Required Reading from High School/College

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Trilby said:
English teachers will always say that whenever a student things they can cliffnote their way through a book with a film adaptation.
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Funny thing is, the English teachers at my school were ok with us watching the film adaptations of To Kill a Mockingbird and A Streetcar Named Desire. I actually really LIKE the film version of Streetcar - Marlon Brando's OTT, hammy yelling at the end actually makes me laugh, unfortunately.
 
LagoonaBlue said:
Funny thing is, the English teachers at my school were ok with us watching the film adaptations of To Kill a Mockingbird
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The film adaptation of TKAM is one of the few adaptations that doesn't really cut much out. All of the themes and important characters and events are present in the film.
 
sugoi-chan said:
The film adaptation of TKAM is one of the few adaptations that doesn't really cut much out. All of the themes and important characters and events are present in the film.
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That's actually true. I might actually sit and watch that film again at some point because I forgot how much I enjoyed it.
 
9th Grade:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Romeo & Juliet
A Raisin in the Sun
"The Lottery"
The Pearl
Of Mice & Men

10th Grade:
The Catcher in the Rye
Julius Caesar
12 Angry Men
Lord of the Flies
Maus
Night

11th Grade:
Death of a Salesman
Macbeth
The Things They Carried
A Separate Peace
The Great Gatsby

12th Grade:
Brave New World
The Kite Runner
The Bluest Eye
The Stranger
Hamlet
Jane Eyre
 
I think the only ones I had to read were Hamlet in Grade 10, Animal Farm in Grade 11 and MacBeth in Grade 12.

If there were any others, I wouldn't remember them.
 
Jewelsmakerguy said:
I think the only ones I had to read were Hamlet in Grade 10, Animal Farm in Grade 11 and MacBeth in Grade 12.

If there were any others, I wouldn't remember them.
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Funny, I had to read MacBeth in 11th grade and Hamlet in 12th; unless the reading level depends on how advanced English class is in each passing grade.
 
We had a choice between Macbeth and Hamlet and the teacher put it up to a vote. I think he preferred Hamlet to Macbeth because he described it along the lines of "Macbeth has a guy that kills some people and ends in a big battle and it's boring and Hamlet has killing people and conspiracies and paranoia and everyone dies at the end!"
 
Had to read Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody last week for a university class. Although it was written back in 2001 when the first Harry Potter film came out and was meant to be a critique of the media hype surrounding the first film, it could be read as a critique of the Harry Potter franchise as it stands today, as well as JK Rowling's cash cowing and the HP fandom in general.

Also it reads like a piece of really bad fanfiction. It still manages to mock Harry Potter though.
 
admiral said:
Paradise Lost. Daunting at first, but after studying it I've really grown to love it.
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I had to read that for university and to be fair I didn't like it.

I was supposed to have read Tipping the Velvet for one of my classes at uni but never finished it due to dissertation work. I still have the book so might finish it over the summer.
 
Sexy Times Hitler said:
The Pearl
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SOMEONE ELSE WHO HAD TO READ THAT BOOK, OH MY GOD. That book made my 10th grade English a living hell, it doesn't help that Steinbeck is so fucking dry it's practically the Dust Bowl.

9th grade I remember we did a lot of readings of various short stories (I remember Poe's The Black Cat being one of them; though I liked Poe so that didn't bother me so much) and also a really watered-down version of Huck Finn that I think was 'politically correct' too. Weirdly, we did more reading in Biology class than English; because the teacher did group readings of drama science books like MEG (about the megalodon shark) and The Hot Zone.

10th grade was The Pearl (which I hated with every fiber of my being) and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which I'm not proud to admit is the only Shakespeare I know besides Titus Andronicus. I was also banned from my doing the part of Marc Antony because I was "too dramatic" in my reading. Antony was a snarky asshole ("so is my horse, Octavius"?) and this is Shakespeare, how else was I supposed to read it?

11th grade had a lot more material since it was AP; we read some book about a girl growing up in Pittsburgh (An American Childhood or something similar) which I also hated because it was so dry; Their Eyes Were Watching God (I did like that one); and Fahrenheit 451, which half the class refused to read and instead tried to copy off the ones who did when it came to be tested on the material.

...and 12th grade I was fulltime at community college and doing dual enrollment so high school reading didn't matter anymore.
 
Let's see ... I can't remember anything before high school, but I remember being required to read two Shakespeare books and a few other "classics";

-Romeo and Juliet (my first introduction to Shakespeare. I didn't like it, it's too angsty for my taste nowadays)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (in other classes, students were required to read Lord of the Flies instead)
- Macbeth
- Fahrenheit 451 (my favourite of the bunch)

And then in grade twelve, my teacher assigned different books than what's usually assigned. Monster was a script-style book about a teen that got charged with something he didn't do, and ... she assigned the Hunger Games after. I didn't like it then and I still don't now.

Instead of reading Of Mice and Men, we watched a film adaptation one year. We were also treated to watching a "modern" adaptation of Macbeth that featured an orgy scene with the witches. Who also were portrayed as Japanese school girls. It was a weird movie, to say the least.
 
Witlich said:
Instead of reading Of Mice and Men, we watched a film adaptation one year.
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Was it the one with Gary Sinise? I had to watch that one when I was at school and I loved it.
 
Witlich said:
Instead of reading Of Mice and Men, we watched a film adaptation one year.
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Something similar happened to us. The teacher knew that she wouldn't be able to finish the lesson plans by the end of the semester so she decided to have us watch the John Malkovich version of the film. There was one girl in the class was genuinely interested in and enjoyed the book so far. She even had her own prediction that George and Curly would eventually come in conflict with each other over some dirty dealings the later was doing. After seeing the film's ending, she sadly blurted out, "I don't like this story any more."
 
Yaoi Huntress Earth said:
Something similar happened to us. The teacher knew that she wouldn't be able to finish the lesson plans by the end of the semester so she decided to have us watch the John Malkovich version of the film. There was one girl in the class was genuinely interested in and enjoyed the book so far. She even had her own prediction that George and Curly would eventually come in conflict with each other over some dirty dealings the later was doing. After seeing the film's ending, she sadly blurted out, "I don't like this story any more."
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I had to google to see which film you were referring to. Is it bad that I know it better as being a Gary Sinise film given that he produced, directed and starred in it?
 
Also, another kid in my class had a theory that Curly's Wife was having an affair with Slim. I could see it.
 
Yaoi Huntress Earth said:
Also, another kid in my class had a theory that Curly's Wife was having an affair with Slim. I could see it.
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I always used to laugh at Curley's glove full of Vaseline. Even though in the book it says that he's "keeping his hand soft for the wife", I always assumed it was for masturbation purposes considering his wife feels lonely around the ranch (implying Curley never pays attention to her).
 
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