darkSpyro

What books, plays, or poems did you have to read for English class?

I had to study...

Great Expectations - It was OK but really boring
Much Ado About Nothing - I'd enjoy it more if I could understand the language...
And either Animal Farm or An Inspector Calls (We haven't got there yet)

• Shakespeare, such as Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet .
  
• The Chrysalids (was actually a really good book).
  
• Life of Pi.
  
• The Old Man and the Sea (not sure why it was popular, he spent half the book yelling at his hand and it ends with the fish being eaten and him going home to bed )
  
• Heart of Darkness
  

That's all that I can remember at the moment.

Going from Primary 5, books I had to read for English:

P5: Some Michael Morpurgo novel involving the sea - I thought it was OK at the time but I remember no plot about it.

P6: Stormbreaker(Alex Rider series) - Good book and I liked the introduction to the series, and it got me into the series.

P7: Goodnight Mr Tom + The Boy In The Stripes Pyjamas - Goodnight Mr Tom was also an interesting book and probably my favourite primary school book for class. You should probably know my basic thoughts on the 2nd novel(I also have controversial opinions on it).

S1: Room 13 - Horror book focusing on Whitby + Dracula, it was OK and the payoff was decent enough.

S3: The Merchant Of Venice - Also OK, though I found it a bit boring and messy too.

S4: Macbeth - Better than the last Shakespeare play I read and it was at least interesting plot-wise.
Of Mice and Men- A bit short for my liking but I enjoyed it regardless.

I'm most likely doing my final exam essay on Macbeth since I somehow have a better grasp on its ideas than Of Mice and Men's.

Tons of stuff from Brazilian literature. Usually about rich people screwing everyone over in increasingly comic villainy and this somehow being a lesson on how it'll totes happen in real life. And the occasional story about poor people just being the new noble savage - or just savage if the guy is cynical enough.

Right now we're reading To Kill a Mockingbird

Throughout this school year (9th) we've read:

The Odyssey
Oedipus the King
Romeo and Juliet
Of Mice and Men
The House on Mango Street
And the aforementioned To Kill a Mockingbird

we didn't read much

but I did end up reading these three:
The Crucible by Arthur Miller (honestly I thought it was really good)
Things Fall Apart by ?? (African man thinks he's manly after farming yams and beating his wives, proceeds to commit suicide after society doesn't think he's manly anymore)
A Doll's House (honestly I was playing hearthstone the entire time cause there was no test on it)

Quote: Spyro Fanatic

I've mentioned this short story I had to read before on dS, but for those of you who didn't see my post, here it is again. Be warned, it's depressing and very realistic.

Reveal Spoiler

It was a story about a single father who couldn't learn how to read and his son. The father loved his son and would often try to make his life an enjoyable one. However, the father often made mistakes and embarrassed himself whenever a task required reading.

I remember one part in the story where the father wanted to make his son a dessert requiring peaches, but instead of canned peaches he brought canned onions since the picture on the can looked very similar. The father felt so ashamed of himself, but the son didn't mind and loved his father all the same.

Several years later when the son has his own family, he get's a call from a coroner saying his father has died from a heart attack. The son goes to his fathers house and finds a bottle of medication for his fathers heart on the floor. He examines the bottle and finds there are many scratches from fingernails on the lid. The son looks at the cap and it says "push down and twist to open."

Still makes me tear up when I write it.

Oh wow. That is heartbreaking.

Depressing literature is like a requirement for reading on high school it seems. Yeah sometimes it's realistic like that, sometimes it's grossly exaggerated to the point it's obvious it's the writer's soapbox and they're completely blinded by his own ideology to use common sense. I suggest you guys checking out O Cortiço/The Slum by Aluísio Azevedo if you want an example of that with a nice serving of 'poor people are horrible and when they get rich they're just faking their savagery'.
The "Realism" writing movement in Brazil was stupid in my opinion, I'll just get that out of the way. Stuff by Machado de Assis gets close but at least it's still enjoyable for crossing all the lines and being fully aware of how ridiculous it is.

