Required Reading
Martin Julian DeMello
my 'required reading' list for high schoolers. I'm biasing the list towards
education rather than literary merit or anything else - these are works I
feel will better equip the students to think for themselves, learn stuff and
handle life. And to help rekindle interest in a number of subjects that
schools tend to kill off early on.
So - here's a small selection:
1. Yakov Perelman, 'Mathematics can be fun'.
One of the best introductions to the subject I've read - he introduces
some advanced concepts in a manner that is accessible to the average 10th
grader (or the motivated 7th grader), and his analysis of a pyramid
scheme is something I've often wanted to hit chainmailers over the head
with. And I strongly feel that curricula in general are robbing children
of valuable mathematical skills that they'll never know how much they
need. ("But when will we *use* all of this?" is more a symptom of the
decay than the incisive question people imagine it to be.)
2. Heinlein, 'Coventry'.
Yes, Virginia, we *do* need a government. And I'd far rather my child was
reading 'Coventry' than 'Lord of the Flies'.
3. Orwell, '1984'.
As the generation of the technophobe gives way to that of the
technophile, people ought to at least be aware of some of the inherent
dangers involved. (I wouldn't force anyone under 15 to read this, though,
and I'd certainly present other books to balance it with).
5. Sagan, 'Cosmos'
For perspective if nothing else
6. Bronowski, 'The Ascent of Man'
A view of history that most curricula never give the student. In fact, I
could see using this book as a textbook for four consecutive years,
studying it the first year and using it as a jumping-off point for deeper
discussions the next few.
7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones of the sort that
would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
here, though.
9. A book of children's stories from around the world.
The news and popular media are *not* a good way to learn about other
countries; children's fiction, backed by a teacher who knows what s/he's
talking about, might be.
(Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a free
hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages of
fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the students
would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys to rival
providing both education and pleasure at once.)
[1] roughly, a 200 page novel - I'm talking solely about fiction here.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
TBird
<mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> writes:
>(Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
>a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a free
>hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages of
>fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the students
>would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys to rival
>providing both education and pleasure at once.)
>
>[1] roughly, a 200 page novel - I'm talking solely about fiction here.
>
The Great Gatsby. F. Scott FitzGerald.
The only required reading book I read in one night during high school.
What I found on my own in high school;
Joan Didions fiction.... it's fiction set in a backdrop of real history.
Anne Tyler
Zora Neale Hurston
Tom Robbins (maybe he's a little much for a teacher to recommend to high
schoolers, but that's when I discovered him.)
Aldous Huxley
With the exception of Huxley, I read all of those choices in a matter of days.
(Not all of the book, each of them.)
TBird <---- clear as mud....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You've got to kick at the darkness
'Til it bleeds daylight
~~~ BC
Claire Black
: (Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
: a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a free
: hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages of
: fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the students
: would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys to rival
: providing both education and pleasure at once.)
:
: [1] roughly, a 200 page novel - I'm talking solely about fiction here.
Weredonut frowns "Trying to work out here if you mean that high
schoolers can/should/do read more than one book a week or less than one
book a week. I mean I recall in high school I was reading about 25-60
books a week, but I'm sure that's not what you mean/think?????????"
Crossfire
<mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> wrote helpfully:
] A bunch of recent threads, both here and elsewhere, have got me musing over
] my 'required reading' list for high schoolers. I'm biasing the list towards
] education rather than literary merit or anything else - these are works I
] feel will better equip the students to think for themselves, learn stuff and
] handle life. And to help rekindle interest in a number of subjects that
] schools tend to kill off early on.
]
] So - here's a small selection:
[ snip good list ]
] 7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones of the sort that
] would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What Do YOU Care What Other People
Think?" by Richard Feynman would be good, I think. "I Know Why The
Caged Bird Sings" and "All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes" by Maya
Angelou.
] 8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
] here, though.
"Maus I" and "Maus II" by Art Speigelman and "Pedro and Me" by Judd Winick.
Easy reads, but very good--"Maus" even won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for
literature.
] 9. A book of children's stories from around the world.
] The news and popular media are *not* a good way to learn about other
] countries; children's fiction, backed by a teacher who knows what s/he's
] talking about, might be.
Literature from those countries is a great way of doing this. "The Dark
Child" by Camera Laye and Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" are both
great examples of learning about a culture by reading its literature.
] (Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
] a reasonable assumption for highschoolers?
Not me...*I* read a book a week, if not more, while I was in high school.
[snip to end]
--
Jon "Crossfire" Reid | jon <at> apeiros <dot> com (DeSPAM the Reply-To)
| http://www.apeiros.com/~jon
"I make a lousy earth person. I make way too much breakfast and the dog
hates me." --Celeste, "My Stepmother Is An Alien"
MythicFox
>The only required reading book I read in one night during high school.
Hey, it's got Andy Kaufmann's recommendation...
Personally, I've never been big on making high school students read anything,
especially 'classic literature'. I don't have anything against 'classic
literature', but I have yet to find a friend of mine who genuinely enjoyed the
'classic literature' that was forced on us during school (in my school library,
they would mostly define a book's worth by how old it was, no joke). Once I
heard a piece of advice for a new writer... avoid trying to learn anything from
centuries-old books, because none of the writing techniques used back then are
anywhere close to genuinely popular, for those that read modern books. I feel
the same should be considered true for reading books. I always told myself
that if I was going to try and force anything on anyone, I'd at least get them
enthusiastic about reading by picking stuff I know they'd like (to start, at
least), or at least give a decent chance. There are plenty of modern books
that are overlooked despite what they might bring to a reader.
Or at least, if you have to do a reading list, add a note to certain list
items, something like "If you like <such and such> book, you might like
this..."
Try baiting them instead of forcing them, is what I'm getting at.
--------------------
"MythicFox", of Yiffnet, FurryMUCK, Taps, Socio-Political Ramifications, and a
recent addition to alt.callahans.
"Odin?" "The big man himself? Here?" <pause> "I waste his ass with my
crossbow!"
ICQ# 59987211
Kris Overstreet
>(Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
>a reasonable assumption for highschoolers?
Ah, point of order: when I was in high school, the presumption of
teachers was that you should have one hour of homework per night, not
counting projects which you were supposed to work on all year. As a
result, it was not uncommon to have that one hour as a MINIMUM, with
occasionally 5 or 6 hours (never seven, because I was in band and did
my practice during lunch hour in the band hall) per night.
Add to this chores, sleep, and study, and there's not much -time- for
reading, even if you can get them shed of TV, videos, and games.
Redneck
Kris Overstreet
(Crossfire) wrote:
>"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What Do YOU Care What Other People
>Think?" by Richard Feynman would be good, I think. "I Know Why The
>Caged Bird Sings" and "All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes" by Maya
>Angelou.
I don't know about the first, but I have never been able to stand
anything written by Maya Angelou; listening to her read it was only
more painful.
This isn't about political issues: I just can't stand free-verse
poetry.
Redneck
Crossfire
wrote helpfully:
] On Thu, 21 Dec 2000 06:22:38 GMT, jonLU...@MEATapeiros.com
Fortunately neither of those are poetry; they are prose autobiography.
Crossfire
] >The Great Gatsby. F. Scott FitzGerald.
] >The only required reading book I read in one night during high school.
]
] Hey, it's got Andy Kaufmann's recommendation...
]
] Personally, I've never been big on making high school students read anything,
*boggle* What do you think high school students should do instead of
reading?
] especially 'classic literature'.
] I don't have anything against 'classic
] literature', but I have yet to find a friend of mine who genuinely enjoyed
the
] 'classic literature' that was forced on us during school
I enjoyed/liked about half of what was "forced on me" during high school.
When I attended college I liked even more, but I was taking lit classes I
*wanted* to take. (I found lit classes to be an easy and fun way to keep
my GPA up while I was working through my physics curriculum.)
The important point is that even if I didn't genuinely enjoy something, I
still learned from it.
] (in my school library,
] they would mostly define a book's worth by how old it was, no joke). Once I
] heard a piece of advice for a new writer... avoid trying to learn anything
from
] centuries-old books, because none of the writing techniques used back then
are
] anywhere close to genuinely popular, for those that read modern books. I
feel
] the same should be considered true for reading books.
mmm...I'm not so sure this is true. You see lots of basic and advanced
writing techniques in classic literature that are just as valid today as
they were 1000 years ago. Foreshadowing, metaphor, prolepsis, and stream of
consciousness pop immediately to mind. If I sat down and thought for even
a minute, I could come up with a dozen others. Certainly language has
changed, and you wouldn't use older grammar and vocabulary unless you were
trying for a period feel. But the techniques remain valid.
] I always told myself
] that if I was going to try and force anything on anyone, I'd at least get
them
] enthusiastic about reading by picking stuff I know they'd like (to start, at
] least), or at least give a decent chance. There are plenty of modern books
] that are overlooked despite what they might bring to a reader.
Yes, I agree. Saying "new books have nothing to offer" is just as silly
as saying "old books have nothing to offer."
] Or at least, if you have to do a reading list, add a note to certain list
] items, something like "If you like <such and such> book, you might like
] this..."
]
] Try baiting them instead of forcing them, is what I'm getting at.
I understand. My own experience with poetry is a great example. Until
I started reading more modern stuff I found poetry dry and unapproachable.
But once I got a taste for modern poetry, I found I liked the "classics"
much more. Clobbering someone new to poetry over the head with an
Elizabethan sonnet is unlikely to make them want to persue reading poetry
on their own.
On the other hand, I've always believed that students aspire to the
standards that are set for them. Easing students into literature
appreciation (or history or math or whatever) is perfectly good. But we
wouldn't be doing anyone any favors if we did away with Shakespeare
because he's old and hard to read.
Martin Julian DeMello
I was reading 5-10 myself; however, I know full well that the average
student just doesn't read that fast, or spend that much time doing it. A
book a week would probably be a severe strain for at least a fourth of them,
which would defeat the purpose.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Kris Overstreet
(Crossfire) wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Dec 2000 09:25:51 GMT, Kris Overstreet <red...@detnet.com>
>wrote helpfully:
>
>] On Thu, 21 Dec 2000 06:22:38 GMT, jonLU...@MEATapeiros.com
>] (Crossfire) wrote:
>] I don't know about the first, but I have never been able to stand
>] anything written by Maya Angelou; listening to her read it was only
>] more painful.
>]
>] This isn't about political issues: I just can't stand free-verse
>] poetry.
>
>Fortunately neither of those are poetry; they are prose autobiography.
Then Ms. Angelou -talks- in free verse poetry. That strange sing-song
diction she has just plain spooks me.
Redneck
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
> 7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones of the sort that
> would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
Ben Franklin, unexpurgated. History and dead white guys need not be
boring.
> 8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
> here, though.
Something about "The Rape of Nanking" and "The Bataan Death March."
Why? Because I once had a ... er ... vigorous discussion with someone
who objected to hearing some of the truth about WW2 and thought having
the Japanese invade and take over his country might be a good and
interesting experience. The mind boggles. Throw in "The Rise and Fall
of the Third Reich" while we're at it. People need to understand that
some wars need to be fought.
--
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe) "There are no good plan Bs. If
http://home.pacbell.net/polymath/ they were good, they'd be plan A."
http://www.glaam.us.mensa.org/ -- The Magic School Bus
Martin Julian DeMello
> On 21 Dec 2000 06:43:25 GMT, MythicFox <slver...@aol.com> wrote helpfully:
> ] >The Great Gatsby. F. Scott FitzGerald.
> ] >The only required reading book I read in one night during high school.
> ]
> ] Hey, it's got Andy Kaufmann's recommendation...
> ]
> ] Personally, I've never been big on making high school students read
> ] anything,
> *boggle* What do you think high school students should do instead of
> reading?
I think MythicFox was saying that high school students should never be
forced to read any specific book (part of me says 'yes, they should read
them because they want to', the other part feels that they would enjoy books
that they'd never voluntarily read.)
> ] especially 'classic literature'.
> ] I don't have anything against 'classic
> ] literature', but I have yet to find a friend of mine who genuinely enjoyed
> ] the
> ] 'classic literature' that was forced on us during school
> I enjoyed/liked about half of what was "forced on me" during high school.
> When I attended college I liked even more, but I was taking lit classes I
> *wanted* to take. (I found lit classes to be an easy and fun way to keep
> my GPA up while I was working through my physics curriculum.)
I enjoyed considerably more than half - the only book I was left with no
desire to ever read again was 'Wuthering Heights', and that too just because
I couldn't stand any of the characters. The book itself was a fascinating
study in narrative structure; definitely one of the books I'd want to study
rather than read.
> The important point is that even if I didn't genuinely enjoy something, I
> still learned from it.
Yep. Though a bad teacher can ruin a book forever.
> ] I always told myself that if I was going to try and force anything on
> ] anyone, I'd at least get them enthusiastic about reading by picking
> ] stuff I know they'd like (to start, at least), or at least give a decent
> ] chance. There are plenty of modern books that are overlooked despite
> ] what they might bring to a reader.
