"Classic Literature"

[mshea]

So, tomorrow I need to take a state English teacher exam so that the school can identify me as "highly qualified." I will try to avoid getting into too much detail about how little this test applies to my job and my qualifications to do it well and just mention that the majority of the test involves needed to know roughly 100 authors from various

Comments

[mshea]

I thought I would add the things on this massive list that I remember particularly enjoying.

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (short and available online!)

[aunticrist]

Catcher in the Rye
To Kill A Mockingbird
A Raisin in the Sun
Native Son
The Great Gatsby (especially in conjunction with Native Son)
The Prince
1984
Slaughterhouse Five
Of Mice and Men (Another good one to read around the time of reading Native Son)

[aunticrist]

Oh crap....duh, it just occurred to me that I also left off Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, duh.

So yeah, those two as well.

[mshea]

I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird with my 8th graders right now.

[mshea]

6th grade is doing Tom Sawyer right now.

I should have included the Iliad on my list. I have the Robert Fitzgerald translation which I quite like.

And I think the Hobbit should always count.

[irenak]

I would ask if you chose this topic just for me, but I know you didn't. ^_

[mshea]

I didn't mention Shakespeare on my list, but Macbeth is my favorite.

Note to self: all my friends love Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby,and the Crucible.

I' didn't teach it this year, but the other 8th grade classes did Fahrenheit 451.

[mshea]

Your list of "Books I Wouldn't Subject My Worst Enemy To" reminded me of one of my favorite throw-away lines from Grosse Point Blank.

John Cusack's character, visiting his high school for his reunion, asks his old English teacher if they are still "inflicting all that horrible Ethan Frome damage."

[flameprincess]

The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry - Mildred D. Taylor
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Lady or The Tiger? - Frank Stockton
Hiawatha - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Bartleby - Herman Melville

The works of Dorothy Parker - I think she is sadly overlooked

[flameprincess]

Because it got aunticrist and I talking:

Portrait of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (my choice)
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (his choice)
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (his choice)
Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbit (my choice)

[mshea]

I got to teach Christmas Carol too.

[flameprincess]

Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling (his choice)
Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling (my choice)