Mandatory reading in high school? What did you have to read?

And just to add, I remember in high-school, the lack of support/acknowledge for Canadian authors and artists made me feel like success in writing wasn't a tangible goal in Canada and that one would have to go to the states.

High-school cirriculumns are so crappy (we need to teach about residental schools), why do we ignore the actual history and people within the country?

I'll just blame Harper.

hmmm, I like the idea of kids being able to choose what they want to read (especially in high-school for mandatory reading), but I wonder if contemporary CanLit will ever be included?

I know that when I was in high-school, if we would have read an author from that same city (or near, or just tangible) it probably would have inspired me to not only read the books (i read the books), but given me hope and encouragement. 

My high-school did not have a Can Lit class, we did have an Eng Lit class, which was studying mostly Shakespeare in-depth. Though important, not the end-all-be-all. I think what is difficult about getting kids to read and engage is that the novels they are forced to read are dated in language and relateability (also, in taming of the shrew, when she is successfully 'tamed' and that is regarded as awesome, my little feminist 14 year old self died a bit in side. It was barely explained that this was a sign of the times and not acceptable.).

Don't you think integrating modern Canadian literature would have a greater impact on high-school kids, especially since they could engage with the authors/publishers on social media mediums?

Likewise our oldest son was able to interview  Saint John artist Herzl Kashetsky for an assignment last year.

I'm glad I missed out on Who Has Seen the Wind? then -- I don't think that even graced my high-school library's bookshelf.

Oh, All Quiet On the Western Front and Uncle Tom's Cabin -- those were a couple too. I feel I have blocked out a lot of these books because even if the books were interesting (most were, if not all) the assignments that followed up with them were terrible! Just terrible!

your kid's are lucky they got those experiences!

Although, I could have tried to chat with them on ICQ, that was super cool back then.

High school for me was 1964-1968 and it was the tech program so mostly my reading material was on automotive rebuilding and repair, electrical, carpentry, mechanical drafting, and electronics. I dropped out in my final year rather than have to repeat a stupid English course. Can't for the life of me remember what fiction I read other than R. Crumb comix.

it's crazy for me to think that the Canadian high-school cirriculum really hasn't evolved through different decades. My high-school years were recent (00-04) and we read the exact same novels, with very little independent projects (other than my aforementioned library trips).

I'm starting to think either (1) these books are super timeless and take a long time to read (2) my high-school lacked in creativity or (3) govt has given up on improving or changing school cirriculums (or allowing them to..).

Also reading one or two books a year for an english class is a bit ridiculous too, and I am a very slow reader.

Hmmm, when I was entering high school circa 1976 (in Alberta, 3 year program), it was in the immediate aftermath of a mini-panic over abysmally low test scores that students entering the University of Calgary had received the previous year on a basic language skills test/placement exam.

The powers that be at my high school (which was an "experimental" school, based on a modular system rather than the regular model where students are herded from one class to the next) decided to subject all students in the 1976 cohort to the same placement exam. Being a somewhat bookish kitty, I did well on the exam and was given even more freedom in my English studies than other students... I was allowed to enter the "World Literature in Translation" stream within the English Department. I was never required to read anything at all that was originally written in English, not even the token module on Shakespeare that was mandatory for everyone else. [In my final year, I did in fact do the module on Macbeth, but by my own choice, I wanted to see what everyone else had been complaining about.]

What I most remember from my high school "English" work was reading plays by Ionesco and Brecht, and the assignment to read the same novel but in two different translations (Dostoyevsky: The Idiot - I can't remember who the translators were, just that one was British, the other American).

I know I read Atwood's Edible Woman during that period, but I don't recall if it was part of a module I was working on, or if someone recommended it to me (oh, and I loathed it, and pity anyone who ever had it forced on them).

I have real problems with mandatory reading lists... I think the usual result is that those required to read X, Y or Z usually end up hating X, Y and Z... and I suspect the hate is the result of compulsion, not any intrinsic flaw in the work itself. Better to simply require that a certain amount of reading must be done, to be selected from a (hopefully very broad) range of "optional" works.