> Yes, I agree. Saying "new books have nothing to offer" is just as silly
> as saying "old books have nothing to offer."
And indeed, several schools are moving towards offering newer books in their
reading lists. My complaint against this is that the books chosen are far
too often those with explicit 'literary' merit; i.e. books that the
critical establishment has decreed to be 'literature'. Older ones have at
least had posterity as an additional filter; I wonder how many of today's
<fitb>-prize winners will stand the test of time. (Several, I have no doubt,
but by no means all).
Also, *why* do people feel it necessary to give already angst-ridden
children the most dreary and depressing books they can lay their hands on?
Yes, life can suck. No, I do not wish to be reminded of it when reading a
novel. And no, I *particularly* do not wish to be reminded of it in school.
> On the other hand, I've always believed that students aspire to the
> standards that are set for them. Easing students into literature
> appreciation (or history or math or whatever) is perfectly good. But we
> wouldn't be doing anyone any favors if we did away with Shakespeare
> because he's old and hard to read.
Or mental arithmetic :-/
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Janet Miles
> desire to ever read again was 'Wuthering Heights', and that too just because
> I couldn't stand any of the characters.
I have never read _Wuthering Heights_, but I had that same reaction to _The
Scarlet and the Black_, which I had to read a year or so ago for a college
history class (Development of Western Civilization). I don't think I have
ever found another book where Every! Single! Character! so desperately
needed to be slapped upside the head.
JanetM
posted
--
Janet Miles (jmi...@usit.net) <www.public.usit.net/jmiles>
Loyal Webcrafter: PenUltimate Productions <www.worthlink.net/~ysabet>
Member: SSBB Diplomatic Corps -- East Tennessee
"Bananas in the fridge. Potassium is important." -- Slash Maraud 1/30/00
Martin Julian DeMello
> On 21 Dec 2000 02:02:34 GMT, Martin Julian DeMello
> ] 7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones of the sort that
> ] would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
> "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What Do YOU Care What Other People
> Think?" by Richard Feynman would be good, I think.
Definitely on my list - I held off mentioning names here because too many of
my own biases show through. FWIW, I think history classes concentrate far
too heavily on military history, to the detriment of the history of
knowledge and art.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
dennywS...@zipcon.net
Black) held forth, saying:
He means that the typical American high-schooler would be aghast at
the idea that "I have to read a *whole* book in a week????"
-denny-
curmudgeonly editor
"Life with the circus is one long uninterrupted dee-light."
(Barry Longyear, _Circus World_)
TBird
<jmi...@use.usit.net> writes:
>Martin Julian DeMello <mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> wrote:
>> I enjoyed considerably more than half - the only book I was left with no
>> desire to ever read again was 'Wuthering Heights', and that too just
>because
>> I couldn't stand any of the characters.
>
>I have never read _Wuthering Heights_, but I had that same reaction to _The
>Scarlet and the Black_, which I had to read a year or so ago for a college
>history class (Development of Western Civilization). I don't think I have
>ever found another book where Every! Single! Character! so desperately
>needed to be slapped upside the head.
<deep sigh>
Thank the gods and little fishes I'm not alone.
I thought I was the only woman who found Wuthering Heights too unbearable to
read. Kate Bush has a beautiful song about Wuthering Heights, so wonderful
that it caused me to try again to read it after I'd left college, but no -
still unbearable....my own maturity level had nothing to do with it.
TBird <---- not a Bronte fan...any of 'em....can't stand that entire period of
literature....hated End of Innocence too...
Adam Littman
>Also, *why* do people feel it necessary to give already angst-ridden
>children the most dreary and depressing books they can lay their hands on?
>Yes, life can suck. No, I do not wish to be reminded of it when reading a
>novel. And no, I *particularly* do not wish to be reminded of it in school.
Yes. Absolutely. Hit the nail right on the head. I used to read about a book a
day in highschool, but I always hated the ones they forced on us because they
were universally depressing. "Flowers for Algernon", various classic tragedies
"Heart of darkness", "The Metamorphosis". Gah. I mean with all the great stuff
out there they chose the ones most likely to turn students off of reading.
Just once it would have been nice to have an English teacher assign "The
Colour of Magic" or something.
Highschool English teachers are a big reason why I am so happy about the Harry
Potter books. Get the kids to enjoy reading before those bozos try to ruin it
for them.
Frankly with the books they made us read in highschool it's no wonder so many
people don't read for fun.
--
___________
Adam Littman / ^ \
AL...@cornell.edu /\ / \ /\
/__\__/___\__/__\
/ \( ) ( )/ \
\ /\ o /\ /
\ / \( )/ \ /
"Four minutes twenty-two seconds, \/____\_/____\/
Baldric, you owe me a groat" \ \ /
--Blackadder \ / \ /
---------
Adam Littman
>On 21 Dec 2000 06:03:01 GMT, cc...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au (Claire
>Black) held forth, saying:
>
>>Martin Julian DeMello (mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu) wrote:
>>: (Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
>>: a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a free
>>: hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages of
>>: fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the students
>>: would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys to rival
>>: providing both education and pleasure at once.)
>>:
>>: [1] roughly, a 200 page novel - I'm talking solely about fiction here.
>>
>>Weredonut frowns "Trying to work out here if you mean that high
>>schoolers can/should/do read more than one book a week or less than one
>>book a week. I mean I recall in high school I was reading about 25-60
>>books a week, but I'm sure that's not what you mean/think?????????"
>
>He means that the typical American high-schooler would be aghast at
>the idea that "I have to read a *whole* book in a week????"
It depends on whether they like the book. I tend to read books straight
through if I am enjoying them. When someone got me "Battlefield Earth" (he
picked out the thickest book in the Sci-fi section) I read it in 2 days.
Aside: For some reason that is the only L.Ron book I even vaguely liked.
But when a book is boring and depressing I have trouble reading it for even 5
minutes without getting distracted. With the stuff they made us read, one of
them per week would have been a chore.
Lee S. Billings
jonLU...@MEATapeiros.com says...
>] I always told myself
>] that if I was going to try and force anything on anyone, I'd at least get
> them
>] enthusiastic about reading by picking stuff I know they'd like (to start, at
>] least), or at least give a decent chance. There are plenty of modern books
>] that are overlooked despite what they might bring to a reader.
>
>Yes, I agree. Saying "new books have nothing to offer" is just as silly
>as saying "old books have nothing to offer."
True enough... but I think some re-evaluation should be done on the "standard
reading list" (especially for high school). Saying that a book which had
something relevant to offer 50 years ago still automatically has something
relevant to offer today is not necessarily valid. Furthermore, writing
techniques *have* changed over time; if teachers want to illustrate a certain
point, it's quite possible that a more recent book would do it just as well, in
a form that would be more palatable to the modern student.
>] Or at least, if you have to do a reading list, add a note to certain list
>] items, something like "If you like <such and such> book, you might like
>] this..."
Now *that* is an excellent idea!
>I understand. My own experience with poetry is a great example. Until
>I started reading more modern stuff I found poetry dry and unapproachable.
>But once I got a taste for modern poetry, I found I liked the "classics"
>much more. Clobbering someone new to poetry over the head with an
>Elizabethan sonnet is unlikely to make them want to pursue reading poetry
>on their own.
Mileage varies. I was never that interested in poetry *until* I saw some of the
more classical variety (this refers to form, not age). Robert Frost (e.g.) is
infinitely more interesting than e e cummings; I greatly prefer the structure
and discipline required to maintain rhyme and meter while still making your
point to the "random strings of broken-up prose" style.
This is not to say that I never wrote any "free verse"; I think anyone with an
interest in poetry experiments with that during high school. But ultimately I
found it unsatisfying, in the same way that I find "splatter art" unsatisfying.
There's no talent or skill required; any schmoe off the street could do it.
>On the other hand, I've always believed that students aspire to the
>standards that are set for them. Easing students into literature
>appreciation (or history or math or whatever) is perfectly good. But we
>wouldn't be doing anyone any favors if we did away with Shakespeare
>because he's old and hard to read.
I also disagree that Shakespeare is hard to read. There are a number of
obsolete idioms which have to be explained, as well as some of the social
customs which drive the action -- but the dramatic thrust is perfectly
straightforward. I think a lot of the time people think it's hard to read
because they've been *told* it's hard to read.
(But then, I asked for a set of Shakespeare for Christmas at age 14, so perhaps
I'm atypical... <g>)
Celine
--
"Only the powers of evil claim that doing good is boring."
-- Diane Duane, _Nightfall at Algemron_
Crossfire
said:
] On Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:04:36 GMT, jonLU...@MEATapeiros.com
Fortunately both of the books are written and not spoken. Not that I'm
trying to convince you to read them, but I can promise they're not written
in free verse. I just checked. Of course, you could take passages from
either book and make them look like free verse by inserting linefeeds at
strategic moments, but that's true with just about every book.
Besides, though I respect your dislike for Ms. Angelou's style, I still
think these autobiographies have alot to offer a student.
Crossfire
said:
] In article <slrn943h1s.53...@olethros.apeiros.com>,
] jonLU...@MEATapeiros.com says...
] >
] >On 21 Dec 2000 06:43:25 GMT, MythicFox <slver...@aol.com> wrote helpfully:
]
] >] I always told myself
] >] that if I was going to try and force anything on anyone, I'd at least get
] > them
] >] enthusiastic about reading by picking stuff I know they'd like (to start,
at
] >] least), or at least give a decent chance. There are plenty of modern
books
] >] that are overlooked despite what they might bring to a reader.
] >
] >Yes, I agree. Saying "new books have nothing to offer" is just as silly
] >as saying "old books have nothing to offer."
]
] True enough... but I think some re-evaluation should be done on the "standard
] reading list" (especially for high school). Saying that a book which had
] something relevant to offer 50 years ago still automatically has something
] relevant to offer today is not necessarily valid.
I agree. There are some books that are inflicted on students for the sake
of tradition.
In my school, it was Dickens's "David Copperfield." I'm not much of a fan
of Dickens to begin with, but I'm glad I was exposed to him. However,
requiring "David Copperfield" in one quarter is just plain silly. There are
other Dickens novels that are much shorter and less irritating that could
expose students to his works without being so...burdensome.
] Furthermore, writing
] techniques *have* changed over time; if teachers want to illustrate a certain
] point, it's quite possible that a more recent book would do it just as well,
in
] a form that would be more palatable to the modern student.
I can't think of any literary devices offhand that are invalid today.
But, that aside, I think I agree. I mean, if we're reading a book strictly
to learn writing techniques, a modern work would be a much better choice.
I don't think that my teachers had writing techniques in mind when they
assigned most of my reading, however.
[snip]
] >I understand. My own experience with poetry is a great example. Until
] >I started reading more modern stuff I found poetry dry and unapproachable.
] >But once I got a taste for modern poetry, I found I liked the "classics"
] >much more. Clobbering someone new to poetry over the head with an
] >Elizabethan sonnet is unlikely to make them want to pursue reading poetry
] >on their own.
]
] Mileage varies.
Mileage varies on everything when it comes to likes and dislikes. I
prefer a lively e e cummings shortie to a long Robert Frost snoozer, for
example. But I still recognize that both authors are important and should
be read.
[snickt]
] I also disagree that Shakespeare is hard to read.
Another mileage varies point. I found Shakespeare to be unapproachable
for many years, until I learned to read him aloud. Of course, I have to
do different voices for all of the parts. The problem is I can only
do the voices from the Looney Toons cartoons, so I have a habit of reading
Shakespeare doing Daffy and Sylvester and Tweety. "Romeo and Juliet" is
a HELL of alot more fun when you're reading Romeo as Pepe Le Pew.
'course my neighbors thought I was nuts while I took my Shakespeare class
in college, but that's another story.
But that aside, my point was that we shouldn't do away with Shakespeare
because he's old and hard to read. Shakespeare wrote about people, and
he knew his subject matter very well. Sure, some of the social issues
are out of date, but the basic human motivations are still true.
Of course, when I was a *student* I would gladly have said do away with
Shakespeare. I thought the plays, at least, were crap. I could appreciate
his sonnets, though.
[snip to end]
--
Jon "Crossfire" Reid | jon <at> apeiros <dot> com (DeSPAM the Reply-To)
| http://www.apeiros.com/~jon
"You are my little much ado about something! *smack* *smack* *smack* My
little love's labor's found! *smack* *smack* *smack*" -- Pepe le Pew
Crossfire
<mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> said:
] Crossfire <jonLU...@meatapeiros.com> wrote:
] > On 21 Dec 2000 06:43:25 GMT, MythicFox <slver...@aol.com> wrote helpfully:
]
] > ] >The Great Gatsby. F. Scott FitzGerald.
] > ] >The only required reading book I read in one night during high school.
] > ]
] > ] Hey, it's got Andy Kaufmann's recommendation...
