictional story of a 13 year-old privileged girl in Mexico, who, through a series of events, comes to America with her family, sneaking over the border and becoming a migrant worker, not able to attend school in America because she must work.  The love and attachment she has to her family, particularly her mother and grandmother is astounding, but it’s really what all children have; a  great capacity for love.  Esperanza endures tough times, and has deep feeling and expression, though Pam Muñoz’s writing in simple and beautiful. Esperanza chokes me up, and Mae often must be the one reading the book during those sections that are just too meaningful to an adult. Esperanza’s bravery when she faces pain and sadness is in every child. And we must nurture it.

These are lessons from children’s literature.  And it’s because of this that I cannot stop reading these great books.  I have taken to reading them on my own, and will gladly read them with my children. I hope the love of literature I had as a child and recently regained through my children, stays with my kids all throughout life, including high school when they are faced with the same great authors I read with such resistance.

Instead of waiting for next summer, start now. You’re back in the work-study mode. If you’re one of those high achievers taking AP and honors and IB, you probably take a break by reading. Read one of these books. They’ll whoosh your mind far from the calculus and AP Biology, into a world that will challenge you in a much different way.

A Model High School Summer Reading List

Alison Morris

I see summer reading lists for many, MANY schools float through our store every summer. We keep notebooks at both of our point of sale counters that contain the summer reading lists for ALL local schools of interest to our customers, public and private, because every year they come in having left their copies at home. If a customer comes in and says “Do you have the summer reading list for _____?” we then open the notebook, flip to that school’s list, and make that customer’s day a lot easier. In the process, we make the sale.

Of all the school lists I’ve seen in recent years, the one that impresses me most is the one that’s produced by the English Department at Weston High School in Weston, Mass. I love this school list — not so much for the actual books it includes (though I do think it’s a rather diverse and interesting mix, especially compared to those of most high schools), but for the WAY it’s compiled and formatted. The list is available on the school’s website, so you can download a copy and see just what I’m talking about. (Click on the “W” beside download.com and it’ll open the list as a Word document.)

The Weston High School list begins with this introductory statement:

We English teachers believe that reading should be a pleasurable pastime as well as a source of intellectual growth. Anticipating the summer, we’ve been talking about the books we look forward to reading and the ones we highly recommend. Below, you’ll find the courses that will be offered in the fall of 2008 and books required.

Last summer, in response to student, parent, and teacher input, the department reduced required summer reading and in a number of cases collaborated with the history department to assign shared titles. This reduction in required reading should not downplay the importance of reading; it should amplify the importance of allowing students to have more control over what they choose to read. Statistics show that active readers practice important thinking skills.

Below the required reading you will find a lengthy list of books we heartily recommend but no longer require for any particular course. We have provided brief descriptions to help you make satisfying choices. We’re confident you’ll be drawn to many of them.

The list of Required Reading books is an interesting mix, but what really wows me about Weston is the way they choose to present their recommended (not required!) summer reading choices. Each teacher in the department selects a handful of books to recommend then explains what each book is about and WHY they’re recommending it. Their entries are insightful, personal, and interesting. The books they’ve selected are a truly interesting mix.

I love the personable feel of a list like this and the potential avenues for discussion it could open up between students and their teachers, not to mention the potential for increasing students’ respect for the folks who stand at the front of their classrooms every day. Maybe Mr. So-and-So doesn’t give the best lectures but he has fantastic taste in fiction. Maybe Ms. Such-and-Such’s interests are a lot more complex than anyone would have guessed. The best thing about this list, though, is the message it sends to students, on the teachers’ behalf: WE READ BOOKS AND WE ENJOY THEM. I can’t imagine a more effective behavior for English teachers to model than that.

For more on reading lists, try this post on 24 Books That Will Make You Sound Like an Intellect.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is best remembered for her 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” based on her own bout with severe depression and misguided medical treatment.

Another knock at high school lit! I suppose I ought to start commenting on reading suggestions and abstain from overly criticizing every book high school student reads. All Quiet on the Western Front is an amazing war novel (though I couldn’t entirely sit through the film adaptation) that is touching and challenging. It’s a novel that invites the reader to inquire after the other side and define what if any differences exist. At least from the snippets of overheard conversations I’ve experienced, this is another novel many high school students seem to cringe at.

1. What is the best classic you were “forced” to read in school (and why)?
2. What was the worst classic you were forced to endure (and why)?
3. Which classic should every student be required to read (and why)?
4. Which classic should be put to rest immediately (and why)?
5. **Bonus** Why do you think certain books become classics?

What is the best classic you were “forced” to read in school (and why)?

The best classic I was “forced” to read was The Pearl by John Steinbeck. I was in 7th grade, and this book was my introduction to critical reading. It was the first time I was taught I could think for myself, not just espouse my parents’ ideas. When I started teaching my daughter to read the same way, The Pearl was our first book. The school’s no longer seem to be teaching logic and reason, only sheep-think.

What was the worst classic you were forced to endure (and why)?

