Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Required Reading... but GOOD

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This Week's Topic:
In high school, teens are made to read the classics - Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Bronte, Dickens - but there are a lot of books out there never taught in schools. So if you had the power to change school curricula, which books would you be sure high school students were required to read?

Okay... so i had to read some Shakespeare (in yr 12 we had to do a spelling test cos of the sheer number of us who spelled the playwright's name wrong) as well as some Grapes of Wrath and Great Gatsby kind of books. I'm probably giving myself away as a geek but I think reading some of the classics a teen would never pick up of their own accord isn't all bad. As long as they're interspersed with some modern lit. I'm thinking Harry Potter and Hunger Games and selected books by the teacher who knows which stories will speak to her/his class.

I had a few awesome teachers. One had us read 'Looking for Alibrandi' by Melinda Marchetta and I still love that book. Another had us read 'Tomorrow When the War Began' by John Marsden. Two aussie writers/stories that made sense to us then (and I still like now).

What would you have teens read?

14 comments:

  1. I also think reading classics is very important. They shouldn't be cut out, but adding a few newer books would be a great incentive.
    Cheers for Harry Potter and Hunger Games!

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  2. I loved Looking for Alibrandi! (Though, to be honest, I'd probably love anything Melinda Marchetta wrote, eve if it was her name in a paper bat...)

    *adds Tomorrow When the War Began to my TBR*

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  3. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games were my picks as well. They seem to be really popular this week =). I haven't read Looking for Alibrandi, but the title is great!

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  4. A teacher who had you read Melinda Marchetta? You're right, you did have some awesome teachers.

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  5. Hunger Games and Harry Potter for sure :) I've seen the movie of Tomorrow When the War Began and have the books on my Kobo (been meaning to read them). Good list!

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  6. Oooh I love that you read Marchetta and Marsden in high school! You had some smart teachers.

    And I agree, it definitely benefits kids to introduce them to older books they might (or, would never) pick up on their own. I look back on reading some classics and think, well, I'd never reread them but I'm glad I had the experience.

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  7. I've never read the last two you mentioned. I'll have to check them out. And I think HP and Hunger Games are so popular becuase they both get teens excited about reading--which is something I am very much in favor of :)

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  8. Tomorrow When the War Began is one of my favorite series, but it's one that I recommend with cautions because even as an adult I found it kind of traumatizing in parts. I think it would have a hard time finding a space on a reading list in the U.S., primarily because of the bomb-making sections.

    But I see its value in the themes of learning to stand up for yourself, and also dealing with the repercussions of warfare.

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  9. Yes for HP and HG!!! And I STILL haven't read anything by Marchetta, but she's on the TBR.

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  10. I had The Hunger Games on my list, too! And I agree with you, it's still good to have kids read some of the classics, but it shouldn't be the entire class, either. (I took AP and Honors classes, so all we read were classics. I would've loved to have read some of the books people are putting on their lists.)

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  11. I so very much agree with you! Classics are important and they can be made interesting cos let´s face it, most of them really are...Of course it could be mixed with more recent books (including YA :-))
    Next step: check out the ones you recommend :-)

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  12. I really agree with you about the classics. A lot of people have been saying that they think we should replace a lot of the classics (like Dickens and Bronte) with more modern books. But I don't think complex sentence structure is enough to make those great books not worth reading.

    Also Beck, we awarded you the One Lovely Blog award on our blog. Congrats on an awesome blog! Check it out:
    http://thefeatherandtherose.blogspot.com/2011/11/we-are-lovely.html

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  13. Great to read so many opinions. Seems everyone agrees we need a mix of fresh and classic!

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  14. Hello Beck, I've found your blog via YA Highway and as a fellow Aussie I'm glad you read LFA in high school!

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