My high school years were in the 90s (93-98). We read some of the usual fare: To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, 1984, A midsummer Nights Dream, Julius Ceasar, Macbeth, The Taming Of The Shrew, The Tempest.

In general I think the high schools place way too much of an emphasis on Shakespeare. The Only Shakespeare I'd put in the high school curriculum would be Hamlet.

Did not read Romeo & Juliet. This was because I was in the English/PE Leadership course in Grade 10 (the year that all the English classes were supposed to do Romeo & Juliet), and our teacher decided to do Julius Ceasar instead because it had more to do with 'leadership'. Though our grade 11 English class did go see the horridly awful 1996 modern adaptation of Romeo & Juliet, so awful that I boycotted Leonardo Di Caprio movies for the next 15 years and didn't get around to watching Titanic until 2011.

Missed out on reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" in Grade 8 -- half the class got to read it, but they didn't have enough copies for the whole class, so the other half of us had to read a book about some girl in the early 60s who goes blind from a neurodegenerative disease.

We read a little bit of Canadian poetry in Grade 9 by Robert Service -- The Yukon poet who wrote The Cremation Of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGrew, among many other poems. None of the numerous short stories we read were Canadian.

Took English Lit in Grade 12. We used this thick English Lit textbook that was a survey of English Lit from Beowulf up to the early 20th century. The book was divided into chapters representing the different literary periods in English Lit, with a discussion of the political, social and language developments that affected the literature of each period, followed by examples of the literature of each period. Virtually all the literature selection in the text were poetry. The only thing we read that was not in the textbook was Shakespear's The Tempest.

I also took a Writing 12 class in which we were allowed to do 5000 pages of "directed reading" instead of a 50 page written submission -- what a mistake that was, not being a very fast reader. Barely passed the course. Did read some CanLit in that class though -- Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findlay, and an entire book of Leonard Cohen's poetry. Other books I recall reading in that class were Sidhartha by Herman Hesse and 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Was also in French Immersion, so we read some Québecois lit in French classes. Though up until Grade 11 our French reading skills were underdeveloped enough compared to Québecois kids such that they had us reading books intended for kids who are about five years younger than us -- so at age 15 we were reading books intended for 10 year olds. Grade 12 French class was a different matter -- we read L'étranger by Albert Camus.

I took a Gr.12 advanced english course in 1977, and recall reading Atwood's Surfacing, Margaret Lawrence's Diviners, Orwell's 1984, Shakespeare's Othello and Robert Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The last had a profound influence on me, though I quickly came to realize that it was lightweight, to say the least. Nevertheless, it led me into much more in-depth reading, developing my own understanding of several branches of philosophy.

it all makes so much sense, even though I was hoping those weren't the reason (no $, parental involvement, lack of control).

I went to school in Ontario where everyone was pretty good at french, and if not, at least could read it pretty well -- I was always surprised at the complete lack of acknowledgement towards any French- Canadian writers, but I guess that is Ontario?

It just seems that with such a growing community of fantastic Canadian writers combined with teachers, community members, parents and media continually pissed off about school agendas, the govt would make way for change. grr, I guess those jets are expensive.

I just can't help but keep thinking how awesome it would have been in high-school if I were given the opportunity or choice to read not only what i wanted, but local writers -- and for kids to have that opportunity now, and to engage easily with social media, it could be so powerful and such a great point for getting kids engaged. I don't understand why govt/principals/etc haven't figured out yet that the way english is taught isn't all the productive.

Okay. What did you read in college Boom Boom? We can probably survive a little thread drift.

The worst book, by a mile, I ever had to read in University, I read in a graduate seminar: James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer. I am in complete agreement with Mark Twain on Jack "Broken Twig" Coops.

That's an interesting argument, Kaitlin. I'll think on it a bit. One concern I guess I have is that more reading in tech courses might take away the drive to concentrate on tech subjects. Tech courses are very, very difficult, and require deep concentration.

Part, fools!
Put up your swords; you know not what you do.

You mean like an IKEA instruction booklet? Sure!

Don't get me wrong, I know that tech courses are tough. In another life, I took some (I started University in Engineering). But it is my lot in life to defend English against the charge that it's simply designated light reading or something. Take a class with me and see how easy it is!