] > ]
] > ] Personally, I've never been big on making high school students read
] > ] anything,
]
] > *boggle* What do you think high school students should do instead of
] > reading?
]
] I think MythicFox was saying that high school students should never be
] forced to read any specific book (part of me says 'yes, they should read
] them because they want to', the other part feels that they would enjoy books
] that they'd never voluntarily read.)
I still don't understand. I mean, in an ideal world students would pick
things to read because they'd say to themselves, "Well, I've never read
anything from <fill in the classification> so I'll pick up <title> and
give it a whirl."
In reality, that isn't happening. At least, not with the majority of
students. So I ask again, what should students be doing instead of reading?
[snip]
] I enjoyed considerably more than half - the only book I was left with no
] desire to ever read again was 'Wuthering Heights', and that too just because
] I couldn't stand any of the characters. The book itself was a fascinating
] study in narrative structure; definitely one of the books I'd want to study
] rather than read.
My snoozer was "Heart of Darkness." Ugh. That book is like literary
Valium for me. Even thinking about it makes me sleepy.
[snickt]
] Also, *why* do people feel it necessary to give already angst-ridden
] children the most dreary and depressing books they can lay their hands on?
] Yes, life can suck. No, I do not wish to be reminded of it when reading a
] novel. And no, I *particularly* do not wish to be reminded of it in school.
While I appreciate and understand your point, I'm not sure that it's a
legitimate filter for reading lists. I know you don't mean it this way,
but it smacks of a politically correct "All Books Must Be Happy" policy.
I was angst-ridden when I was a student, but I never remember being
depressed by a book. Sure, lots of them were depressing, but I don't really
remember feeling depressed because of one.
It would be better to try and pick books that have important things to
offer, whether it is historical, cultural, literary, or whatever. Sure,
some of those books are going to be dreary, but that shouldn't invalidate
what they have to offer. Some books are dreary BECAUSE of what they have
to offer, and you won't find it in a happier work.
] > On the other hand, I've always believed that students aspire to the
] > standards that are set for them. Easing students into literature
] > appreciation (or history or math or whatever) is perfectly good. But we
] > wouldn't be doing anyone any favors if we did away with Shakespeare
] > because he's old and hard to read.
]
] Or mental arithmetic :-/
I count on my fingers. *grin*
Marc C Allain
>A bunch of recent threads, both here and elsewhere, have got me musing over
>my 'required reading' list for high schoolers. I'm biasing the list towards
>education rather than literary merit or anything else - these are works I
>feel will better equip the students to think for themselves, learn stuff and
>handle life. And to help rekindle interest in a number of subjects that
>schools tend to kill off early on.
>
>
> would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
>
Caged Bird Sings." Good choice.
>8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
> here, though.
Oh, Yes! "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." For perspective as well.
>
>9. A book of children's stories from around the world.
> The news and popular media are *not* a good way to learn about other
> countries; children's fiction, backed by a teacher who knows what s/he's
> talking about, might be.
>
Good thinking. Include "The Diary of Anne Frank," and "Zlata's Diary."
>(Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
>a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a free
>hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages of
>fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the students
>would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys to rival
>providing both education and pleasure at once.)
>
Yeah, sort of. My daughter, an honor student (who just got 1480 on her
PSAT's - xthread - bragging!) does not read for pleasure. Or not much.
My older son, on the other hand, must often be crowbarred away from a book
in order to eat. My daughter is almost 17. My son almost 14. Just for
reference.
--
Marc C. Allain m...@cisunix.unh.edu http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mca
"I want to be Nobody when I grow up...because Nobody's perfect!"
Eric Allain - age 10.
Marc C Allain
>
(STTGOB)
>
>[snickt]
>
>] I also disagree that Shakespeare is hard to read.
>
>Another mileage varies point. I found Shakespeare to be unapproachable
>for many years, until I learned to read him aloud. Of course, I have to
>do different voices for all of the parts. The problem is I can only
>do the voices from the Looney Toons cartoons, so I have a habit of reading
>Shakespeare doing Daffy and Sylvester and Tweety. "Romeo and Juliet" is
>a HELL of alot more fun when you're reading Romeo as Pepe Le Pew.
>
>'course my neighbors thought I was nuts while I took my Shakespeare class
>in college, but that's another story.
>
>But that aside, my point was that we shouldn't do away with Shakespeare
>because he's old and hard to read. Shakespeare wrote about people, and
>he knew his subject matter very well. Sure, some of the social issues
>are out of date, but the basic human motivations are still true.
>
>Of course, when I was a *student* I would gladly have said do away with
>Shakespeare. I thought the plays, at least, were crap. I could appreciate
>his sonnets, though.
>
a week of that, tell 'em, "Forget it, let's try something in English," and
hand 'em "Finnegan's Wake."
A week later, they'll take to Shakespeare like an old friend who talks
a bit funny.
Louise Bremner
> I think history classes concentrate far too heavily on military history..
...and political history (all those kings and dreary Acts of
Parliament).
> ...to the detriment of the history of knowledge and art...
...don't forget architecture, civil engineering, and simply how ordinary
people actually lived in the past.
________________________________________________________________________
Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
If you want a reply by e-mail, don't write to my Yahoo address!
Miche
<mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> wrote:
> 8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
> here, though.
"All Quiet on the Western Front".
Miche
Miche
Meir. How a poor Jewish girl from Russia grew up to become Premier of
Israel.
Miche
Claire Black
: > schoolers can/should/do read more than one book a week or less than one
: > book a week. I mean I recall in high school I was reading about 25-60
: > books a week, but I'm sure that's not what you mean/think?????????"
:
: I was reading 5-10 myself; however, I know full well that the average
: student just doesn't read that fast, or spend that much time doing it. A
: book a week would probably be a severe strain for at least a fourth of them,
: which would defeat the purpose.
Weredonut grins "Well especially if they are doing their homework and
all of that stuff. I had a bet with a friend at the beginning of year
11 that I couldn't get through year 11 and 12 and a bachelor's degree
with less than 8 hours worth of study - total. I managed to do it, but
realise this probably isn't a recommended route for most folks.
But 1/4 of students couldn't read a book a week? Really? Wow! I'm
err, umm, speechless... Wow! Really?!?!?"
Weredonut looks dumbfounded - "Really???"
"I do tend to forget that other people do not read anywhere near as fast
as I do. Every now and then I'm reminded of it and am grateful for the
gift of the love of reading..."
Claire Black
: forced to read any specific book (part of me says 'yes, they should read
: them because they want to', the other part feels that they would enjoy books
: that they'd never voluntarily read.)
Weredonut suggests "Well perhaps they could at least try to read some
specific books and justify why they don't or do like them even if they
don't want to finish them...."
: I enjoyed considerably more than half - the only book I was left with no
: desire to ever read again was 'Wuthering Heights', and that too just because
: I couldn't stand any of the characters. The book itself was a fascinating
: study in narrative structure; definitely one of the books I'd want to study
: rather than read.
Weredonut giggles "I _so_ hated "Wuthering Heights" I marched up to the
teachers desk, slammed the book down on the desk and said "These people
are total dicks!!! Bunch of losers. I think it would have been better
if they'd all died in a natural disaster on page 5." The teacher just
looked at me and started laughing..."
Claire Black
: Yeah, sort of. My daughter, an honor student (who just got 1480 on her
: PSAT's - xthread - bragging!) does not read for pleasure. Or not much.
: My older son, on the other hand, must often be crowbarred away from a book
: in order to eat. My daughter is almost 17. My son almost 14. Just for
: reference.
Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
Lee S. Billings
jonLU...@MEATapeiros.com says...
>] Also, *why* do people feel it necessary to give already angst-ridden
>] children the most dreary and depressing books they can lay their hands on?
>] Yes, life can suck. No, I do not wish to be reminded of it when reading a
>] novel. And no, I *particularly* do not wish to be reminded of it in school.
>
>While I appreciate and understand your point, I'm not sure that it's a
>legitimate filter for reading lists. I know you don't mean it this way,
>but it smacks of a politically correct "All Books Must Be Happy" policy.
I think zem is arguing for a little more *variety*. Thinking back, I don't
recall a single book I had to read for high school that *wasn't* depressing.
Can't we put some more upbeat stuff in along with the Great Serious Literature?
Pat Kight
Jezebel laughs, too. "I, on the other hand, first read WH at 13 and
adored it so much that I reread it every year until I was finally
assigned to read it my senior year in high school ... by which time I
didn't actually *have* to read it in order to pass the tests. Just goes
to show how different people's literary tastes can be.
"Personally, I'm all for required reading - but from a somewhat broader
list than most schools use. I'd love it, for instance, if a teacher
handed out one of those `Top 100 Books of the 20th Century' lists that
was floating around this time last year, and assigned her students to
complete any 10 of them by the end of the year.
"There are good arguments for at least exposing kids to some of the
works that shaped our literary culture. For one thing, they're part of
who we are, collectively, and how we got here. And they don't have to be
joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
--Jezebel
kig...@peak.org
Kris Overstreet
Black) wrote:
You get 400 for putting your name on the paper; maximum score is 1600.
Score is divided separately between verbal and math.
My PSAT was 1400, and I ended up taking the SAT twice- 1360 and 1390.
Redneck
Crossfire
wrote:
[snickt]
] "Personally, I'm all for required reading - but from a somewhat broader
] list than most schools use. I'd love it, for instance, if a teacher
] handed out one of those `Top 100 Books of the 20th Century' lists that
] was floating around this time last year, and assigned her students to
] complete any 10 of them by the end of the year.
]
] "There are good arguments for at least exposing kids to some of the
] works that shaped our literary culture. For one thing, they're part of
] who we are, collectively, and how we got here. And they don't have to be
] joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
Well said, Jezebel! Please, let me get you a couple BOYCs for saying
exactly what I've been thinking, except doing it in a way that actually
makes *sense*!
Rick Vermillion-Salsbury
Claire Black wrote:
> Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
> those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
1480 out of 1600 is damn good -- 99th percentile, I'm
guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
money! :>
Since I took the SATs in the mid-eighties, they've been
revised, I understand, to include essay questions. And I
hear the average scores here in the US have dropped since
then, so it's even more impressive. (I got 1430, which made
me one of two National Merit scholars [1] from my high
school, and gave me a free ride at the University of
Houston).
Regards,
--
Erick Vermillion-Salsbury
http://www.concentric.net/~erick/
[1] Our valedictorian's SAT was 170 points lower than mine,
IIRC -- and I don't know where the National Merit cutoffs
were. They had different levels of scholarship, and I think
they adjusted for scores in each region of the country.
Jekke (Formerly known as Elocutus)
Julian DeMello <mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> say:
>A bunch of recent threads, both here and elsewhere, have got me musing over
>my 'required reading' list for high schoolers. I'm biasing the list towards
>education rather than literary merit or anything else - these are works I
>feel will better equip the students to think for themselves, learn stuff and
>handle life. And to help rekindle interest in a number of subjects that
>schools tend to kill off early on.
1. The Road to Serfdom - F. A. Hayek
2. Goedel, Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
3. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
4. Democracy in America - Alexis de Toqueville
5. Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis
6. Six Easy Pieces - Richard Feynman
7. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds - Peter Goodchild
8. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
9. The Prince - Niccolo Machia
10. Tunnel in the Sky - Robert Heinlein
11. Towing Jehovah - James Morrow
12. Memoirs of a Failed Southern Lady - Florence King
(I suspect I wouldn't make it through the year. But, hey, it's my
fantasy.)
--Jekke
(Remove FILTER to reply)
===
Build web sites? Avoid CIHost like the plague.
See why at:
http://www.optionexplicit.com/cihost.asp
Claire Black
[snip SAT explanation which makes SAT's sort of make sense to me now I
know what they are out of....]
: [1] Our valedictorian's SAT was 170 points lower than mine,
: IIRC -- and I don't know where the National Merit cutoffs
: were. They had different levels of scholarship, and I think
: they adjusted for scores in each region of the country.
"...and valedictorian would be? Umm the person who came first in your
school or something? National Merit scholars are/do/get what?"
Weredonut, still learning to speak American :)
Adam Littman
11-12 years ago). Probably to bring it into line with the SATs. Back then
(IIRC) they had a 40-160 scale on the PSATs rather than 400-1600
Either way, Mazel Tov. 1480 is impressive.
In article <3a42ba23...@207.126.101.100>, red...@detnet.com (Kris
Adam Littman
>(posted and e-mailed)
>
>Claire Black wrote:
>> Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
>> those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
>
>1480 out of 1600 is damn good -- 99th percentile, I'm
>guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
>money! :>
Don't count on it. Even if her grades are also high she may not get a
schollarship to the place she wants to go to.
Still, I think those PSATs are high enough to get her to the finals of
National Merit Scholars..
