Today’s Musing Mondays, hosted by Rebecca at Just One More Page, is about assigned reading…
How did you react to assigned reading when you were in school/university/college/etc? How do you think on these books now? What book were you ‘forced’ to read when you where in school that you’ve since reread and loved?
- You know I’m sad to say that I wasn’t assigned a lot of reading in school in terms of novels. In Grade 10 it was all about grammar and Grades 11 & 12 were all about Shakespeare and journal writing. I remember one book and that was 1984 by George Orwell. That’s it, we read the book and saw some type of film if I remember right. I have also reread it since. I have to say now that this disappoints me. I wish we had spent time on the classics maybe or even like my mom had said when she was in school they had to go to the library and pick a book, then write a report on it. I think this is important as it would have encouraged reading so much more back when I was in high school. As it is, I’m lucky my mom was a reader and I developed a huge love of books that has stayed with me throughout my life.
How about you? What did you think of assigned reading in school? Have you reread any of them in later years?
My 11th grade English teacher made us read A LOT. Then we had to write about what we read. She was the kind of teacher you hated while you had her, but loved afterward.
I do feel fortunate that I was exposed to quite a few classics during my school years. And since I enjoyed many of the ones I read, I’ve never been afraid to read them as adults–intimidated a little sometimes maybe if it’s a more difficult one. 🙂
I was in AP English, and we read a lot. I really enjoyed it, and looked forward to each one. I discovered Jane Eyre in high school, and have since reread it several times.
It’s too bad that you didn’t have more than the Orwell and Shakespeare to read. We had many but I just didn’t appreciate them at the time. Thank goodness I loved to read for pleasure back then.
I have very fond memories of reading in HS, especially the classics. I was also in a lot of plays in school and I really loved reading those, especially Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
Since leaving school, I’ve discovered how many of the classics I HAVEN’T read and I’ve been getting caught up over the years.
I had a heavy reading list in both the middle and upper grades. Some of the books I appreciated more than others, but later on, the ones that I did not care for became my favorites as I got older.
Some books are just too heavy in theme to be understood at such a young age. You have to experience live a bit before “getting them”.
my mom..(who had to do this type of thing not too long ago) says that she really dreaded what her high school called “summer reading.” they were not classics. they were garbage. boring, politically biased garbage. the only book she is glad she read was lord of the flies. the others were still life with rice, the founding brothers or even the rescue by nicholas sparks. shes a big sparks fan, but requiring high school boys to read that for “summer reading” is about as cruel as it gets. she wishes her teachers were into the classics and not pushing contemporary, useless trash. she’d much prefer to choose those books herself!
I really disliked some of the assigned reading we had, especially in grammar school. But I think Diary of Anne Frank and Go Ask Alice were two of my favorites.
I still havent read 1984.
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/
I think reading was fundamental for me in all my grade schools. At least a few a year. I didn’t enjoy the assigned reading back then. I think I had attention issues but didn’t know it. I read off my mom’s shelves for leisure. I do remember some of the assigned reading. Farenheit 451, Lord of the Rings (hated it then), The Crucible. I like the exposure to books in my college years which has been in my 30’s and 40s’.
Usually I enjoyed assigned reading as it introduced me to books that I might not have read otherwise but there were one or two that I could have done without.
Kathy, I can imagine that now you’re grateful she made you do all that reading. I was’t too fond of my English teacher in high school at all.
Wendy, that’s mostly how I feel with classics-intimidated but I think a lot is because I was never exposed to them earlier.
Jenn, I’m going to reread Jane Eyre again this year. That is one I love too.
Mary, me too. I’ve always read for pleasure-since a kid.
Karen, I am amazed by how many classics are out there. I always knew the popular ones but there are so many others.
Ti, I wonder how I would have taken to classics back in high school. I barely understood a word of Shakespeare that’s for sure.
Bandit-I can’t imagine getting a summer reading list in school. I never got one of those and wouldn’t have wanted one!
Naida, I read those two stories on my own. I think it’s the library that introduced me to most of the reading that I did back then.
Toni, it seems a lot of people red Lord of the Rings-I never even heard of it till a few years ago.