Parvana
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
Hanna's Suitcase
Tomorrow When the War Began
Of Mice and Men
The Stranger (or The Outsider, depending on the translation)
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth

I'm forgetting something, I'm sure.

Year 7:
- Refugee Boy
Year 8:
- Macbeth
- Sherlock Holmes
Year 9:
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Raven's Gate
Year 10:
- A Christmas Carol
- Romeo and Juliet
Year 11:
- An Inspector Calls
- Of Mice and Men
- Poems from an Anthology book

That's all I remember. I can't remember what I read in primary school.

this year we read
Call of the Wild
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Outsiders

i like reading, but i hare being forced to read, especially when it gets super detailed, probably one of the reasons I couldn't read Animal Farm and 1984 all the way through.

5th
Ella Enchanted

6th
Ender's Game

7th
A Christmas Carol

8th
Farewell to Manzaraar
Warriors Don't Cry
Farenheit 451

9th
1984-
Of Mice and Men
Animal Farm
To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Scarlet Ibis

10th
Catcher and the Rye

11th
The Great Gatsby
The Glass Menagerie

i took an honors class in the 9th grade

never again

Divergent in 5th grade
The Hunger Games in 6th grade
Maze Runner in 7th grade
Twilight in 8th grade (currently)

Quote: Pokemon2

Divergent in 5th grade
The Hunger Games in 6th grade
Maze Runner in 7th grade
Twilight in 8th grade (currently)

Are you kidding me?

Quote: Pokemon2

Divergent in 5th grade
The Hunger Games in 6th grade
Maze Runner in 7th grade
Twilight in 8th grade (currently)

I think this topic mainly applies to books you've studied not read casually. I doubt Twilight is study material, unless you're taking a course on how not to write a book.

Quote: yelvy

Quote: Pokemon2

Divergent in 5th grade
The Hunger Games in 6th grade
Maze Runner in 7th grade
Twilight in 8th grade (currently)

Are you kidding me?

Yeah **** young adult novels. >:(

Quote: somePerson

Quote: yelvy

Quote: Pokemon2

Divergent in 5th grade
The Hunger Games in 6th grade
Maze Runner in 7th grade
Twilight in 8th grade (currently)

Are you kidding me?

Yeah **** young adult novels.

Hey, that's not what I meant! I've actually read 3 out of 4 of these.

I just don't believe anybody would end up studying these books for school. I mean, Twilight in 8th grade?

Quote: parisruelz12

I think this topic mainly applies to books you've studied not read casually. I doubt Twilight is study material, unless you're taking a course on how not to write a book.

See, parisruelz gets me.

Uh, I don't exactly remember them all or what times I had to read them

The Indian in the Cupboard
Dear Mr. Henshaw
Bridge to Terabithia
The Sacrifice
My Brother Sam is Dead
Ashes of Roses (One of my favorites)
The Hunger Games (Ok, story time folks. So in 8th grade, the teacher got a collection of books and told us we had to choose one of them and read it with others who chose that same book. Now, everything else we could choose from I had already read. Then I saw the Hunger Games. Now, I wasn't interesting at all in the book but I knew a few of my friends liked it. I thought, why not, as it seemed the most interesting of all of the books and I didn't feel like rereading any of them. And that's how it happened. It's all my 8th grade English teacher's fault.)
Romeo and Juliet
The Outsiders
Life as We Knew It
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
To Kill a Mockingbird
Until They Bring The Streetcars Back (Hated it)
The Great Gatsby (I HATE IT)

Quote: Pokemon2

Divergent in 5th grade
The Hunger Games in 6th grade
Maze Runner in 7th grade
Twilight in 8th grade (currently)

.....

Let's see what I remember... These are all the big novels/novellas or plays that we had to read (and not in order). There's no way I'll remember all of the short stories.

Before 6th grade:
-The Indian in the Cupboard
-The BFG (Big Friendly Giant)
Some other things I forgot.

6th grade:
-A Wrinkle in Time (eh, didn't like it as much as others did)
I swear we read some other big things, but I forgot.

7th grade:
-The Westing Game (liked it better than most people did)
-The Outsiders (hated it at the time but I like it now)
-Daniel's Story (very sad, but I liked it)
We might've read something else, but I forgot. Again.

