Animal Farm by George Orwell
A Midsummer Nights Dream, Richard III and Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Pearl and Of Mice & Men - John Steinbeck
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Assorted Shorts by Edgar Allen Poe
Poetry by Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, e.e. cummings and others
This list, with some possible additions were all part of the syllabus during my school year from 1980-81. I was in sixth grade. I once asked a high school student from Eastchester if they had read any of these. They told me that other than Catcher in the Rye, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Of Mice and Men, they had never even heard of the others.
I understand that I had the honor of going to a wonderful private school (at the time ranked the best in the five boroughs, if not the state), but that shouldn't make a difference. Why has the educational system, both public and private dumbed down the curriculum so much? Why is a 19-year-old telling me she has never "heard" of these books. The following summer, I read an entire collection of O. Henry short stories and read Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. I just don't get it, my father was reading things even more difficult. So why have we changed so much?
I find it odd that nobody in Eastchester read Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer in school. That so many of the classics were left out of the curriculum, but silly drivel like The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was in it. While it is revered, Catcher in the Rye is nothing more than a male oriented Judy Blume book. I read it in 6th, in 9th, in 10th and in 11th grade. It is not an 11th grade book. It is a 6th-8th grade book. It is meant to be read as a boy is getting hair on his balls and starting to feel the angst of becoming an adolescent. For this period in a man's life, the book says a lot. Not in high school.
In the time between 10th and 12th grade, while attending Eastchester High School, not only did the level of reading go down, but the amount we read was cut in half. I had the misfortune of having the same teacher in 11th and 12th grade and despite getting a ridiculously high regents score in 11th grade, she failed me in 12th. Something she had promised to do in September. The only Shakespeare play I ever read while in class with an Eastchester teacher, was actually in summer school (of my senior year) with Miss Kambar. We read Hamlet and while she assured me attendance was about the only thing keeping me from passing, I volunteered to read the part of Hamlet every day. I won't talk about The Great Gatsby (my second time reading it), but it was fun.
Shakespeare made reading aloud fun. It also made me a better reader. It made me concentrate on the words and the tone. It made me realize that words had multiple meanings and helped me, at a very young age, understand wit and sarcasm. Something that is lost on today's youth. Shakespeare was great, because at times, it was not only dramatic genius, but a history lesson. It showed a time I was unfamiliar with. Seeing the plays after reading them helped in my appreciation. I have now read a third of his plays. I have seen productions of two thirds of them and have read many of his sonnets. While not all are exceptional, they have raised my ability to understand feeling in writing. Something that is lost many times in American novels.
When people ask me if I read, I always say that I do not. When I look back at my schooling I realize that I have. I realize my summer reading list was nothing like my friends and even less like those kids today, dashing through Twilight and Potter. I remember when Harry Potter first came out and the kids I was with asked me to read. I read three chapters and realized there was not age for this book. It was at a level that was lower than when I first started reading. I find it scary that our need to be entertained has surpassed our need to be pushed. My father never told me what a word meant. Should i be confused, I had to open a dictionary. One of the many he had on his desk and look it up. The act, while sometimes time consuming, made me know the word, how to spell it and other uses. This enhanced my vocabulary and makes it so I don't have to do such laborious tasks today. Even more rewarding is having the full understanding of what is being read.
I am not blaming teachers. I realize their hands are tied, by a district or state that sets the standards, no matter how low they have become. I just feel that in between the requirements, they could pick a day. They could have the class sit, heads down, eyes closed and listen to Dylan Thomas recite his own poetry. They could give their school mandated summer reading list, but attach their own. If nothing else, every kid should read one play during their summer reading list. To act it out in their minds. To become a character. I remember reading Death of a Salesman my senior year. The teacher, digging into symbolism that wasn't there. I had enough. I told her she was wrong. I explained that I'd read this in 8th grade, again in 9th and on my own the previous summer. I had seen Hoffman play Willy on Broadway. I was incensed that even the teacher didn't understand it. Maybe it was her first time?
I tend to rant and rave, but ignorance is not bliss. It is the single biggest problem I have with this country. We're the only country where the average citizen only speaks one language. I'm guilty of this, but I can somewhat read many languages. We're the only country who has this treasure chest of incredible writers, but we gravitate towards fluff. I was lucky to have a teacher named Ruth Chapman in sixth grade who didn't care if it was over our heads. She made us swim to the surface. I was lucky to have well read parents who pushed me enough to appreciate, but not hard enough to make it work. I was lucky to have a handful of people along the way, even now, who would hand me a book, send me an e-mail or just tell me about how wonderful something was.
Today we are subjected to the tales of Bella and Edward, Christian and Anastasia and Kim and Kanye. The moronic dialogue that has become American literature. Below is a sample of what real writing is like. This quote is important to me. Not because of it's wording or what it means, but because of the challenge I accepted and went above and beyond. In 6th grade, I was 10 or 11 years old (I was a year younger than my classmates at the time). We were asked to memorize and perform a quote of at least four lines from Richard III in front of our class. Everyone picked the shortest one they could. I picked this. I beg of all teachers. Even if you don't give your students the entire book or play. Throw a short story or poem in between the requirements and open their eyes to what is out there. We can't live our lives only knowing enough to get by. Sadly we live this way.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds, that lour'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, — instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,—
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, — that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love’s majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them,—
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.
