Author Topic: Ah lets see what books our advanced children are reading these days... (Read 1797 times)

Traditional Guy 20 · « **on:** February 16, 2014, 08:14:29 PM »

This is taken from an AP Literature and Composition Course from my old high school. So these must be the "advanced students" who show "hope and promise" and are most likely to "succeed in the real world"....

Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

A Light in August – William Faulkner

Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison

Pygmalion -- George Bernard Shaw

Wow I never took an AP course in high school to prepare me for college but I definitely have better literature to read than this garbage.

Mama ChaCha · « **Reply #1 on:** February 16, 2014, 08:29:57 PM »

Really? That's an advanced reading list??? How would they classify Hilare Belloc?

We can tell that this generation is the most advanced of all time because they routinely drop any and all unnecessary letters and words.

YKWIM? :smoke-pot:

Cuthbert · « **Reply #2 on:** February 16, 2014, 08:43:41 PM »

I prefer books on history, memoirs & books on languages to fiction. The only exceptions being Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories & some of the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov & Joseph Conrad.

Frances · « **Reply #3 on:** February 16, 2014, 08:59:53 PM »

:reading:
I recall reading a few of the books on the list in middle school. In the US, that is grades 6-8, approx. ages 12-14. But this is from the AP class? AP=Advanced Placement? High school? Truthfully, I don't remember any required reading in high school with the exception of Beowolf in 9th grade English.

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 16, 2014, 09:12:02 PM »

Quote from: Mama ChaCha

Really? That's an advanced reading list??? How would they classify Hilare Belloc?

We can tell that this generation is the most advanced of all time because they routinely drop any and all unnecessary letters and words.

YKWIM? :smoke-pot:

Well personally it's not really that the books themselves are juvenile, since they are in fact high school and college reading, but that the books and authors are left-wing authors and thus a complete waste of time and space in the brain.

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 16, 2014, 09:30:00 PM »

Quote from: Cuthbert

Joseph Conrad.

He is an author they definitely need to bring back and make required reading in high school and college.

Frances · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2014, 09:37:05 PM »

Quote from: Traditional Guy 20

the books and authors are left-wing authors

Try some of these! All read in middle school in 1973-74...
Rules For Radicals
Johnny Got His Gun
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Brave New World
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
Catcher In There Rye
films, Hearts and Minds, A Clockwork Orange, The Lottery, (I still have the occasional nightmare about this one.), Hair--the Musical, Altamont, (more nightmares),The Grapes of Wrath...
The list is tame in comparison. No, my parents had no idea what I was actually "learning."

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:02:03 PM »

Quote from: Frances

Rules For Radicals

Is that Saul Alinsky's socialist book? The one whom Obama is a disciple of?

Quote

Johnny Got His Gun

Dalton Trumbo was also well-known as a member of the "Hollywood Ten"- the Hollywood directors involved in communist activities.

Quote

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Ah yes the book which recounted the drug-filled experiences of two junkies.

Quote

Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

That is a very wierd play.

Quote

Catcher In There Rye

J.D. Salinger's novel is quite famous for being the quitessential spark of the mind of the counter-culture.

Quote

films, Hearts and Minds, A Clockwork Orange, The Lottery, (I still have the occasional nightmare about this one.), Hair--the Musical, Altamont, (more nightmares),The Grapes of Wrath...
The list is tame in comparison. No, my parents had no idea what I was actually "learning."

"Hearts and Minds" is your usual anti-Vietnam War liberal docuмentary. "A Clockwork Orange" is a very disturbing movie based on rape and violence (and might I add forever sullied Beethoven). "The Grapes of Wrath" was written by the commie John Steinbeck and praised by FDR, two down-thumbs for someone like me.

So it seems you got your daily dose of hippie counter-culture nonsense.

Cuthbert · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:04:27 PM »

Traditional Guy, which do you consider to be the best of Joseph Conrad's books?

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:04:29 PM »

Quote from: Frances

The list is tame in comparison.

Hmm well nowadays girls read nonsense like the Twilight series, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc.

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #10 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:06:13 PM »

Quote from: Cuthbert

Traditional Guy, which do you consider to be the best of Joseph Conrad's books?

Hmm well I enjoy 4 of his best novels: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, and The Secret Agent. I like them all equally the same but probably enjoy The Secret Agent the most.

Mabel · « **Reply #11 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:09:59 PM »

Only a few of those books we read in my non-advanced English class. To be fair, we covered quite a few classics, some of which I will be reading with my own children, nothing from what was mentioned above, except Beowulf.
I don't think that is a very advanced list, by the way.

Cuthbert · « **Reply #12 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:10:58 PM »

I haven't read them all, but I also like Secret Agent the best, followed by Heart of Darkness. I'm reading a book of his short stories on Project Gutenberg now, some of them are also excellently written.

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #13 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:11:41 PM »

Quote from: Mabel

Only a few of those books we read in my non-advanced English class. To be fair, we covered quite a few classics, some of which I will be reading with my own children, nothing from what was mentioned above, except Beowulf.
I don't think that is a very advanced list, by the way.

It is from an AP course which is college-level work. Anyways, I should have mentioned that is actually a summer reading list before you start that course.

What books did you cover?

Mabel · « **Reply #14 on:** February 16, 2014, 11:46:22 PM »

Quote from: Traditional Guy 20

Quote from: Mabel
Only a few of those books we read in my non-advanced English class. To be fair, we covered quite a few classics, some of which I will be reading with my own children, nothing from what was mentioned above, except Beowulf.
I don't think that is a very advanced list, by the way.

It is from an AP course which is college-level work. Anyways, I should have mentioned that is actually a summer reading list before you start that course.

What books did you cover?

From what I can remember, and this is not an endorsement...
A Christmas Carol
Great Expectations
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar
Beowulf
The Scarlet Letter
Of Mice and Men
Moby Dick
Pygmalion
Hamlet
Lord of The Flies
A Day No Pigs would Die
Macbeth
The Iliad and The Odyssey
The Canterbury Tales
L'Morte d'Arthur
The Walden
famous poems, especially Robert Frost

I know there were more but I can't really recall them, especially the works by Transcendentalists. I also read many more from common high school lists on my own in elementary school and junior high.