Oh gawd! That would be Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I seriously do not think most teenager have the patience for this largely philosophical book. It bored me to tears, and most likely went over my head. I should try to reread it, but I’m just not that masochistic!

Which classic should every student be required to read (and why)?

To be honest, and I’m sure this will offend a few people, The Bible. My reason for saying this is, in our Western society, so much of our collective conscious comes from this classic. Shakespeare took from Solomon’s writings, the moralities many books are built around are Judeo-Christian ethics, and most social structures stem from it. We would not be the society we are without The Bible.

Which classic should be put to rest immediately (and why)?

I really don’t know of any that should be put to rest. Maybe some should be saved for older ages, but a classic is a classic because it is always relevant.  Even Harry Potter is relevent for all ages (though I don’t think I’d count it as a classic yet.  We’ll have to see how it goes).

Why do you think certain books become classics?

As I said above, a classic is always relevant. It’s not restricted to it’s own time or place, but speaks to everyone, everywhere, at any time. It reveals something of humor nature, whether it’s arrogance and assumption as in Pride and Prejudice, or the desire to be important and matter as in Vanity Fair, or the evils of the pursuit of power and control as in Animal Farm and 1984. Sometimes they warn us not to give up our power because of fear as in The Giver and Fahrenheit 451, and some mock society to reveal it’s failings as we read in Candide and Le Tartuffe. They challenge us to think and act, and broaden our views of the world around us.

Over the years I’ve been slowly reading the multitude of books everyone else read in high school. For example, I still have yet to read Of Mice & Men and people accuse me of being a bad English major for this. (To which I reply that I’ve read the likes of I Am A Cat, Gargantua & Pantagruel, and Tristram Shandy and these are only a few of the titles that I can boast!) But I really enjoyed The Scarlet Letter and most recently was interested by Hawthorne’s essay on his own writing.

What is the American Dream? 

“My green light,” says Jinzhao Wang, 14, “is Harvard.” 

The green light at the end of a dock across Long Island Sound symbolized, for Jay Gatsby, the unreachable.  He was a rough-edged self-made millionaire from North Dakota, and he longed for the rich and beautiful Daisy Buchanan, who lived  there.

“Green color always represents hope,” says Jinzhao.

A NY Times article by Sara Rimer finds that many high school students of diverse nationalities are dicovering the resonance in some of the standard texts that have been taught in American schools for years.

Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” was written in 1925.  It languished but then flourished again in the 50′s and especially after the Robert Redford film in 1974.  It is still required reading at half the high schools in the US.

Although many educators say the best way to engage racially and ethnically diverse students is with books that mirror their lives and culture (certainly it is), many of these students have found in Gatsby a story of wanting to be someone you’re not, desiring to achieve something that’s just beyond reach.

Meredith Elliot, Jinzhao’s teacher, says students at Boston Latin and other urban schools see glimmers of their own evolving identities and dreams in the book.

The students talk about the youthful characters as if they were classmates or celebrities. 

“I see Tom as a really mean jock,” says Vimin, a Boston Latin sophomore.  “When he was in high school, he was king of the hill.  He had it all.  He was higher than everyone, even the teachers.”

And Daisy: “She’s turned into an empty person.  Like Paris Hilton.”

Vimin’s green light: “…to make my parents proud of me.  I’ve always been told to succeed, to take advantage of the opportunities they’ve given me.”

He says The Great Gatsby is “a great tale, especially when you’re from a background such as Mr. Gatsby.”

Students find many lessons in Gatsby’s life and violent death.  They talk thoughtfully about the American dream — is it money? Is it education? 

Teachers take pains to present the book with a great deal of social and historical context.  They say the book crystallizes for many students questions about the materialism of Gatsby’s dream and the possibility of attaining their own versions of it – the costs exacted, especiallly in today’s stratified economy.

Susan Moran, director of the English program at Boston Latin, has been teaching Gatsby for 32 years.

“Here’s Gatsby out of nowhere in this mansion, having these lavish parties and really and truly fulfilling the American dream,” she says.  “But it’s a cautionary tale too.”

“The culture sells the American dream so hard and so relentlessly, but they’re wary, and they should be,” she continues.    “One reason students appreciate the book is that there is a level of honesty that they value.  They need these honest stories to perhaps balance what is otherwise presented as this shining possibility for everyone.”

At Boston Latin, the semester’s reading covers many texts: “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” and “Ethan Frome,” of course, but also “The Joy Luck Club” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”

Jinzhao reflects, “The Dutch settlers went all the way across the ocean to this new land — America,” she says, referring to Nick Carraway’s bittersweet thoughts at the end of the book.  “America appears to the Dutch settlers as Daisy appeared to Gatsby.  Gatsby’s hopes and dreams are American ideals.  His effort is the real ideal of the American dream.”

“I really want to go to Harvard,” she continues.  “But if I don’t get into Harvard, I will not die, right?  The journey toward the dream is the most important thing.”

“There is a green light beyond the green light,” she thinks.  For Jinzhao that could be China, where she might use a Harvard education to help her country.

sole source: NY Times article by Sara Rimer on 2/17/08.  www.nytimes.com

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