>Since I took the SATs in the mid-eighties, they've been
>revised, I understand, to include essay questions. And I
>hear the average scores here in the US have dropped since
>then, so it's even more impressive. (I got 1430, which made
>me one of two National Merit scholars [1] from my high
>school, and gave me a free ride at the University of
>Houston).
Dunno about the PSATs but the SATs were re-adjusted a few years back to add
100 points. So a modern 1500 on the SAT is equivalent to an earlier 1400.
BTW the highschool grades also factor into the National Merit scholarships,
or at any rate, did 10 years ago.
Adam Littman
Valedictorian (most places) is student with highest GPA. National merit
scholar finalists get high PSAT scores. Taken when the child is 17. After
that, if they still do it as they did when I was in high school the grades
determine who becomes a finalist.
Kris Overstreet
Littman) wrote:
>Hmm. They must have changed the grading on the PSATs since I took them (About
>11-12 years ago). Probably to bring it into line with the SATs. Back then
>(IIRC) they had a 40-160 scale on the PSATs rather than 400-1600
It was that way for me too, back in, what, 1990? 1989? but it was
easier to add the extra zero so you could compare with people who had
taken the SAT (upperclassmen, older siblings, parents, etc.).
Redneck
Kris Overstreet
(Formerly known as Elocutus)) wrote:
I don't know most of these, but...
>1. The Road to Serfdom - F. A. Hayek
>2. Goedel, Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
>3. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
>4. Democracy in America - Alexis de Toqueville
>5. Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis
>6. Six Easy Pieces - Richard Feynman
>7. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds - Peter Goodchild
>8. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
>9. The Prince - Niccolo Machia
>10. Tunnel in the Sky - Robert Heinlein
>11. Towing Jehovah - James Morrow
I would change this to 'Only Begotten Daughter' by the same author. It
digs down a lot harder into the consequences of Christianity as a
religion and analyzes what we expect of gods and how we treat them
much more carefully.
Also, Towing Jehovah is, IMHO, a pleasure read, but 'Only Begotten
Daughter' is a book that reads YOU... and after that one read you're
scared to go back for another pass. It's that intense.
I'd also add an old 1950s book whose author I have forgotten, 'How to
Lie with Statistics,' an easy-to-understand tome which shows just how
people like our beloved pundits on all sides (including mine) juggle
numbers, graphs and polls for their own benefit.
Redneck
Bernadette Krebs-Crumb
Billings) wrote:
SNIP
>
>I also disagree that Shakespeare is hard to read. There are a number of
>obsolete idioms which have to be explained, as well as some of the social
>customs which drive the action -- but the dramatic thrust is perfectly
>straightforward. I think a lot of the time people think it's hard to read
>because they've been *told* it's hard to read.
>
>(But then, I asked for a set of Shakespeare for Christmas at age 14, so perhaps
>I'm atypical... <g>)
Well, I'm atypical along with you! :) BOYC?
I just finished a fascinating course on Early and Middle English
Literature--ranging from the 6th through 15th Centuries... I loved it,
especially the Anglo-Saxon stuff. If I'd been exposed to the basic
stories found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when I was in high school
(or even junior high), I think it would have made Lit classes much
more enjoyable.
(I just got an email from the prof for this course asking me to submit
my two papers I wrote for it into a scholarship competition at the
university! "Beowulf and the Mark of Cain" and "Interpretation of
Color Symbology in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight") :)
Bernadette
The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.
-- Christopher Morley
Lee S. Billings
>
>On 21 Dec 2000 18:13:29 GMT, stard...@mindspring.com (Lee S.
>Billings) wrote:
>
>SNIP
>>
>>I also disagree that Shakespeare is hard to read. There are a number of
>>obsolete idioms which have to be explained, as well as some of the social
>>customs which drive the action -- but the dramatic thrust is perfectly
>>straightforward. I think a lot of the time people think it's hard to read
>>because they've been *told* it's hard to read.
>>
>>(But then, I asked for a set of Shakespeare for Christmas at age 14, so
>>perhaps I'm atypical... <g>)
>
>Well, I'm atypical along with you! :) BOYC?
Thanks -- hot spiced cider would be really nice tonight. And what can I get for
you?
>I just finished a fascinating course on Early and Middle English
>Literature--ranging from the 6th through 15th Centuries... I loved it,
>especially the Anglo-Saxon stuff. If I'd been exposed to the basic
>stories found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when I was in high school
>(or even junior high), I think it would have made Lit classes much
>more enjoyable.
Sounds cool! I had a *lot* of fun reading Chaucer in college (and not just the
naughty bits, either...) -- at least in part because my professor had a good
reading voice and a *wonderful* Middle English accent. He enabled us to HEAR
the difference in vowel sounds between Middle and Modern English.
>(I just got an email from the prof for this course asking me to submit
>my two papers I wrote for it into a scholarship competition at the
>university! "Beowulf and the Mark of Cain" and "Interpretation of
>Color Symbology in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight") :)
Wow -- let us know how you do, okay?
Adam Littman
Yeah, since they started letting the students use calculators on the SATs they
stopped learning how to multiply by 10.
Joseph M Gordon
: >guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
: >money! :>
: Don't count on it. Even if her grades are also high she may not get a
: schollarship to the place she wants to go to.
: Still, I think those PSATs are high enough to get her to the finals of
: National Merit Scholars..
Yeah... <mournful look> I did just fine, four years back. Got a
"perfect" on the verbal and 760/800 on the math (and why did I become a
physics major....??) So here I am, ok GPA and 99th percentile scores (if
you were in a group of a hundred people who took the SAT, you did better
than 99 of them) and what do I get offered to go to schools? A hearty
handshake...
I got National Merit Finalist... but my parents don't work for Dow or
nothin', so there wasn't a scholarship for me. So I wasn't a NM Scholar,
just a "finalist". <sigh> :)
: Dunno about the PSATs but the SATs were re-adjusted a few years back to add
: 100 points. So a modern 1500 on the SAT is equivalent to an earlier 1400.
See... i woulda figured they recenter it _every year_, so that 800+200 /
2 = 500 is the _average score_. Oh well. I hear it crept up around 1997
so that the average was around 510ish, and so they recentered. Something
about schools no longer educating people, but instead training them for
taking a standardized test.....
: BTW the highschool grades also factor into the National Merit scholarships,
: or at any rate, did 10 years ago.
I honestly don't know/ remember.
Further disturbing is that the SAT measures one thing best of all, which
is, ability on and preparation for the SAT. And there are statistically
significant differences between various groups' performance on it, like
(x-thread) IQ tests... but all it says to me is that statistically
speaking people aren't identical. In cheering news, females have now
pulled nearer to equality with males on those tests. The less evidence
there is that supports _stupid_ sexism, the better.
HTH,
Joe Gordon
--
This is the unix version of the LoveBug virus. In the spirit of such it
depends on the user community to propagate. Please send this message to
all of your friends and randomly delete numerous files from your system.
J. Otto Tennant
>(posted and e-mailed)
>Claire Black wrote:
>> Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
>> those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
>1480 out of 1600 is damn good -- 99th percentile, I'm
>guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
>money! :>
>Since I took the SATs in the mid-eighties, they've been
>revised, I understand, to include essay questions. And I
>hear the average scores here in the US have dropped since
>then, so it's even more impressive. (I got 1430, which made
>me one of two National Merit scholars [1] from my high
>school, and gave me a free ride at the University of
>Houston).
Well, a couple of decades ago, my score on math was
790; my roommate scored 799, and we wondered which
questions we blew.
I don't remember that non-math score; it wasn't all
that bad, but it wasn't close to 790; maybe just 740.
This was not enough for a National Merit Scholarship.
Since this is "Callahans", I'm going to tell you a
story. The High School I attended did not have a
valedictorian. And, this was years ago, the boys
wore green gowns, and the girls wore white gowns.
This would be all well and good, in my opinion, excetp
that the class picture put the top 3% in the front.
So there I was, looking like death, the only green
gown among all of the grils.
I had an excuse: I had a nervous breakdown over the
concept of getting a B in Physics.
In a sense, it worked out. I had intended to attend
<Unnamed State>SU. I was too cheap to apply to
colleges which had a non-refundable application fee.
So, I applied to <Unnamed State>SU and a University
in Houston. (I'll not tell you the name of the
University in Houston, and I no longer remember
the geography. The P.O. Box was 1892.)
My class was the last tuition-free class; the left
wing broke the founder's will.
I survived, more or less.
>Regards,
>--
>Erick Vermillion-Salsbury
>http://www.concentric.net/~erick/
>[1] Our valedictorian's SAT was 170 points lower than mine,
>IIRC -- and I don't know where the National Merit cutoffs
>were. They had different levels of scholarship, and I think
>they adjusted for scores in each region of the country.
--
J.Otto Tennant jo...@pobox.com
Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.
Charter Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
mathgoddess
> On 21 Dec 2000 06:43:25 GMT, MythicFox <slver...@aol.com> wrote helpfully:
>
> ] Try baiting them instead of forcing them, is what I'm getting at.
>
> I understand. My own experience with poetry is a great example. Until
> I started reading more modern stuff I found poetry dry and unapproachable.
> But once I got a taste for modern poetry, I found I liked the "classics"
> much more. Clobbering someone new to poetry over the head with an
> Elizabethan sonnet is unlikely to make them want to persue reading poetry
> on their own.
>
> On the other hand, I've always believed that students aspire to the
> standards that are set for them. Easing students into literature
> appreciation (or history or math or whatever) is perfectly good. But we
> wouldn't be doing anyone any favors if we did away with Shakespeare
> because he's old and hard to read.
No, but IMO Shakespeare shouldn't be read to oneself: it should be read
out loud. That makes it much easier to understand and to appreciate.
Giving kids a copy of "Romeo and Juliet" and telling them to go home and
read Act I is a recipe for disaster.
--Rose
--
Where was I? I forgot the point that I was making....
--They Might Be Giants
For my real email address, visit http://i.am/rwp
Steve Brinich
> Yes. Absolutely. Hit the nail right on the head. I used to read about a book a
> day in highschool, but I always hated the ones they forced on us because they
> were universally depressing. "Flowers for Algernon", various classic tragedies
> "Heart of darkness", "The Metamorphosis".
I remember this one short story assigned in a college English class in
which the premise was that the narrator woke up one morning with his (or
was it her?) heart literally in hand.
The only thing I really remember was the effort of not humming a few
bars from "The Masochism Tango" in class.
--
Steve Brinich <ste...@Radix.Net> If the government wants us
http://www.Radix.Net/~steveb to respect the law
89B992BBE67F7B2F64FDF2EA14374C3E it should set a better example
Conterpoint Four: http://www.filker.org/conterpoint/
mathgoddess
> 3. Orwell, '1984'.
> As the generation of the technophobe gives way to that of the
> technophile, people ought to at least be aware of some of the inherent
> dangers involved. (I wouldn't force anyone under 15 to read this, though,
> and I'd certainly present other books to balance it with).
Which balancers are you thinking of? I'd add _Brave New World_ to this,
so you'll need an awful lot of balancing!
> 7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones of the sort that
> would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
I can't remember who wrote the bio of Tesla that I read, but it's great.
Bios of Helen Keller--as well as a book called _Helen Keller's Teacher_
that I still remember very vividly--and Braille and Pasteur were also
extremely interesting, though you need to have a bit of understanding of
biology and chemistry to understand Pasteur's life as well as his work.
> 8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
> here, though.
Maus. And Elie Wiesel if you can stomach him. (I usually can't, but when
I can, I admit there's a lot to learn there.) Any good books about the
Crusades here, or the Inquisition? How about the history of the Incas
and Mayans, from beginning to end? Oh, and _Bury My Heart at Wounded
Knee_.
> 9. A book of children's stories from around the world.
> The news and popular media are *not* a good way to learn about other
> countries; children's fiction, backed by a teacher who knows what s/he's
> talking about, might be.
Or several books. And don't forget American ones! A lot of American
fairy tales are being lost by the wayside--who knows who Paul Bunyan
was? or Johnny Appleseed? who's in the kitchen with Dinah? I would
recommend L. Frank Baum's _American Fairy Tales_; all the [color] Fairy
Books; _Hawaiian Myths of Earth, Sea, and Sky_ by Vivian L. Thompson;
Wanda Grieg's excellent translations of the Grimm brothers' stories;
Caitlin Matthews's _While the Bear Sleeps: Winter Tales and Traditions_
and _The Wizard King & Other Spellbinding Tales_ (the latter of which
she co-edited with her husband John; it's a fabulous collection of
stories of magic and magic-users, some good and some bad, from all over
the world); _The Jungle Book and Other Stories_ (make sure you get "The
White Seal" and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"!). I am in the process of giving all
of these, one by one, to my SOs' daughter. *) She's not old enough to
read yet, so perhaps I'm being a bit premature, but she did seem to
enjoy the stories I read to her from _The Wizard King_. _Hawaiian Myths_
is at home waiting to be wrapped (and I'll send your copy off as soon as
I get a chance, Miche!).