8th grade:
-The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (didn't like it at the time but I like it now)
-The Giver (it was okay)
Miiiight've read some other big thing, but guess what? I forgot.

9th grade:
-The Odyssey (pretty cool)
-Romeo and Juliet (yep, well... yep. it was okay)
-The Sword in the Stone (honestly, I didn't like it, mostly because we had to read it super fast and it's a story that you really need to slow down on)
-To Kill a Mockingbird (liked it)
-Fahrenheit 451 (I didn't think it was as great as my teacher built it up to be, but it was pretty interesting)

10th grade:
-Tuesdays with Morrie (I really love this book, cried my eyes out at the ending even though everyone knew it was coming; I don't cry easily)
-The Grapes of Wrath (I honestly did not like this book much, mostly because I disliked almost all of the characters... I get its point, though)
-Antigone (well, it was... something)
-The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (I like it)
-The Bean Trees (also liked this one)
-A lot of short stories too, like The Bass, the River and Shelia Mant (eh), The Cold Equations (great story, but the story >>>>>>>>>>>> the piece of **** movie; they just had to turn it into an abrupt, out-of-place and no development whatsoever romance and a "**** the government" movie), this one where this guy gets lost and dies of hypothermia (pretty sad story), and a lot of other ones.

11th grade (so far):
-East of Eden (I liked it, actually)
-Song of Solomon (also liked this one)
-The Crying of Lot 49 (hfs I absolutely despised this one)
-The Old Man and the Sea (pretty interesting)
-Huckleberry Finn (I love this book too)
-And he passes out an assload of other shorter stories that we rarely even do anything with, like Sonny's Blues (yeaaah, didn't care for this one much), Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been (interesting and disturbing), Good Country People (disturbing), A Rose For Emily (I loved this one, was definitely disturbing but interesting; it's the kind of thing I like to read outside of school), some story where a criminal gang kills a family after they crashed for pretty much no reason (forgot the name, but I didn't care much for it anyway), and that's proooobably it...

I've been in honors classes since 7th grade, so we read a lot... The regular class has also read some interesting books that I want to read like Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, The Sea-Wolf, and The Road.

Oh, and this year I'm in the English Academic Superbowl, and the theme is "Hoosier Heritage" so I've had to read these few poems and stories by authors from Indiana:
-The Magnificent Ambersons is our novel (I like it, but the main character is a dick)
-Our short stories are all by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and they are Harrison Bergeron (pretty awesome), Adam (also good), Who Am I This Time? (good), and EPICAC (pretty good).
-Aaaand we have two poems by James Whitcomb Riley (they are Dusk and Art and Love, both nice) and two by Mari Evans (they are Where Have You Gone and When In Rome, both also good)

Oh my... Have fun scrolling past my post, guys.

Quote: yelvy

Quote: somePerson

Quote: yelvy

Are you kidding me?

Yeah **** young adult novels.

Hey, that's not what I meant! I've actually read 3 out of 4 of these.

I just don't believe anybody would end up studying these books for school. I mean, Twilight in 8th grade?

Quote: parisruelz12

I think this topic mainly applies to books you've studied not read casually. I doubt Twilight is study material, unless you're taking a course on how not to write a book.

See, parisruelz gets me.

It's used for IB Units (since my school is a International Baccalaureate school) we had to learn about societies, etc.

Quote: Pokemon2

Quote: yelvy

Quote: somePerson

Yeah **** young adult novels.

Hey, that's not what I meant! I've actually read 3 out of 4 of these.

I just don't believe anybody would end up studying these books for school. I mean, Twilight in 8th grade?

Quote: parisruelz12

I think this topic mainly applies to books you've studied not read casually. I doubt Twilight is study material, unless you're taking a course on how not to write a book.

See, parisruelz gets me.

It's used for IB Units (since my school is a International Baccalaureate school) we had to learn about societies, etc.

Oh, Okay - Sorry for the misunderstanding. I haven't heard of IB Units before though, what are they?

