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22813. Ms. No - 11/4/2007 4:26:39 AM Arky,
I'd love to get tips from Spook. Hell, I'd love to come "go to school" with the lot of you for a long weekend. I think I'll already be in the middle of classes next summer when you do your annual, though.
After taking today's tests I know exactly what you mean about obscure works by known authors. They had a Phyllis Wheatley poem that was pretty atypical of her...or, more to the point they were using her to highlight Englightenment Era themes, and that's not really what she was about. I mean, she's not particularly representative and especially not the piece they had us read. I just did the best I could through elimination of the two that wouldn't work at all and the mental coin toss over the other two answers.
I will say that I'm patting myself on the back for having signed up for the Linguistics course and the Standard Grammar and Usage this semester. I don't see how anyone could've passed the second exam without having studied Linguistics. Seriously, about 75% of that test was specialized knowledge and the whole time I'm sitting there gleefully answering questions on a subject I find fascinating but scratching my head over how they think most of it applies to what you actually teach in high school English classes --- unless they're thinking it should be a background for teaching ESL or something.
22814. arkymalarky - 11/4/2007 4:31:00 AM You can come absolutely anytime, No! We'll make a gathering if you plan a trip.
I can't imagine wrt the linguistics. My Enlgish major required one grammar course. I know more about grammar and linguistics from the Fray/Mote than anywhere else. 22815. arkymalarky - 11/4/2007 4:32:09 AM Jex, I thought about doing Invisible Man this year. I'm still thinking about it. 22816. arkymalarky - 11/4/2007 4:35:13 AM I never assigned summer readings in AP Enligsh. The kids deserve their summers as much as I do, and we read a whole lot during the year. They've been nervously eyeing The Brothers Karamazov on the bookshelf all fall, and a few have ventured to ask if we'd be reading it. They took it home Friday. They have a group discussion for a grade and an essay test on Candide, then we dive into Dostoevsky. 22817. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 4:43:22 AM Leaves of Grass
Huckleberry Finn
Moby Dick
The Scarlett Letter
To Kill a Mockingbird
Some Hemingway short stories, e.g. "A Clean Well-lighted Place" "The Big Two-Hearted River"
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Faulkner
Eudora Welty's short stories
Flannery O'Connor
Carson McCullers
Crime and Punishment
The Brothers Karamazov
Some Edgar Alan Poe stories and poetry, eg "Anabel Lee"
George Orwell's "Shooting Elephants," "Animal Farm," 1984
Frost poems
Emily Dickinson poems
T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Edward Arlington Robinson poems
"The Invisible Man"
"Mutiny on the Bounty"
"Heart of Darkness"
"The Naked and the Dead"
22818. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 4:47:26 AM "Rabbit Run"
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed"
"The Adventures of Augie March" (You could ask them to compare and contrast it with Huck Finn.)
"The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon
100 Years of Solitude
Don Quixote de La Mancha 22819. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 4:51:08 AM Willa Cather's novels (my daughter loved them)
"The Sot Weed Factor" and short stories by John Barth
Salinger stories and "Catcher in the Rye" of course (Compare and contrast with Huck Finn and Augie March) 22820. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 4:54:13 AM My suggestions go beyond Arky's "absolutely must reading" in high school. I read many of them in high school, and more later in a two semester American Lit class in college and more even later. Now I read mostly book reviews in the NYT and New York Review of Books. 22821. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 5:45:15 AM Also, I would offer my English class an opportunity to read a few plays, e.g. Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," Tennessee Williams's "Glass Menagerie," and Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Commeth." 22822. arkymalarky - 11/4/2007 6:02:50 AM Great list Wonk!
I love Death of a Salesman, and I'm usually disappointed in how the kids respond to it. 22823. Magoseph - 11/4/2007 5:43:22 PM 
Bought some today for Flexy--he's on soft foods these days, no fiber for a while, so I'll make him a peanut butter & strawberry jam for lunch at noon.
22824. jexster - 11/4/2007 5:49:35 PM Pain de mie or brioche from La Boulange ...so yummy so much butter in it that butter on it is gross! 22825. jexster - 11/4/2007 5:53:12 PM Great idea plays Wonnkers
How about screenplays!
The Beverly Hillbillies! 22826. judithathome - 11/4/2007 8:22:30 PM Surely there's room on that list for some Cheever and Updike...even if it's only short stories. 22827. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 9:48:20 PM There are lots of good screenplays. The first one that comes to mind is "Glengarry Glen Ross."
Judith, I did mention Updike's "Rabbit Run." I missed Cheever, but I agree he deserves to be on the list. I'm sure I missed quite a few others. One of my favorites is Jorge Amado who died a couple of years ago in his late 80s without getting the Nobel prize that, in my opinion he deserved. Amado's novels may be a bit racy for high schoolers. Many have been made into great R-rated movies, usually starring Sonia Braga, e.g. "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands."
Thinking of Amado reminds me of another glaring omission--John Steinbeck. He was one of my favorites in high school, especially "Cannery Row" and "Tortilla Flat" which are short easy-reads which may be an advantage for h.s. reading assignments. 22828. wonkers2 - 11/4/2007 9:51:56 PM "Rabbit Run" contains a good message for high school kids--don't peak out too early because life is long. As you may recall, Rabbit was a high school basketball star who had it all as a senior in high school but whose life went down hill after he graduated. 22829. jexster - 11/4/2007 10:27:00 PM Short story collections
Wonk reminds me "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
Fuckin Nappy Headed Hill Ho 22830. jexster - 11/5/2007 1:45:10 AM Just reminded by the movie trailer
Beowulf 22831. Ms. No - 11/5/2007 6:12:29 AM Ah, hell, it's a huge list and nowhere near complete. Don't even get me started on plays and I didn't really put any poetry on the list. What high school student has time to read all of this with all the other work they're assigned?
Lord of the Flies
A Clockwork Orange
1984
Farenheit 451
Slaughterhouse Five
Catch 22
The Stranger
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass: Annotated
James and the Giant Peach
The Little Prince
A Tale of Two Cities
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
The Canterbury Tales
The Inferno
Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown
Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil
Don Quixote
Robinson Crusoe
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Frankenstein
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
The Time Machine
Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart
Poe: The Raven
Poe: Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Murder on the Orient Express
The Big Sleep
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Across Five Aprils
Light in August
To Kill A Mockingbird
Black Like Me
Invisible Man
The Souls of Black Folk
A Raisin in the Sun
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Selections from the Epic of Son Jara
The Goophered Grapevine
The Wonderful Tar Baby
The Yellow Wallpaper
The Awakening
On the Road
Flowers for Algernon
Of Mice and Men
A Day No Pigs Would Die
Ineherit the Wind
A Member of the Wedding
The Glass Menagerie
Death of a Salesman or The Crucible
Now I want to go back and start reading everything again.
22832. Ms. No - 11/5/2007 6:20:35 AM Hey, Arky, here's something I have yet to ask anyone: Is the general curriculum for high school English standardized across the nation or is it state by state or, gawd forbid, school by school? I keep meaning to ask and then forgetting and all the high school English teachers I know are online.
I've found info on what students are expected to know at the end of each year, but nothing so far on what literature is focused on in any given year...if they even do it that way anymore.
I attended three different schools in three different states but didn't end up repeating anything, but I don't know if I just got lucky or what.
TX, Fresman: Classical lit & creative writing
CA & NC, Sophomore: Modern American
NC, Junior: Pre-Civil War American
NC, Senior: Brisih Lit
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