A Midsummer Nights Dream, Richard III and Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Pearl and Of Mice & Men - John Steinbeck
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Assorted Shorts by Edgar Allen Poe
Poetry by Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, e.e. cummings and others
This list, with some possible additions were all part of the syllabus during my school year from 1980-81. I was in sixth grade. I once asked a high school student from Eastchester if they had read any of these. They told me that other than Catcher in the Rye, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Of Mice and Men, they had never even heard of the others.
I understand that I had the honor of going to a wonderful private school (at the time ranked the best in the five boroughs, if not the state), but that shouldn't make a difference. Why has the educational system, both public and private dumbed down the curriculum so much? Why is a 19-year-old telling me she has never "heard" of these books. The following summer, I read an entire collection of O. Henry short stories and read Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. I just don't get it, my father was reading things even more difficult. So why have we changed so much?
I find it odd that nobody in Eastchester read Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer in school. That so many of the classics were left out of the curriculum, but silly drivel like The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was in it. While it is revered, Catcher in the Rye is nothing more than a male oriented Judy Blume book. I read it in 6th, in 9th, in 10th and in 11th grade. It is not an 11th grade book. It is a 6th-8th grade book. It is meant to be read as a boy is getting hair on his balls and starting to feel the angst of becoming an adolescent. For this period in a man's life, the book says a lot. Not in high school.
In the time between 10th and 12th grade, while attending Eastchester High School, not only did the level of reading go down, but the amount we read was cut in half. I had the misfortune of having the same teacher in 11th and 12th grade and despite getting a ridiculously high regents score in 11th grade, she failed me in 12th. Something she had promised to do in September. The only Shakespeare play I ever read while in class with an Eastchester teacher, was actually in summer school (of my senior year) with Miss Kambar. We read Hamlet and while she assured me attendance was about the only thing keeping me from passing, I volunteered to read the part of Hamlet every day. I won't talk about The Great Gatsby (my second time reading it), but it was fun.
Shakespeare made reading aloud fun. It also made me a better reader. It made me concentrate on the words and the tone. It made me realize that words had multiple meanings and helped me, at a very young age, understand wit and sarcasm. Something that is lost on today's youth. Shakespeare was great, because at times, it was not only dramatic genius, but a history lesson. It showed a time I was unfamiliar with. Seeing the plays after reading them helped in my appreciation. I have now read a third of his plays. I have seen productions of two thirds of them and have read many of his sonnets. While not all are exceptional, they have raised my ability to understand feeling in writing. Something that is lost many times in American novels.
When people ask me if I read, I always say that I do not. When I look back at my schooling I realize that I have. I realize my summer reading list was nothing like my friends and even less like those kids today, dashing through Twilight and Potter. I remember when Harry Potter first came out and the kids I was with asked me to read. I read three chapters and realized there was not age for this book. It was at a level that was lower than when I first started reading. I find it scary that our need to be entertained has surpassed our need to be pushed. My father never told me what a word meant. Should i be confused, I had to open a dictionary. One of the many he had on his desk and look it up. The act, while sometimes time consuming, made me know the word, how to spell it and other uses. This enhanced my vocabulary and makes it so I don't have to do such laborious tasks today. Even more rewarding is having the full understanding of what is being read.
I am not blaming teachers. I realize their hands are tied, by a district or state that sets the standards, no matter how low they have become. I just feel that in between the requirements, they could pick a day. They could have the class sit, heads down, eyes closed and listen to Dylan Thomas recite his own poetry. They could give their school mandated summer reading list, but attach their own. If nothing else, every kid should read one play during their summer reading list. To act it out in their minds. To become a character. I remember reading Death of a Salesman my senior year. The teacher, digging into symbolism that wasn't there. I had enough. I told her she was wrong. I explained that I'd read this in 8th grade, again in 9th and on my own the previous summer. I had seen Hoffman play Willy on Broadway. I was incensed that even the teacher didn't understand it. Maybe it was her first time?
I tend to rant and rave, but ignorance is not bliss. It is the single biggest problem I have with this country. We're the only country where the average citizen only speaks one language. I'm guilty of this, but I can somewhat read many languages. We're the only country who has this treasure chest of incredible writers, but we gravitate towards fluff. I was lucky to have a teacher named Ruth Chapman in sixth grade who didn't care if it was over our heads. She made us swim to the surface. I was lucky to have well read parents who pushed me enough to appreciate, but not hard enough to make it work. I was lucky to have a handful of people along the way, even now, who would hand me a book, send me an e-mail or just tell me about how wonderful something was.
Today we are subjected to the tales of Bella and Edward, Christian and Anastasia and Kim and Kanye. The moronic dialogue that has become American literature. Below is a sample of what real writing is like. This quote is important to me. Not because of it's wording or what it means, but because of the challenge I accepted and went above and beyond. In 6th grade, I was 10 or 11 years old (I was a year younger than my classmates at the time). We were asked to memorize and perform a quote of at least four lines from Richard III in front of our class. Everyone picked the shortest one they could. I picked this. I beg of all teachers. Even if you don't give your students the entire book or play. Throw a short story or poem in between the requirements and open their eyes to what is out there. We can't live our lives only knowing enough to get by. Sadly we live this way.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds, that lour'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, — instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,—
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, — that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love’s majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them,—
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.
- Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene i
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