Quote: yelvy

Quote: Pokemon2

Quote: yelvy

Hey, that's not what I meant! I've actually read 3 out of 4 of these.

I just don't believe anybody would end up studying these books for school. I mean, Twilight in 8th grade?


See, parisruelz gets me.

It's used for IB Units (since my school is a International Baccalaureate school) we had to learn about societies, etc.

Oh, Okay - Sorry for the misunderstanding. I haven't heard of IB Units before though, what are they?

It's in certain schools worldwide where we have to learn something about life and other things.

Quote: Pokemon2

Quote: yelvy

Quote: Pokemon2

It's used for IB Units (since my school is a International Baccalaureate school) we had to learn about societies, etc.

Oh, Okay - Sorry for the misunderstanding. I haven't heard of IB Units before though, what are they?

It's in certain schools worldwide where we have to learn something about life and other things.

so, how is a book about fictional moody vampires and werewolves who wanna **** babies about life

not being mean just, really dont understand at all

Or how it's unable to get social life in anywhere right, including but not limited to getting everything wrong about Brazil in one of the last books?

Doesn't seem very legit to me,or at least horribly subject to abuse.

Quote: Bifrost

Or how it's unable to get social life in anywhere right, including but not limited to getting everything wrong about Brazil in one of the last books?

Doesn't seem very legit to me,or at least horribly subject to abuse.

The honors class had to read a book about suicide to learn about teenage drug overdose and my 7th grade Language Arts Intervention class had to read a book about a person with Autism.

Yeah, but you had to read a book about a teenager angsting about how she wants to be a vampire and humans suck. Very big difference there.

I forgot a few

We had these reading groups in the 7th grade, I was in a group of all girls..who were really picky. The first two books we had to read. The second two we had to pick. The girls complained that the first two books were either too boring or too dark. I relly didn't like what they picked next.
7th Grade
A book about the Lewis and Clark expedition, I don't remember what it was. It was good.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime-This was such a good book, honestly. The girls in my group turned their noses to it because it was too dark or something. Me personally, I really like how the story is told from the point of view from someone who is autistic, rather than a second hand experience of it. Like for example Rules or something.
Cuss/The Grape Thief or something, I really didn't care- This book I honestly hated, it took forever to get going, wasn't that great of a story and just was overall boring. The other girls in the group thought the same.

The Secret Life of Bees. Where do I begin? How about by saying, I didn't actually read it. (I actually read a different groups book behind my groups back. shhhh, don't tell.)

Year 9- Ender's Game. It was okay.
Year 10- Mao's Last Dancer. It was terrible I hate biographies they're boring as hell. Also Shakespeare's Taming of a Shrew.
Year 11 and 12 we just did some ****ty NZ poems or something. Also I think we did the Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare too. Don't really remember it tho.
Year 13- One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. It was super weird, and I related to the main character more than I probably should have, but it was okay.

Elementary:
All I really remember reading in 5th grade was this book called Lily's Crossing. I don't remember much about it, but I remember it was horribly depressing.

Middle School:
-The Hunger Games
-The Illiad
-The Odyssey

I was in Gifted and it sucked ass, but at least I liked all three of those books.

High School:
I don't remember many outside of the AP Lit class I dropped because the teacher told me I "wasn't fit for society", but we did read:
-The Scarlet Letter
-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
-To Kill A Mockingbird

And then I dropped it because she was a mean *****.

College:
Strangely, I haven't had to read any novels for English 1101 OR 1102, but I have a lot of assigned readings for Western Civ 1101 and 1102.
We read:
-The Prince
-Whatever the story of Gilgamesh was (maybe it was just "Gilgamesh")
-Beowulf
-Candide
-Frankenstein
-All Quiet on the Western Front

Elementary
- Tuck Everlasting
- The Black Death
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Middle School
- The Pigman
- Assortment of Short Stories

High School
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Monkey's Paw
- The Most Dangerous Game
- The Odyssey
- 1984
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Night
- Julius Caesar
- The Scarlet Letter
- Blink
- Quiet
- A Separate Peace
- The Things They Carried
- Things Fall Apart
- The Heart of Darkness
- Of Mice and Men
- Grapes of Wrath
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- Hamlet
- Frankenstein
- Pride and Prejudice
- The Importance of Being Earnest
- The Great Gatsby

I've come a long way. AP Lit is a fun class and I recommend you guys take it if you like reading.

