Required reading?

[fuyuko_neko]

 You know, I cannot for the life of me figure out why English/literature professors pick some of the books that the do as required reading for a course. Then again, I have found over the years that I prefer a 'selection list' - wherein students choose their own book or books to read off of a list and then have to do class work from those. You can

Comments

You have not read To Kill? Fix that. Now.

[laryna6]

To Kill a Mockingbird contains Atticus Finch. He's at the top of the '100 greatest movie heroes of all time' list of this major critics group, and that's just the movie version. A small town lawyer is one of the greatest fictional heroes of all time. That man defines what heroism is, and there are a lot more fundamental truths than that in this thing

[nemi_chan]

Respectfully, I disagree. "Classics" should be read, but with the level of literacy in this country I doubt they will get much out of them. Even "Girl Interrupted" might be above some of them, let alone "The Handmaiden's Tale."

Critical thinking, reading between the lines, the concept of an unreliable narrator; these things are learned, and sadly, we are out right discouraging it in some cases.

For AP classes, for honors, yes pile on the good stuff on people you know who will comprehend it. Otherwise I think we should probably switch to...Star Wars novels or something, and hope that the reading bug bites these kids.