Oh, and I second the mention elsewhere of Chinua Achebe's _Things Fall
Apart_, as well as _No Longer At Ease_ and _Arrow of God_, for older
readers. I suspect that teachers usually shy away from the first one
because it's all about the evils of being over-educated. *)
> (Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is not
> a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a free
> hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages of
> fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the students
> would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys to rival
> providing both education and pleasure at once.)
Remember that reading isn't a pleasure for everyone. I speak as the
child of a reading family and an avid reader myself; it took us twelve
years to figure out that it was physically difficult and discomfiting
for my brother to read, and all of us trying to force books on him in
hopes that _this_ would be the one to entice him into the world of
literature didn't help any.
Also, given the homework load that most kids have these days--usually to
prepare them for *spit* standardized tests--when would you suggest they
do that reading? I can read 120 pages of pulp SF in forty minutes, but
that's not exactly typical. Now, designing a curriculum _around_ these
books would be interesting, as long as there was a wide selection of
works for every assignment so that no one had that horrible feeling of
being force-fed something that might taste good if you could savor it
rather than having it crammed down your throat.
Steve Brinich
Darrell Huff
> Lie with Statistics,' an easy-to-understand tome which shows just how
> people like our beloved pundits on all sides (including mine) juggle
> numbers, graphs and polls for their own benefit.
Darrell Huff. I'll second that recommendation.
I just finished re-reading "Labyrinths of Reason" by William
Poundstone, which does a nice job of presenting some puzzles and
paradoxes as part of a unified discussion of what it means to "know"
something.
Kris Overstreet
wrote:
>I don't remember that non-math score; it wasn't all
>that bad, but it wasn't close to 790; maybe just 740.
>
>This was not enough for a National Merit Scholarship.
Um, I only had a 1390, but I was a National Merit Scholar- the first
one in my school's history, and it is rumored that -county's- history.
Obviously other factors come into play.
(And since my scholarship was a $1000/year nonrenewable one, I have to
wonder if there's different levels of NMS.)
Redneck (P.S. 3.04 GPA, which placed me fifth in a class of 65;
highest male due to the untimely death of my then-best-friend.)
mathgoddess
> I thought I was the only woman who found Wuthering Heights too unbearable to
> read. Kate Bush has a beautiful song about Wuthering Heights, so wonderful
> that it caused me to try again to read it after I'd left college, but no -
> still unbearable....my own maturity level had nothing to do with it.
Damn... it _is_ a beautiful song, and had just about convinced me to
pick it up and give it a try. But that's neither my preferred era nor my
preferred type of writing, at all. Reading _Jane Eyre_ three years in
succession for three different English classes (in three schools) was
quite possibly what did the damage. Blech. I can't read Jane Austin
either (and certainly haven't read enough to remember whether it's
Austin or Austen, and I'm too tired to look it up).
mathgoddess
> I think zem is arguing for a little more *variety*. Thinking back, I don't
> recall a single book I had to read for high school that *wasn't*
> depressing. Can't we put some more upbeat stuff in along with the Great
> Serious Literature?
I was lucky--I had a high school English teacher who brought humor to a
reading list that included _Brave New World_ and selections from the Old
Testament. Every yearbook had a page of quotes from him (my favorite was
"Evil pigeon abortionist, that's me!"). Then one year someone apparently
decided that his style was too brash and crude for her tastes, kicked up
a fuss, and he "retired early". I miss him terribly, though we didn't
get along well when I was his student--he was one of the teachers who
was baffled that I Didn't Apply Myself when I had Such Potential--just
because he made people wake up and sit up and read and think and listen
and understand. We were dealing with some _very_ serious topics and he
rescued them from dreariness. Thanks, Mr. Baratta, wherever you are.
mathgoddess
18 (grades 9-12). "Junior high school" is the preceding two years. I
went to a school that combined them, which made a great deal of sense to
me and still does; but some kids go to "middle schools" that contain
grades 6-7-8 or 5-6-7-8, so I suppose it would make sense to have
admission processes in place for incoming 9th graders, which we called
'freshmen', as well as incoming 7th graders, which we called 'sevens'.
Very pragmatic students in my school--growing up in New York City will
do that.)
Martin Julian DeMello <mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> wrote:
> Definitely on my list - I held off mentioning names here because too many of
> my own biases show through. FWIW, I think history classes concentrate far
> too heavily on military history, to the detriment of the history of
> knowledge and art.
Don't you know that art history is taught in art classes, just like
music history is taught in music classes and political history is taught
in politics classes and literary history is taught in literature
classes?
At least that's the way it ought to be done, IMO--but only if the
curricula are designed to teach a number of different things
concurrently so that they make sense with one another, rather than just
being a jumble of disconnected _stuff_. Cut a chunk out of the timeline
of history, from date A to date B, and then each class looks at it from
a different perspective. Ideally this would be done in chronological
order, so that each term's learning built well on the last term's (so if
you studied the sciences of the 1800s last term, you'd be studying the
1900s this term, building on the previous term's lessons as the
scientists in the 1900s built on the work done in the 1800s). I would
have _loved_ to learn about the science and mathematics, art,
politics/lives and lifestyles, music, and literature of... oh, say, the
15th Century all at once, with perhaps a weekly symposium tying them all
together and setting the groundwork for the next week's work. And then
for final papers you could pick two subjects out of a hat and write
about their connections with respect to the timeframe you covered. And
_every_ class has "lab sections" to make sure you cover practice as well
as theory....
Hmmwha? Oh, sorry, must have dozed off and started dreaming again.
--Rose, with renewed determination to found a school someday and do it
_right_. Anyone want to offer suggestions as to what "doing it right"
entails? I'm all ears, and drinks are on... er, my tab (I'm not _that_
sleepy) for anyone who chimes in!
Leslie
On 21 Dec 2000, in <91u2l1$9f3$1...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au>,
Claire Black spake thusly:
=But 1/4 of students couldn't read a book a week? Really? Wow! I'm
=err, umm, speechless... Wow! Really?!?!?"
=
=Weredonut looks dumbfounded - "Really???"
It gets worse, oh yes. I know college kids who BRAG that they'll
never read another book once they get out of school. Frightening.
="I do tend to forget that other people do not read anywhere near as fast
=as I do. Every now and then I'm reminded of it and am grateful for the
=gift of the love of reading..."
<fervent agreement>
My younger son had no interest in books for a long time. Then somewhere
in his early teens, he actually picked up one of my books and read it
-- Marion Zimmer Bradley's _Warrior Woman_, of all things! -- and then
later wandered out of his room, stood staring at the bookcases, and said
"now what do I read?" (or the equivalent, I forget his exact words).
Coulda knocked me over with a feather. :)
Now I have a granddaughter named after a character in a best-selling
sword&sorcery series (Kahlan, from Terry Goodkind's _Sword of Truth_
books).
Leslie, inexplicably enough, he likes the _Shannara_ series, too.
ps-- Dear Santa: Please bring more bookcases!
--
* Spider Robinson info & alt.callahans FAQs: <http://www.vex.net/~leslie> *
** "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." - J. Buffett **
*** The FAQS of Usenet: http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html ***
**** If you love any of your rights, defend all of them. ****
Rick Vermillion-Salsbury
Kris Overstreet wrote:
> (And since my scholarship was a $1000/year nonrenewable one, I have to
> wonder if there's different levels of NMS.)
Yes -- well, that was the case in 1987, at least. Mine was
one of the lower-level scholarships as far as money-received
from the National Merit organization: also $1000/year, and I
seem to recall other scholars getting at least $3000/year.
The rest of my free ride was due to UH writing off my
expenses -- and I think there was only one other college in
the US that gave a free ride to NM scholars. The
valedictorian from my graduating class stayed in California,
and her college only covered 1/3 of her tuition because of
her NM status.
(There was a flap at UH that apparently got resolved the
year before I arrived, dammit. Used to be that they'd comp
all the school expenses *before* they handed over the
National Merit stipend, leaving the lucky scholar with some
extra mad money each semester. Me, they took the stipend out
first and comped the rest, leaving me to entertain myself
by, uh, doing a lot of leisure reading and not studying as
much as I should have. I was on scholarship probation for
several semesters in a row; this was the longest period
without getting dropped that any of the faculty had heard
of. I'm still not sure how I pulled it off, I certainly
pulled my share of dumbass stunts in college [1]).
Regards,
--
Erick Vermillion-Salsbury
http://www.concentric.net/~erick/
[1] ...including two times I discovered I had a class final
less than three hours beforehand. Unbeliever attended one of
those classes; ask him about the tone of my voice when I
found out :/
SCA Wench
> Hey! How about you start the kids reading the Canterbury Tales. After
> a week of that, tell 'em, "Forget it, let's try something in English," and
> hand 'em "Finnegan's Wake."
Actually, translated into modern english, Canterbury Tales has some of the
bawdiest, most outragous humor I've ever found. That could be a good way to
start kids on classics, sex and violence are always winners <g>.
--
Lady Brigid
Ignorance is what killed the cat.
Curiousity was framed.
Matthew T. Russotto
Louise Bremner <log.NO.S...@gol.com> wrote:
}Martin Julian DeMello <mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> wrote:
}
}
}...and political history (all those kings and dreary Acts of
}Parliament).
I guess you went to school outside the US? My school did the kings of England
in English Lit rather than history. Except John and George III, of
course. The Acts of Parliament we don't hear about, except the juicy
ones like the Intolerable Acts, Stamp Act, etc.
}> ...to the detriment of the history of knowledge and art...
}
}...don't forget architecture, civil engineering, and simply how ordinary
}people actually lived in the past.
Isn't there a "Journal of Mundane History" or something which actually
seeks out this kind of stuff? Only thing is I can't remember if it's
legit or a joke.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Matthew T. Russotto
Rick Vermillion-Salsbury <er...@concentric.net> wrote:
}
}Claire Black wrote:
}> Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
}> those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
}
}1480 out of 1600 is damn good -- 99th percentile, I'm
}guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
}money! :>
Not so fast; neither a high PSAT nor a high SAT guarantees you scholarships.
Doesn't even guarantee you entry into decent schools. BTDT.
Matthew T. Russotto
Valedictorian is the person in the graduating class with the highest
grade point average, though sometimes other factors get thrown in.
National Merit Scholars get money for college, but the PSAT only gets
you to National Merit Semifinalist level, which gets you nothing. The
criteria after that point include all sorts of things (and I seem to
recall there's an essay).
--MTR, who was just glad to get out.
Matthew T. Russotto
Adam Littman <al...@nospam.cornell.edu> wrote:
}
}Valedictorian (most places) is student with highest GPA. National merit
}scholar finalists get high PSAT scores. Taken when the child is 17. After
}that, if they still do it as they did when I was in high school the grades
}determine who becomes a finalist.
The PSATs are taken in the junior year of high school; age of the
student is irrelevant (oops, been reading too much of the Seven of
Nine thread).
--MTR, 15 at the time.
Adam Littman
>In article <9ay06.45562$7I.45...@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com>,
>Adam Littman <al...@nospam.cornell.edu> wrote:
>}
>}Valedictorian (most places) is student with highest GPA. National merit
>}scholar finalists get high PSAT scores. Taken when the child is 17. After
>}that, if they still do it as they did when I was in high school the grades
>}determine who becomes a finalist.
>
>The PSATs are taken in the junior year of high school; age of the
>student is irrelevant (oops, been reading too much of the Seven of
>Nine thread).
I was simplifying for the foreigners who might not know what Junior year was.
Adam Littman
>
>On 21 Dec 2000, in <91u2l1$9f3$1...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au>,
>Claire Black spake thusly:
>=But 1/4 of students couldn't read a book a week? Really? Wow! I'm
>=err, umm, speechless... Wow! Really?!?!?"
>=
>=Weredonut looks dumbfounded - "Really???"
>
>It gets worse, oh yes. I know college kids who BRAG that they'll
>never read another book once they get out of school. Frightening.
>
>="I do tend to forget that other people do not read anywhere near as fast
>=as I do. Every now and then I'm reminded of it and am grateful for the
>=gift of the love of reading..."
>
><fervent agreement>
>
>My younger son had no interest in books for a long time. Then somewhere
>in his early teens, he actually picked up one of my books and read it
>-- Marion Zimmer Bradley's _Warrior Woman_, of all things! -- and then
>later wandered out of his room, stood staring at the bookcases, and said
>"now what do I read?" (or the equivalent, I forget his exact words).
>
>Coulda knocked me over with a feather. :)
>
>Now I have a granddaughter named after a character in a best-selling
>sword&sorcery series (Kahlan, from Terry Goodkind's _Sword of Truth_
>books).
Could be worse. I'm aware of a "Frodo".
Some weird parents out there. There is a reporter whose last name is Bey,
whose parents chose to name her "Willow". Don't know whether Bey is her maiden
name.
