Books High School Students are Reading
So recently during my practicum, I noticed that the books that high school students were reading now are completely different from those I read in high school. They were reading Veronica Roth, John Green, Rick Riordan, Hunger Games etc. and none of these authors were around when I was in high school roughly 10 years ago.
As school finishes this Friday, I figure I'd catch up on what my students might be reading to better understand the context they're coming from. So any suggestions as to what I should pick up? Any authors/books I'm missing? and any authors/books I should stay away from?
August 4, 2014
18 Comments • Newest first
@Jackthegreat: Ok let me know when you teach real English writing in your classrooms.
[quote=cool123ter]Thats cool. Doesn't change the fact that you're idiots for teaching a book like the Hunger Games as necessary curriculum.[/quote]
That's cool. Let me know when you have some facts to back up what you're saying beyond "you're idiots for teaching a book like the Hunger Games as necessary curriculum". Keep in mind I never said it was "necessary" curriculum. I merely said it was an OPTION, should teachers choose it.
And the thing is, perception changes. Shakespeare's works were considered shoddy writing back in his time. However, guess who is the only author that is mandatory to teach in a High School English curriculum?
For the record, I have no problem with your dislike of the Hunger Games or Veronica Roth or whoever you feel shouldn't be taught in an English classroom. What I'm saying is that the fact that you don't like a book does not make teaching it in a classroom "stupid" or the school system "crap" and that you should probably learn to separate personal biases/opinions from fact and truth.
[quote=Jackthegreat]That's funny, because last I checked, the Canadian education system is miles better than their American counterparts.
From 2010, I know, but: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canadian-education-ranked-among-world-s-best-1.940247
Canada's 6th, and according to that article, British Columbia (the area I'm referring to), Ontario and Alberta are tied for second in the world in reading, so we're obviously doing something right. And Canada scores 7th (in comparison to the US at 14th) on the Pearson index (http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/index/index-ranking/overall-score-highest).
Fact of the matter is (as you can refer to the thread recently here about the importance of high school English), many students don't like English class because its difficult for them to connect what they've read or what they're learning to their everyday lives. Teaching books they're interested in changes that. Am I saying to ONLY teach books that teenagers read (For the record, some of these books have been taught and widely read before the movies came out. Just sayin')? Nope. However, throwing one in there during a school year where so many books students are required to read are found boring can't hurt.
I don't have any problems with your traditional draconian view of education. However, just don't go around calling one of the best school systems in the world "crap" without the research to back it up. Just sayin'
Edit: @maplerescue: thanks for the list. I'll definitely look into some of those![/quote]
Thats cool. Doesn't change the fact that you're idiots for teaching a book like the Hunger Games as necessary curriculum.
[quote=cool123ter]@Jackthegreat: Then canadian school system is crap. I don't think any teacher in America who actually cares would teach Hunger Games or Divergent or w/e teen book movies there are. In the free time people can read anything they want, most people I know just wikipedia an ORB summary anyways.[/quote]
That's funny, because last I checked, the Canadian education system is miles better than their American counterparts.
From 2010, I know, but: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canadian-education-ranked-among-world-s-best-1.940247
Canada's 6th, and according to that article, British Columbia (the area I'm referring to), Ontario and Alberta are tied for second in the world in reading, so we're obviously doing something right. And Canada scores 7th (in comparison to the US at 14th) on the Pearson index (http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/index/index-ranking/overall-score-highest).
Fact of the matter is (as you can refer to the thread recently here about the importance of high school English), many students don't like English class because its difficult for them to connect what they've read or what they're learning to their everyday lives. Teaching books they're interested in changes that. Am I saying to ONLY teach books that teenagers read (For the record, some of these books have been taught and widely read before the movies came out. Just sayin')? Nope. However, throwing one in there during a school year where so many books students are required to read are found boring can't hurt.
I don't have any problems with your traditional draconian view of education. However, just don't go around calling one of the best school systems in the world "crap" without the research to back it up. Just sayin'
Edit: @maplerescue: thanks for the list. I'll definitely look into some of those!
In 11th grade regular English in Texas, people could choose Hunger Games as one of their three books to read as an independent project. They could also choose The Hobbit and Life of Pi as the goal was to get more teenagers interested in reading since apparently Shakespeare wasn't always doing the job.
I just graduated high school in May and saw a lot of people reading Sarah Dessen (writes adorable romance novels that are appropriate but her newer stuff is meh), Cassandra Clare (wrote the Mortal Instruments series, the first book was just recently turned into a movie), and Beautiful Creatures series (also turned into a movie). Easy by Tamara Webber and the Perfect Chemistry series by Simone Elkeles have gained some huge popularity also (Elkeles came and spoke at my school and donated a bunch of stuff to our English department).
I absolutely hated Lauren Kate's Fallen series, which is also popular and being turned into a movie, and prefer Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush Hush series, both of which deals on the topic of arch and fallen angels. Ally Condie for the Matched series (the general idea is pretty similar to Veronica Roth's books), Amy Plum for the Revenants series, and Rachel Hawkins for the Hex Hall series are all good for some fantasy or dystopian (Lauren Oliver has a few dystopian novels too). Ally Carter has a series about spies that a lot of girls were reading. Jennifer Echols and Deb Caletti also write romances, some of which deal with heavier topics but if you're going into romances, it'd probably be better to stay away from Susane Colasanti.
These are the main ones that I can think of off the top of my head but I hope this helps!
@Jackthegreat: Then canadian school system is crap. I don't think any teacher in America who actually cares would teach Hunger Games or Divergent or w/e teen book movies there are. In the free time people can read anything they want, most people I know just wikipedia an ORB summary anyways.
[quote=cool123ter]No way are those books PART OF THE CURRICULUM. Those have to be ORBs because we still read Of Mice and Men, The Hobbit, Mockingbird, etc.[/quote]
You are correct. Those books aren't part of the current curriculum yet, though some of them ARE being gradually incorporated in (Life of Pi is a pretty popular novel being taught in curriculum across Vancouver these days and I'm hearing that the first Hunger Games book is being taught at around a grade 9-10 level also). There IS a chance that these books might become part of the curriculum in the future.
What I'm mostly asking for is what students are reading in their free time or what they're choosing to read when given a choice to pick a novel. On my practicum, students had the opportunity to read a book of their choice for silent reading and do a term-long novel study on it. This meant that many of the students in my class WERE reading those books as "part of the curriculum" so to say.
I read The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Lord Of the Flies. But I've been out of high school for a few years now.
We had to read the Chrysalids by John Wyndham and study it for 3-4 months.
It was an interesting book but after having to read it 3-4 times I hated it.
James Patterson books
[i]I am Number Four[/i] series
The Maze Runner
Never read any of these... should I feel out of touch?
Twilight Series...
...what?
The Eragon series ftw.
No way are those books PART OF THE CURRICULUM. Those have to be ORBs because we still read Of Mice and Men, The Hobbit, Mockingbird, etc.
Dune was pretty interesting
I thought A Tale of Two Cities was a masterpiece
Thomas the choo choo
Alchemist by Paulo
actually, just find a genre that applies to either what you know, or what you want to know. i think thats how yur supposed to find books.
50 shades