Literature in school

[Galandros]

Because we have here people from around the globe and even speaking different languages, and I like literature and always wanted to get an idea, why not share the books and writers you study at school?

Mine are: (that I remember)
started with Sophia Mello Breyner - children books like "Fada Oriana"

An adaptation of "The Odessy"

Luís de Camões - poetry (mostly "sonetos") and "Os Lusíadas"
Fernando Pessoa - poems
Eça de Queirós - with "Os Maias")
I will have Cesário Verde - poems...

This is what I remember right now.


And a last question often discussed by my college mates: doesn't school (teachers) sometimes "destroy" a book by going too much in depth and that takes all the pleasure we could gain from it? For me, I think yes. But teachers don't have other way to know our understanding of book, so it is kind of a needed evil... But maybe there are alternatives? What you say? (we in school haven't arrived to discuss the alternatives available, some just know to say it is wrong)

I hope that you like literature... But the aim is what books you have/had at school (if it isn't too much traumatizing for you)

[elfprince13]

Books that should have been studied in school, but weren't:
- Orson Scott Card's Ender Quartet (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind)
- Lord of the Rings + The Silmarillion
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (and other Jules Verne, like Journey to the Center of the Earth)
- anything at all by H.G. Wells
- Asimov's Foundation series (preferably all 7 books) + I, Robot


And I agree that over analyzing can frequently kill the enjoyment of a story. On the other hand those -^ books actually have something worth analyzing (in most cases, though Jules Verne just tells a good story without too much commentary).

[Super Speler]

[thebetter1]

I agree that some teachers make you over analyze literature. Sometimes it seems like even the author didn't think of everything they bring up in class.

[elfprince13]

[benryves]

The last time I studied English was for my GCSEs (age 15-16), and the books were:

• Macbeth
  
• The Great Gatsby
  
• Pride and Prejudice
  

Nowadays I just read Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin books, and am much happier for it.

[WikiGuru]

Books I was supposed to read for high school:
Pride and Prejudice, Hamlet, Macbeth, The Great Gatsby, Of mice and men, and a few others
Books that I did read for high school:
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Frankenstein, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, maybe a few others

[lordofthegeeks]

The books I actually have been asigned to read by my parents for my schooling are,
Education of a Wandering Man By Louis L'Amour, The Bible, How then Shall We live and a Book on how to build a Cnc Lathe.

then We are required to read an hour a day at least.

[bananaman]

Books that I read during high school.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" - Robert Louis Stevenson
"Frankenstein" - Mary Shelley
"The Pilgrim's Progress" - John Bunyan
"The Taming of the Shrew" - William Shakespeare
"Gulliver's Travels" - Jonathan Swift
"Hamlet" - William Shakespeare
"Romeo and Juliet" - William Shakespeare
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" - Oscar Wilde
"How to Read a Book" - Mortimer Adler
"The Great Gatsby" - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Don Quizote" - Miguel Cervantes
"Les Miserables" (Abridged) - Victor Hugo
"Gorgias" - Plato
"Rhetoric" - Aristotle
"The Chosen" - Chaim Potok
"My Name is Asher Lev" - Chaim Potok
"The Awakening" - Kate Chopin
"A Doll's House" - Henrik Ibsen
"Death of a Salesman" - Arthur Miller
"A Raisin in the Sun" - Lorraine Hansberry
"Wuthering Heights" - Emily Bronte
"King Lear" - William Shakespeare
"Macbeth" - William Shakespeare
"Dr. Faustus" - Christopher Marlowe
"Cry, the Beloved Country" - Alan Paton
"The Scarlet Letter" - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"Silas Marner" - George Elliot
"Tale of Two Cities" - Charles Dickens

These are just the books that I can remember, I know that I am missing most of the ones from my Freshman year. I'm pretty sure that I was required to read more throughout my high school career. We also read many short stories by authors such as Leo Tolstoy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, blah blah blah. Add in assorted poetry like John Milton's "Paradise Lost", Shakespearean sonnets, and other tedious work.

I happened to go to a Classical High School so we did a lot more reading and writing than the public schools. I also really enjoy reading and have read most of HG Wells, "War and Peace" by Tolstoy, LOTR, the hobbit, the Similirian, Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying", Uncle Tom's Cabin, and who knows what all. I think that reading is a fading art form. If you look at most the smarter kids at your school, they will be well read. But if you look at people that even struggle with Math, they normally do not read as much. The skills learned from reading and analyzing good literature is very profitable across a wide range of topics.

[simplethinker]

All I remember was that we read Steinbeck after Steinbeck after Steinbeck after...

[Graphmastur]

One I rather enjoyed was the giver. I liked it so much, that I read the next two, gathering blue and the messanger. Here are some others:
call of the wild
Tale of two cities
Odessy
Romeo and Juliet
Sherlock holmes: hound of the baskervilles
A Christmas carol
The hobbit.
I don't remember any more.

[Galandros]

bananaman you had some much books and you remember them

Anyway, is true that some books are interesting and going in depth can make the reading more interesting. But if for each chapter we have to know analysing for a exam...

[bananaman]

Books are ruined if you have to take an exam over them. The best way to your understanding of a book is to write an essay. This lets the student pick some aspect of the book that appeals to him and let him go indepth on that specific issue.

[elfprince13]

[lordofthegeeks]

@ elfprince13 My parents use this for the other children who are starting. I personally will read all day long if I could.

[Galandros]

[Mapar007]