Sanford E. Walke IV
> --Rose, with renewed determination to found a school someday and do it
> _right_. Anyone want to offer suggestions as to what "doing it right"
> entails? I'm all ears, and drinks are on... er, my tab (I'm not _that_
> sleepy) for anyone who chimes in!
Sure. Heavy math and science, ignore the rest.
--
Sandy
Be a trend-setter, take responsibility for the results of your actions.
I don't speak for anyone but myself, and sometimes not even that.
Crossfire
<circul...@wastebaskets.com> wrote helpfully:
] No, but IMO Shakespeare shouldn't be read to oneself: it should be read
] out loud. That makes it much easier to understand and to appreciate.
] Giving kids a copy of "Romeo and Juliet" and telling them to go home and
] read Act I is a recipe for disaster.
Exactly.
Unfortunately, I didn't discover this until the last quarter of my
senior year in high school. As I said elsethread, it's great fun reading
"Romeo and Juliet" using the voices of Pepe le Pew and Miss Prissy.
--
Jon "Crossfire" Reid | jon <at> apeiros <dot> com (DeSPAM the Reply-To)
| http://www.apeiros.com/~jon
"I make a lousy earth person. I make way too much breakfast and the dog
hates me." --Celeste, "My Stepmother Is An Alien"
Pat Kight
>
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:08:34 -0800, Pat Kight <kig...@ucs.orst.edu>
> wrote:
>
> [snickt]
>
> ] "Personally, I'm all for required reading - but from a somewhat broader
> ] list than most schools use. I'd love it, for instance, if a teacher
> ] handed out one of those `Top 100 Books of the 20th Century' lists that
> ] was floating around this time last year, and assigned her students to
> ] complete any 10 of them by the end of the year.
> ]
> ] "There are good arguments for at least exposing kids to some of the
> ] works that shaped our literary culture. For one thing, they're part of
> ] who we are, collectively, and how we got here. And they don't have to be
> ] joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
>
> Well said, Jezebel! Please, let me get you a couple BOYCs for saying
> exactly what I've been thinking, except doing it in a way that actually
> makes *sense*!
"Why, thank you, kind sir. I'll forego my usual in favor of eggnog,
thank you! And a good book on the side ..."
--Jezebel
making a mental note to pick up eggnog on the way home...
kig...@peak.org
Pat Kight
>
> mathgoddess <circul...@wastebaskets.com> wrote:
>
> > --Rose, with renewed determination to found a school someday and do it
> > _right_. Anyone want to offer suggestions as to what "doing it right"
> > entails? I'm all ears, and drinks are on... er, my tab (I'm not _that_
> > sleepy) for anyone who chimes in!
>
> Sure. Heavy math and science, ignore the rest.
"OK," says Jezebel. "And right across the street, we can put a school
that's heavy on books, theater, art, music, cultural history and the
humanities, and ignore the math and science."
(-:
--Jezebel
who suspects that all learning can be made useful, if first it's made
fun.
kig...@peak.org
John Kelsey
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe) <poly...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3A41E7A8...@pacbell.net...
> Martin Julian DeMello wrote:
>> 7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones
>> of the sort that would give a kid a 'wow - I never
>> thought that was possible' thrill.
> Ben Franklin, unexpurgated. History and dead white guys
> need not be boring.
Yes, this is good. I think any book that gives a real,
honest flavor of what life was or is like in some other
world than you've experienced so far is good. It has to be
close enough to what you're interested in and have
experienced that it's meaningful to you as a reader, though.
I think this may be a flaw in the logic behind a
one-size-fits-all list. I read books now that, had you
force-fed them to me at sixteen, I would have *hated*.
I loved reading Churchill's six-volume history of world war
two a couple of years ago, but I'd never have gotten through
them as a sixteen year old kid. I just wouldn't have had
the interest. I suspect that a lot of books that are forced
on us as schoolkids are things we're just not ready for yet,
because we haven't had the set of experiences necessary to
understand them.
>> 8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety -
>> no recommendations here, though.
> Something about "The Rape of Nanking" and "The Bataan
> Death March." Why? Because I once had a ... er ...
> vigorous discussion with someone who objected to hearing
> some of the truth about WW2 and thought having the Japanese
> invade and take over his country might be a good and
> interesting experience. The mind boggles. Throw in "The
> Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" while we're at it. People
> need to understand that some wars need to be fought.
I think personal memoirs from war survivors are really good
for this. It's easy to get this image of war as being some
kind of great adventure, without remembering just how ugly
it is for all involved.
For the Japanese stuff, you might try _King Rat_, by James
Clavell. It does have some sex in it, and it's hard not to
have some adult situations come up in a discussion of life
in a Japanese POW camp, but it's definitely worth reading.
And I believe that you could get a lot out of it at fifteen
or sixteen.
Ayn Rand wrote a really very good book about
post-Revolutionary Russia, whose name I'm blanking on. It
has a slant on Communism, and it's the slant you'd expect
from her, but it has a real flavor of personal experience
there. (And very few people who've lived under communism
seem to be neutral about it.)
I have found that I generally like reading things written by
people who actually experienced something in history far
more than reading things about those times in history, by
historians years later. (Though you need some of those
kinds of books, at some point, to get perspective on
individual events.)
> The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe) "There are no good plan Bs.
> If
--John Kelsey
k.e.l.s.e.y.(dot).j.(at).i.x.(dot).n.e.t.c.o.m.(dot).c.o.m
PGP: 5D91 6F57 2646 83F9 6D7F 9C87 886D 88AF
``Slavery's most important legacy may be a painful insight
into human nature and into the terrible consequences of
unbridled power.'' --Thomas Sowell, _Race and Culture_
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Sanford E. Walke IV
> It would be better to try and pick books that have important things to
> offer, whether it is historical, cultural, literary, or whatever. Sure,
> some of those books are going to be dreary, but that shouldn't invalidate
> what they have to offer. Some books are dreary BECAUSE of what they have
> to offer, and you won't find it in a happier work.
We had to read "The Odyssey" (well, parts of it). Fairly boring, mostly
because the teacher was fairly boring and managed to kill most things with
his "the *only* way to interpret this is *my* way, any other way is wrong"
attitude. It became quite memorable, though, when he "asked" for the meaning
of the bit about one of the male characters being counseled to "seek the
pleasures of men" (worldly things, rather than philosophocal things). One
of the jocks in the school read it as suggesting that the character become
a homosexual. We found that funny at the time.
Sanford E. Walke IV
> "There are good arguments for at least exposing kids to some of the
> works that shaped our literary culture. For one thing, they're part of
> who we are, collectively, and how we got here. And they don't have to be
> joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
Unfortunately, he's considered by many to be a "children's" author.
Sanford E. Walke IV
> No, but IMO Shakespeare shouldn't be read to oneself: it should be read
> out loud. That makes it much easier to understand and to appreciate.
> Giving kids a copy of "Romeo and Juliet" and telling them to go home and
> read Act I is a recipe for disaster.
YMMV, again. I "hear" books as I read them, and it's the same for me to
read aloud or read silently, though I'm far faster reading silently.
Sanford E. Walke IV
> But 1/4 of students couldn't read a book a week? Really? Wow! I'm
> err, umm, speechless... Wow! Really?!?!?"
> Weredonut looks dumbfounded - "Really???"
> "I do tend to forget that other people do not read anywhere near as fast
> as I do. Every now and then I'm reminded of it and am grateful for the
> gift of the love of reading..."
There are lots of people who love to read who just don't read very quickly.
Fiction, I read at about 100 pages an hour. Donda, who loves to read just
as much as I do, reads about 20-30 pages an hour. She doesn't love reading
any less for reading more slowly, she just reads more slowly.
Sanford E. Walke IV
Re: Battlefield Earth
> Aside: For some reason that is the only L.Ron book I even vaguely liked.
Ditto
Sanford E. Walke IV
> (posted and e-mailed)
> Claire Black wrote:
>> Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
>> those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
> 1480 out of 1600 is damn good -- 99th percentile, I'm
> guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
> money! :>
I missed one question on the PSATs, had a 34 ACT and a 1530 SAT. I got
dick for money. Don't spend the college fund yet.
Miche
<se...@izzy6.izzy.net> wrote:
> mathgoddess <circul...@wastebaskets.com> wrote:
>
> > No, but IMO Shakespeare shouldn't be read to oneself: it should be read
> > out loud. That makes it much easier to understand and to appreciate.
> > Giving kids a copy of "Romeo and Juliet" and telling them to go home and
> > read Act I is a recipe for disaster.
>
> YMMV, again. I "hear" books as I read them, and it's the same for me to
> read aloud or read silently, though I'm far faster reading silently.
Wow, and I thought I was the only one. For me the characters even have
their own voices.
I still feel for myself, though, that Shakespeare is best seen performed,
rather than read aloud or read silently. The BBC put out some wonderful
performances on video tape, which include _fantastic_ performances from
some people you wouldn't expect to see doing Shakespeare -- John Cleese as
the male lead (argh! I've forgotten his name!) in "The Taming of the
Shrew", for instance.
Miche
Matthew T. Russotto
}
}> "There are good arguments for at least exposing kids to some of the
}> works that shaped our literary culture. For one thing, they're part of
}> who we are, collectively, and how we got here. And they don't have to be
}> joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
}
}Unfortunately, he's considered by many to be a "children's" author.
Show them his rants on religion....
Gene Szedenits, Jr.
"Pat Kight" <kig...@ucs.orst.edu> wrote in message
news:3A438D61...@ucs.orst.edu...
> "Sanford E. Walke IV" wrote:
> > mathgoddess <circul...@wastebaskets.com> wrote:
> > > --Rose, with renewed determination to found a school someday and do it
> > > _right_. Anyone want to offer suggestions as to what "doing it right"
> > > entails?
> > Sure. Heavy math and science, ignore the rest.
> "OK," says Jezebel. "And right across the street, we can put a school
> that's heavy on books, theater, art, music, cultural history and the
> humanities, and ignore the math and science."
Between the two of you, you have described Case Institute
of Technology and Western Reserve University separated by
Euclid Avenue before the shotgun marriage that made them
into CWRU.
Gene
Lee S. Billings
says...
>I think this may be a flaw in the logic behind a
>one-size-fits-all list. I read books now that, had you
>force-fed them to me at sixteen, I would have *hated*.
>I loved reading Churchill's six-volume history of world war
>two a couple of years ago, but I'd never have gotten through
>them as a sixteen year old kid. I just wouldn't have had
>the interest. I suspect that a lot of books that are forced
>on us as schoolkids are things we're just not ready for yet,
>because we haven't had the set of experiences necessary to
>understand them.
I agree. I've been thinking lately that I should go back and re-read "The
Crucible"...
Celine
--
"Only the powers of evil claim that doing good is boring."
-- Diane Duane, _Nightfall at Algemron_
Lee S. Billings
al...@nospam.cornell.edu says...
>>Now I have a granddaughter named after a character in a best-selling
>>sword&sorcery series (Kahlan, from Terry Goodkind's _Sword of Truth_
>>books).
>
>Could be worse. I'm aware of a "Frodo".
My ex has a step-cousin named Arwen. (Fortunately, she's attractive enough for
it not to have been a point of ridicule in school.)
Marc C Allain
>In article <>, cc...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au (Claire Black) wrote:
>>Rick Vermillion-Salsbury (er...@concentric.net) wrote:
>>[snip SAT explanation which makes SAT's sort of make sense to me now I
>>know what they are out of....]
>>
>>: [1] Our valedictorian's SAT was 170 points lower than mine,
>>: IIRC -- and I don't know where the National Merit cutoffs
>>: were. They had different levels of scholarship, and I think
>>: they adjusted for scores in each region of the country.
>>
>>"...and valedictorian would be? Umm the person who came first in your
>>school or something? National Merit scholars are/do/get what?"
>>
>
>Valedictorian (most places) is student with highest GPA. National merit
>scholar finalists get high PSAT scores. Taken when the child is 17. After
>that, if they still do it as they did when I was in high school the grades
>determine who becomes a finalist.
>
Saluditorian - #2 student in class.
In most high schools I've heard of, these two get to/have to make a
speech at graduation. Valedectorian tends to make a heavier, often
political speech. (Our valedectorian reminded my of Solzhenitzen (sp)
with his fiery, literally pulpit-pounding speech.)
BTW, I scored highest in my school on the PSAT's, no clue how I stacked
up on the SAT's (1300 first try, 1280 second time.) Not once in high
school did I make the honor roll. Go figure.
--
Marc C. Allain m...@cisunix.unh.edu http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mca
"I want to be Nobody when I grow up...because Nobody's perfect!"
Eric Allain - age 10.
Marc C Allain
>>
>>Claire Black wrote:
>>> Weredonut grins "1480? Is that good? Can someone please translate for
>>> those of us fortunate enough not to live the US?"
>>
>>1480 out of 1600 is damn good -- 99th percentile, I'm
>>guessin'. Time to buy a pleasure cruise with that college
>>money! :>
>
>schollarship to the place she wants to go to.