The Crucible
Poe poems
The Great Gatsby

Quote: Pokemon2

Quote: yelvy

Quote: somePerson

Yeah **** young adult novels.

Hey, that's not what I meant! I've actually read 3 out of 4 of these.

I just don't believe anybody would end up studying these books for school. I mean, Twilight in 8th grade?

Quote: parisruelz12

I think this topic mainly applies to books you've studied not read casually. I doubt Twilight is study material, unless you're taking a course on how not to write a book.

See, parisruelz gets me.

It's used for IB Units (since my school is a International Baccalaureate school) we had to learn about societies, etc.

IB is an 11th-12th grade program buddy (source: I'm in IB.)

The only other thing is Cambridge which starts at 6th grade, but I never read any of those when I was in it since it's all an international curriculum.

why is twilight the best example of society.

like, if anything, it's kinda the worst example, really.

Quote: parisruelz12

why is twilight the best example of society.

like, if anything, it's kinda the worst example, really.

Wait, what do you mean? Did you have to read Twilight?

I've read Freak the Mighty, Mississippi 1969, Monster, and Night so far in middle school, and I'm about to read Midsummer's Night Dream. I'm probably forgetting a few books, though.

Quote: The Bone Chompy

Quote: parisruelz12

why is twilight the best example of society.

like, if anything, it's kinda the worst example, really.

Wait, what do you mean? Did you have to read Twilight?

I've read Freak the Mighty, Mississippi 1969, Monster, and Night so far in middle school, and I'm about to read Midsummer's Night Dream. I'm probably forgetting a few books, though.

I have, but it's been years. I might be wrong, explain.

the outsiders is the only thing ive liked that ive read in school

For this year, the things we've read are:

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Odyssey
Much Ado About Nothing
The Laughing Sutra

And I forget if there was more. Don't really remember any from past years except Romeo and Juliet.

we are currently reading the blood brothers play in drama class

Quote: Wreckingball13

The House on Mango Street

Right now we're reading this too. I don't really know how I feel about it so far... It's kinda funny in some parts...

EDIT: Oh, whoops... Well, bump.

Pretty much the same as Reshiram, except I studied a book called Trust Me Too instead of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (Would've loved to have studied that instead, though.)
Have a feeling I'm also forgetting something but oh well.

I also studied some odd poem excerpts for extension english in year 7, but I don't remember specific ones.

Quote: LevanJess

Quote: Wreckingball13

The House on Mango Street

Right now we're reading this too. I don't really know how I feel about it so far... It's kinda funny in some parts...

EDIT: Oh, whoops... Well, bump.

I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

Lord of the Flies
The Giver (only one I liked)
The Outsiders
Romeo & Juliet
The Great Gatsby
The Crucible (not yet, we're about to start it)
The Diary of Anne Frank
Night
The Odyssey
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Illiad (not positive if we did, but I seem to remember reading it)

Note: These are not in order, and there was probably more, but this is all I remember. There were definitely some poems. And then there's books I read to read, of course, rather than these ones that they forced us to.

Quote: Wreckingball13

I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

Well, that's good I'm about halfway through it. It's not bad, but I'm just kind of worried because so far I really can't predict at all what the questions on the test are going to be or what my teacher is going to focus on since it jumps around a lot and all. I don't know what he'll pinpoint for us to really analyze. For me, it's just not as obvious as it was in, say, Huckleberry Finn. But it is short and maybe it'll make more sense later on. Or maybe that's just how it's supposed to be and he'll take it easy on us.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, he's probably going to focus on the balloon part. There's something, lol.
EDIT2: I just read a bit more about it. Its point and the way its written makes more sense to me now. I like it

One of my favorites I've read in school was " And Then There Were None"

Year 9

-some Latin poem

Year 10

-Of Mice And Men and Animal Farm

Year 11

-Of Mice And Men and An Inspector Calls