>
>Still, I think those PSATs are high enough to get her to the finals of
>National Merit Scholars..
>
Semi-finals. Her grades should get her to the finals.
I made the semi-finals myself, but my grades were...only fair.
>>Since I took the SATs in the mid-eighties, they've been
>>revised, I understand, to include essay questions. And I
>>hear the average scores here in the US have dropped since
>>then, so it's even more impressive. (I got 1430, which made
>>me one of two National Merit scholars [1] from my high
>>school, and gave me a free ride at the University of
>>Houston).
>
>Dunno about the PSATs but the SATs were re-adjusted a few years back to add
>100 points. So a modern 1500 on the SAT is equivalent to an earlier 1400.
>
>BTW the highschool grades also factor into the National Merit scholarships,
>or at any rate, did 10 years ago.
Pat Kight
>
>
> > "There are good arguments for at least exposing kids to some of the
> > works that shaped our literary culture. For one thing, they're part of
> > who we are, collectively, and how we got here. And they don't have to be
> > joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
>
> Unfortunately, he's considered by many to be a "children's" author.
"Huh - really???
"OK, if all they know is Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, I suppose so ... but
even those books are ripping good adult reads. And the vocabulary is way
more sophisticated than most modern-day children's fare. But he wrote
mostly for adults, and his most satirical work is just downright
*wicked* - when we were exposed to it in high school, my friends and I
couldn't believe the teacher was encouraging us to read some of this
stuff."
--Jez
kig...@peak.org
Pat Kight
> There are lots of people who love to read who just don't read very quickly.
> Fiction, I read at about 100 pages an hour. Donda, who loves to read just
> as much as I do, reads about 20-30 pages an hour. She doesn't love reading
> any less for reading more slowly, she just reads more slowly.
"And the pleasure lasts longer, too," says the Spinster, who sometimes
finds herself in the middle of a really terrific book wishing she didn't
read so fast."
--Jezebel
kig...@peak.org
Marc C Allain
>mathgoddess <circul...@wastebaskets.com> wrote:
>
>> --Rose, with renewed determination to found a school someday and do it
>> _right_. Anyone want to offer suggestions as to what "doing it right"
>> entails? I'm all ears, and drinks are on... er, my tab (I'm not _that_
>> sleepy) for anyone who chimes in!
>
>Sure. Heavy math and science, ignore the rest.
>
in these fields.
Recommendations? Four days per week, the students stay at home and
get lessons over the internet. One day per week they attend school at
the building, working on group projects, spending time with teachers
and other students.
Throw out the entire concept of grade levels. Let each student
work at their own pace in each subject. I might have had time to
learn calculus if I hadn't been wasting time doing high school
English and literature when my reading and language skills were
already college level.
Gene Szedenits, Jr.
"Sanford E. Walke IV" <se...@izzy6.izzy.net> wrote in message
news:4rM06.1331$JD2...@newsfeed.slurp.net...
> There are lots of people who love to read who just don't read very
quickly.
> Fiction, I read at about 100 pages an hour. Donda, who loves to read just
> as much as I do, reads about 20-30 pages an hour. She doesn't love
reading
> any less for reading more slowly, she just reads more slowly.
I enjoy reading as much as I ever did, but for some reason I find
myself reading more slowly as I get older. Not sure why.
Gene
John Hayes
> >> --Rose, with renewed determination to found a school someday and do it
> >> _right_. Anyone want to offer suggestions as to what "doing it right"
> >> entails? I'm all ears, and drinks are on... er, my tab (I'm not _that_
> >> sleepy) for anyone who chimes in!
All I can offer is what I had... and I found it to be pretty darned good.
- Residential (students live in dorms on college campus)
- 2-year (junior and senior year -- total enrollment about 400 students)
- State funded (minimal tuition -- room and board costs only)
- College schedule (MWF and TR classes)
- Students choose focus (math-sci, humanities, arts) or can choose multiple
focus (combinations of two, or all three if you're feeling godlike -- and
several did. And did well.)
- Staff are 80-90% Masters or above; proven outstanding educators picked
from state (or out-of-state) high schools and colleges
- Residential staff mostly school alumni
- No interscholastic sports, all IM
- Basic core requirements, and large selection of electives
- Night study -- instructors available for 3-4 hrs after school for
independent or directed study
- Large variety of clubs/activities (talent shows, etc)
- Special projects week as part of junior and senior year curriculum
(self-chosen, faculty assisted special interest projects, graded as part of
diploma requirements)
- Highly trained counseling staff (both personal and academic counseling --
and separate entities, not a catch-all counseling dept)
- Host college facilities (library, computer center, etc) available for use
The only downside I had was alienating myself from the friends I had at my
hometown school... and the overall effect of getting 400 really intelligent
kids together for a 9-month "overnighter" (and restricting their use of
cars, banning alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes, and designating the school
staff to act in loco parentis -- hooo boy!)... made for some really
difficult issues for the school to handle.
Can't complain about their results, though... I was only the 4th graduating
class from the school, and up until about 10 years after graduation, we held
a reunion _every year_, because we had all enjoyed it that much. I still
keep in touch with many of my classmates, as well as several of the faculty,
who were some of the most fantastic people to ever write on a chalkboard.
Heck, I met Rae at a reunion (even though we attended at different times,
and never knew until several years after) -- it definitely did good things
for me. :)
*shrug* -- maybe variations on this theme... like I said, it takes a lot of
dedicated teachers, a staff that really believes in the concept, and a state
legislature willing to front some $$ for the project. At the time they
created the school (1984), I don't know that there were any other similar
state-funded high schools for all three disciplines (NY Bronx school was
similar, and there was a similar North Carolina School, I think... and there
are now several others, including IIRC, Arkansas and Alabama)
Good luck -- I'd love to see more of these type of schools make a really
stellar education available to those who would really benefit from it,
regardless of their financial situation.
John Hayes
Louisiana School for Math Science and Arts, class of 1988
(www.lsmsa.org)
barbara trumpinski-roberts
> Another mileage varies point. I found Shakespeare to be unapproachable
> for many years, until I learned to read him aloud. Of course, I have to
> do different voices for all of the parts. The problem is I can only
> do the voices from the Looney Toons cartoons, so I have a habit of reading
> Shakespeare doing Daffy and Sylvester and Tweety. "Romeo and Juliet" is
> a HELL of alot more fun when you're reading Romeo as Pepe Le Pew.
kitten just giggles and tries to visualize pepe lepew and olivia hussey.
/\ /\ 'ah, but you don't have to know everything. you
{=.=} just have to know where to find it.' john brunner
~ kit...@uiuc.edu _shockwave rider_
http://members.tripod.com/~barbarakitten smotu
Martin Julian DeMello
> "OK, if all they know is Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, I suppose so ... but
> even those books are ripping good adult reads. And the vocabulary is way
> more sophisticated than most modern-day children's fare. But he wrote
> mostly for adults, and his most satirical work is just downright
> *wicked* - when we were exposed to it in high school, my friends and I
> couldn't believe the teacher was encouraging us to read some of this
> stuff."
Indeed - I highly recommend 'Life on the Mississippi' as a lovely example of
some very American humour. And AFAIK it's nothing a reasonably bookaholic
kid wouldn't enjoy either - I know I would have had I discovered it earlier.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Martin Julian DeMello
> TBird <break...@aol.comedancing> wrote:
>> I thought I was the only woman who found Wuthering Heights too unbearable
>> to read. Kate Bush has a beautiful song about Wuthering Heights, so
>> wonderful that it caused me to try again to read it after I'd left
>> college, but no - still unbearable....my own maturity level had nothing
>> to do with it.
> Damn... it _is_ a beautiful song, and had just about convinced me to
> pick it up and give it a try. But that's neither my preferred era nor my
> preferred type of writing, at all. Reading _Jane Eyre_ three years in
> succession for three different English classes (in three schools) was
> quite possibly what did the damage. Blech. I can't read Jane Austin
> either (and certainly haven't read enough to remember whether it's
> Austin or Austen, and I'm too tired to look it up).
Hey - don't lump Austen in with the rest of that lot!
--
Martin DeMello/zem (lost count of the number of times I've reread P&P)
Steve Brinich
>Sanford E. Walke IV <se...@izzy6.izzy.net> wrote:
>>Pat Kight <kig...@ucs.orst.edu> wrote:
>> > And they don't have to be joyless -- my god, what about Mark Twain?"
>>
>> Unfortunately, he's considered by many to be a "children's" author.
>
> Show them his rants on religion....
And racism, and imperialism, and a few other things. There's a
collection of these under the title "A Pen Warmed Up In Hell".
--
Steve Brinich <ste...@Radix.Net> If the government wants us
http://www.Radix.Net/~steveb to respect the law
89B992BBE67F7B2F64FDF2EA14374C3E it should set a better example
Conterpoint Four: http://www.filker.org/conterpoint/
Bernadette Krebs-Crumb
wrote:
>quoth Marc C Allain on 12/21/00 2:31 PM:
>
>> Hey! How about you start the kids reading the Canterbury Tales. After
>> a week of that, tell 'em, "Forget it, let's try something in English," and
>> hand 'em "Finnegan's Wake."
>
>Actually, translated into modern english, Canterbury Tales has some of the
>bawdiest, most outragous humor I've ever found. That could be a good way to
>start kids on classics, sex and violence are always winners <g>.
True! :) I have to admit that when I was reading "The Miller's Tale"
in the Student Center lounge, I got a lot of weird looks when I was
obviously stifling my laughter at the shenanigans that the Miller's
wife and her lover were up to! Now I WAS reading it in Middle English
rather than modern, but if one could get a well done modern
translation that kept the feel and meaning of the original (no
"cleaning it up" like so many of the translations I've seen), I know a
lot of high school juniors and seniors who would love it too.
Bernadette
The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.
-- Christopher Morley
Martin Julian DeMello
> This is not to say that I never wrote any "free verse"; I think anyone
> with an interest in poetry experiments with that during high school.
Not really - I had a sort of half-hearted stab at it once or twice, but
even that wasn't until I was well into college.
> But ultimately I found it unsatisfying, in the same way that I find
> "splatter art" unsatisfying.
I used to think so, but of late I've been discovering a lot of new
poetry[1], and I was quite surprised to see how beautiful and finely crafted
a lot of free verse is. I've still not been inspired to write any, but
that's mostly because it's not a style my muse is comfortable with.
> There's no talent or skill required; any schmoe off the street could do
> it.
Hm - I wouldn't say so. True, the entry bar is a lot lower, but to write
*good* free verse takes a considerable amount of talent[3]. It may not
require a good ear for rhyme and metre, but barring that there are all the
other requirements of the poet - imagery, sound, structure[4], the interplay
of form and content, etc. The Imagist poets are particularly rewarding in
this respect - indeed, it was Imagism that led me to an appreciation of free
verse in general.
The problem, of course, is that any fool *can* write free verse, and a lot
of them do. Gavin Ewart said it better than I could:
This is a great poem.
How I suffer!
How I suffer!
How I suffer!
This is a great poem.
Full of true emotion.
-- Gavin Ewart, 'A Great Poem'
and Nicanor Parra[5] surely had the last word on the subject
Write as you will
In whatever style you like
Too much blood has run under the bridge
To go on believing
That only one road is right.
In poetry everything is permitted.
With only this condition of course,
You have to improve the blank page.
-- Nicanor Parra, 'Young Poets'
[1] mostly thanks to running The Wondering Minstrels[2], a poem-of-the-day
list that has more than repaid the time and effort we've put into it
[2] www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels
[3] it's sort of like saying 'any schmo off the street can write prose'
[4] there's more to structure than regularity
[5] though for an amusing commentary on Parra and his 'antipoetry', see
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/190.html (scroll to the
bottom)
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Martin Julian DeMello
>>
>>
>>Could be worse. I'm aware of a "Frodo".
> My ex has a step-cousin named Arwen. (Fortunately, she's attractive enough for
> it not to have been a point of ridicule in school.)
> Celine
I know of a couple of Arwens - actually, that's one of the few names I feel
stands up nicely on its own, though it's all the more beautiful if you're
familiar with the derivation.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Louise Bremner
> }...and political history (all those kings and dreary Acts of
> }Parliament).
>
> I guess you went to school outside the US?
Yup.
> My school did the kings of England in English Lit rather than history.
> Except John and George III, of course. The Acts of Parliament we don't
> hear about, except the juicy ones like the Intolerable Acts, Stamp Act,
> etc.
But didn't you have the equivalent of dry lists of dates of Presidents
and Laws?
>
> }> ...to the detriment of the history of knowledge and art...
> }
> }...don't forget architecture, civil engineering, and simply how ordinary
> }people actually lived in the past.
>
> Isn't there a "Journal of Mundane History" or something which actually
> seeks out this kind of stuff? Only thing is I can't remember if it's
> legit or a joke.
Sounds interesting. I was thinking more of fiction such as Rosemary
Sutcliff's books, which built very convincing word-pictures of life in
the past. I also remember reading an engineering book aimed at younger
readers, which showed how the development of the arch led to larger and
more open structures and bridges, about roof trusses, firm roadbeds, and
the combination of water pipes and sewers....
________________________________________________________________________
Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
If you want a reply by e-mail, don't write to my Yahoo address!
Anne E. Ferguson
The woman with the salt & pepper hair steps through the door of The Place
with a stranger-than-usual gleam in her eye and a fistful of xeroxed
pages. Accepting a Capt. Morgan & coke from her fellow clothperson, Tom
Hauptman, she places the pages next to the Free Lunch and steps up to the
chalkline.
"Folk - for many of us this time of year is special. I, personally have
taken to calling it by the (partially borrowed) name of
Chanukkachristmasolstikwanzaadan.
My family, being a bit on the goofy side, has had, for lo these many years
now, a tradition that can easily fit into your celebration of winter
wonderfulness, no matter what your creed or philosophy. I brought the
pages along because I felt like sharing.
At 2:00 p.m. EST on December 25th, we Fergusons, wherever we may be, rise
in place and sing these immortal words of Walt Kelley. Please feel free
to take a copy with you and join in the fun. Or, name your own date and
time and get your friends and family started on a brand new
nondenominational Chanukkachristmasolstikwanzaadan tradition."
To tradition! ***CRASH***
And, heaving her glass into the fireplace, she begins to sing:
Deck us all with Boston Charlie
Walla walla wash, an' Kalamazoo
Nora's freezing on the trolly
Swaller, dollar, cauliflower, alley-ga-roo
Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullabye, lilly-boy, Louisville Lou
Trolly Molly don't love Harold
Boola boola Pennsacoola, hullabaloo
Bark us all bow-wows of folly
Polly wolly cracker n' too-da-loo
Donkey Bonny brays a carol
Antelope Cantalope 'lope with you
Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon
Willy folly go through
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow
Harum scarum five-alarum, bung-a-loo
Dunk us all in bowls of barley
Ninky dinky dink and polly voo
Chilly filly's name is Chollie
Chollie filly's jolly chilly view halloo
Bark us all bow-wows of folly
Double-bubble toyland trouble, woof, woof, woof
Tizzy season on melon collie
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble, goof, goof, goof
Rev. Anne
ferg...@prairienet.org
http://www.geckomoon.com/hm/hmmain.html
Anybody got the words to "Good King Sauerkraut"?
Martin Julian DeMello
> Martin Julian DeMello <mdem...@kennel.ruf.rice.edu> wrote:
>> 3. Orwell, '1984'.
>> As the generation of the technophobe gives way to that of the
>> technophile, people ought to at least be aware of some of the inherent
>> dangers involved. (I wouldn't force anyone under 15 to read this, though,
>> and I'd certainly present other books to balance it with).
> Which balancers are you thinking of? I'd add _Brave New World_ to this,
> so you'll need an awful lot of balancing!
Mostly science fiction - the whole 'two sides to every coin' thing. One
wouldn't want to tip the scales all the way into technoparanoia, after all -
antiscience is not an attitude *anyone* can afford to grow up with nowadays.
Plus the future *should* be an adventure; it's just that, like all real
adventures, a modicum of caution is required to get through it safely.
>> 7. Selected biographies - suggestions? Particularly ones of the sort that
>> would give a kid a 'wow - I never thought that was possible' thrill.
> I can't remember who wrote the bio of Tesla that I read, but it's great.
> Bios of Helen Keller--as well as a book called _Helen Keller's Teacher_
> that I still remember very vividly--and Braille and Pasteur were also
> extremely interesting, though you need to have a bit of understanding of
> biology and chemistry to understand Pasteur's life as well as his work.
>> 8. Perhaps a few books of the 'lest we forget' variety - no recommendations
>> here, though.
> Maus. And Elie Wiesel if you can stomach him. (I usually can't, but when
> I can, I admit there's a lot to learn there.) Any good books about the
> Crusades here, or the Inquisition? How about the history of the Incas
> and Mayans, from beginning to end? Oh, and _Bury My Heart at Wounded
> Knee_.
Not read any of those, I'm afraid.
>> 9. A book of children's stories from around the world.
>> The news and popular media are *not* a good way to learn about other
>> countries; children's fiction, backed by a teacher who knows what s/he's
>> talking about, might be.
> Or several books. And don't forget American ones! A lot of American
[snip list]
Wow - that was more than I expected :) List saved, and I'm looking forward
to discovering some of these myself.
>> (Has anyone else been frustrated by the fact that 'a book[1] a week' is
>> not a reasonable assumption for highschoolers? I'd *love* to be given a
>> free hand to design a reading list that required at least 100-200 pages
>> of fiction a week, and I'd practically guarantee that nearly all the
>> students would be markedly better for the experience. There are few joys
>> to rival providing both education and pleasure at once.)
> Remember that reading isn't a pleasure for everyone. I speak as the
> child of a reading family and an avid reader myself; it took us twelve
> years to figure out that it was physically difficult and discomfiting
> for my brother to read, and all of us trying to force books on him in
> hopes that _this_ would be the one to entice him into the world of
> literature didn't help any.
Good point - I hadn't thought about that (it's a very hard thing to
internalise, actually - there's still a little voice inside me that wonders
how anyone could *not* enjoy reading. Of course, replace reading with <fitb>
and you have every bore that ever lived pinned to a board and catalogued :))
> Also, given the homework load that most kids have these days--usually to
> prepare them for *spit* standardized tests--when would you suggest they
> do that reading? I can read 120 pages of pulp SF in forty minutes, but
> that's not exactly typical.
That's what I had in mind - students are way too overworked nowadays;
*making* them read when they'd rather not would be both cruel and
counterproductive.
> Now, designing a curriculum _around_ these books would be interesting, as
> long as there was a wide selection of works for every assignment so that
> no one had that horrible feeling of being force-fed something that might
> taste good if you could savor it rather than having it crammed down your
> throat.
And this was indeed my intended fix. No chance of it happening, though :-/
--
Martin DeMello/zem
'Geometry'
Never a mouse
chases ever a tail,
never a mouse ever sees
that always a cat
catches always a mouse,
cats being kittens
who once chased their tails.
Toss a pebble into a stream,
never a circle catches a circle;
shoot a dawn-ball
into the sky,
never a moonbeam
catches a sun;
drop the same thought
on the floor:
Only a kitten catches a tail,
the tail being straight,
the kitten a circle.
Yet never a mouse
chases ever a tail,
never a mouse ever sees
that always some death
catches always his mouse,
deaths being kittens
who once chased their tails.
-- Alfred Kreymborg
Martin Julian DeMello
> On 21 Dec 2000 14:56:33 GMT, Martin Julian DeMello
> ] Also, *why* do people feel it necessary to give already angst-ridden
> ] children the most dreary and depressing books they can lay their hands on?
> ] Yes, life can suck. No, I do not wish to be reminded of it when reading a
> ] novel. And no, I *particularly* do not wish to be reminded of it in school.
> While I appreciate and understand your point, I'm not sure that it's a
> legitimate filter for reading lists. I know you don't mean it this way,
> but it smacks of a politically correct "All Books Must Be Happy" policy.
Not 'Happy' as in 'happy happy joy joy', but I'd certainly like to emerge
from a book feeling better than when I entered it. I'm not saying that
schools should eschew sad novels, but there's a distinct impression among
the prescriptive literati that being upbeat makes a book less serious, and
therefore of lower merit (and vice versa of course.) And heaven forbid that
a prescribed book should actually be *funny*[1]! Or how else can you
explain the continued absence of everyone from Lewis Carroll to Wodehouse on
curricula, while 'Lord of the Flies' and 'Animal Farm' are practically
staples.
[1] though to be fair, 'Tom Sawyer' and Durrell's 'My Family and Other
Animals' have been welcome exceptions
> I was angst-ridden when I was a student, but I never remember being
> depressed by a book. Sure, lots of them were depressing, but I don't really
> remember feeling depressed because of one.
I've (thank glod) never been angst-ridden. I have been depressed by a couple
of books - most notably 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'The Nightingale and the
Rose'. (And one poem - the Merlin and Vivien bit from Tennyson's 'Idylls of
the King').
My point is that this was almost certainly a function of age. I was 12 when
I read 'Catcher', and I thought it the most depressing thing I'd ever seen
(though *not* that 'sad'; there's a distinct difference). I have since been
told that, contrary to my memory, it's *not* about someone throwing his
entire life away; I prolly ought to reread it someday[2]. I read Nightingale at
10 or so; it can still make me cry, but it no longer depresses me. And the
Tennyson I wish someone had warned me away from - I was 9, and the
combination of King Arthur and poetry was irrestible, but the image of
Merlin doomed to immortality imprisoned in a tree was way too much for my
imagination. (There was also a children's story I read when I was *very*
young that ended up with the sorcerer's treacherous apprentice being turned
to stone by a backfiring spell; I somehow got the impression that he
nonetheless retained consciousness, and brooded for months over it - it
didn't seem like a fate anyone should suffer. I'd go quiet and look kind of
sad, and my mum would ask 'are you thinking about that story again?')
'Flowers for Algernon' I read in college, and again, it was sad, but not
precisely depressing. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to read it at anything
younger than 15, though.
[2] fwiw, a friend with a very similar background fully agrees with me about
Catcher being one of the most depressing books he's read, so it's not just
me.
> It would be better to try and pick books that have important things to
> offer, whether it is historical, cultural, literary, or whatever. Sure,
> some of those books are going to be dreary, but that shouldn't invalidate
> what they have to offer. Some books are dreary BECAUSE of what they have
> to offer, and you won't find it in a happier work.
And once the idea that reading is fun has been inculcated, the child has an
entire lifetime to read those books. FWIW, I attended a school that
followed the British O Level curriculum, and I shall be everlastingly
grateful for the list of books we did. A quick run through:
'The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler', Gene Kemp - lovely children's book, and
one of the best jobs I've ever seen of hiding the protagonist's sex until
the very end.
'The Diddakoi', Rumer Godden, about the trials of a young half-gypsy girl
dealing with the cruelty of kids in a small English town, after her last
relative died, and she was forced into society. *Not* a particularly happy
book, note, but it had a happy ending (I have no idea why people sneer at
that), and it wasn't dreary.
'Tom Sawyer', Mark Twain. If you haven't read it, do!
'The Railway Children', E. Nesbit. Another 'broken home' book, about a
family of kids whose father was framed and imprisoned. But that's just the
substrate over which a wonderfully alive book is painted.
'The Silver Sword', Ian Serralier. Four children in war-torn Poland
struggling to survive and find the parents they were separated from.
Somewhat idealised, of course, but only to the extent that a children's book
demanded.
'Treasure Island', R. L. Stevenson. A true classic - I'd read it, of course,
and was surprised at how much more I got out of studying it in class.
(To balance that, we did a lot of modern British poetry that someone decided
was just the sort of thing primary school kids would enjoy, and which was
quite frankly awful. There's a *reason* the old masters are still read. The
only name I remember with any degree of fondness (or at all!) was Roger
McGough, who I'd prolly have discovered on my own anyway).
And getting into the higher classes, classics like 'Pride and Prejudice',
'Far From the Madding Crowd' and one or two others I'm forgetting. (And the
obligatory Shakespeare-a-year, of course, but Shakespeare definitely
improves with being studied. And we did Macbeth, which is my favourite.)
Not a single depressing or dreary book in the lot (except for the Hardy,
which I nonetheless enjoyed, and which didn't come until I was 15 and in the
11th grade), and I cannot help but think that I was better off for it.
The *only* two books I had to do in school and which I disliked were
Wuthering Heights (which, as I said, I was nonetheless glad to study for the
sheer craftsmanship and writing) and the Metaphysical Poets (Donne, Herbert,
Marvell). I still wonder if I'd have disliked Donne et al anyway - I
probably would have, but I can't be sure.
My point (see - I did have one!) is that the most important thing a book can
have offer a school-age child is the desire to read more books. *Everything*
else pales in comparison.
--
Martin DeMello/zem
Jette Goldie
Claire Black <cc...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message
news:91u92v$d98$1...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au...
> Rick Vermillion-Salsbury (er...@concentric.net) wrote:
> [snip SAT explanation which makes SAT's sort of make sense to me now I
> know what they are out of....]
>
> : [1] Our valedictorian's SAT was 170 points lower than mine,
> : IIRC -- and I don't know where the National Merit cutoffs
> : were. They had different levels of scholarship, and I think
> : they adjusted for scores in each region of the country.
>
> "...and valedictorian would be? Umm the person who came first in your
> school or something? National Merit scholars are/do/get what?"
>
> Weredonut, still learning to speak American :)
I think in the UK we'd say "Dux"
--
Jette (was Dux once upon a time)
jette...@thefreeinternet.co.uk
http://members.tripod.com/~bosslady/fanfic.html