a terrible man for the studying
― "It's far from 'loi' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link
we werent allowed watch the polanski version bc my teacher said "unlike in the ACTUAL PLAY they show duncan being murdered, and i know that most of you wont bother reading this or even paying attn. to me right now or ever. but i cant deal w/ reading any essays where you describe the murder scene"
― plax (ico), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link
we did Julius Caesar in 9th grade, no Shakespeare in 10th grade (American lit), King Lear in 11th grade (best ever), and then senior year was electives and some years a Shakespeare elective was offered, but not my senior year.
― horseshoe, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link
it's like, you already think you're the most important person in the world and should be able to do whatever you want, now here's a "grown-up" "philosophy" that says it's OK, go out and have fun!
OTM. It's just a philosophy which allows people to put a fancy name on self-serving, self-congratulatory asshole behaviour. No wonder so many celebrities are fans - they have the same sense of entitlement as your average teenager. I fucking hate Ayn Rand.
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
lol we watched one of the older film versions of Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade, which the teacher apparently forgot to prescreen and therefore forgot that in the bedroom scene there is a fantastic moment where naked Juliet leaps out of bed and lunges for something behind the camera, filling the screen with boob
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
that would be the one with Olivia Hussey. that scene is forever imprinted into my brain.
― plate of dinosaurs (San Te), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
she is v v pretty
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:31 (fourteen years ago) link
i was one of the worst students of all time and basically never did homework ever ... and i used to just bring my own books to class and read them and wait for school to be over
oh hai me
― a CRASBO is a "criminally related" ASBO (contenderizer), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:31 (fourteen years ago) link
i remember watching a pretty messed-up film version of edgar allan poe's 'the masque of the red death' in an english lit class, which involved a decent amount of gore and heavy duty incest.
― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
the film involved that, not the class.
Good that we've moved on to Olivia Hussey's boobs though.
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
my sister did a room w/ a view the movie for her leaving cert (you can do a movie) in an all girls school w/ a nun for a teacher and they watched the dick-flopping-skinnydipping scene loads of times. we watched it as a family at christmas shortly after and my dad was shifting uncomfortably and my sister was all "oh yeah i forgot this used to seem kindof awkward before you see it a million times"
― plax (ico), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
omar the one with vincent price??
― call all destroyer, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:33 (fourteen years ago) link
I graduated college with a 2.4 simply cuz I have such a procrastinator's attitude that I flat out didn't show up to class and would just show up for tests and would skid by.
― plate of dinosaurs (San Te), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:33 (fourteen years ago) link
I remember we also watched a the end of a filmed stage production of "Oedipus Rex" where the dude playing Oedipus had to deliver his final monologue with hamburger meat in his eyes (because he had gouged them out, see)
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:34 (fourteen years ago) link
we watched apocalypse now as part of heart of darkness study, which was ayokay with me
― a CRASBO is a "criminally related" ASBO (contenderizer), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:34 (fourteen years ago) link
i still have never read oedipus rex should i y/n?
― horseshoe, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:34 (fourteen years ago) link
uhm isn't that bad for your eyes
― plate of dinosaurs (San Te), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:34 (fourteen years ago) link
oh we did too, it made me actually appreciate the core story underneath the layer upon layer of distracting racism
We assumed so!
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:35 (fourteen years ago) link
xp you should read it if you feel a lack of greek tragedy in yr life. reading those things is fun but kind of a stilted experience.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:35 (fourteen years ago) link
it was this one, cad:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097844/
― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:37 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm starting to see why I was so bored in school. We read SOME of those books on your list, but only like 35%.
We were taught to write formulaic (re: boring and pedestrian) essays. Senior year, we were given an assignment for our Senior Paper to read one of a list of approved books, and we would do assignments and tests on it.
I chose Les Miserables, then got busy as over winter break I had 10 nights where I was performing so I got 30 pages in. Stupid teacher admits to me she's never read Les Miserables. The test was just us answering vague questions based on our reading of the book.
I used Cliff Notes for some of the answers, and invented the rest. I invented whole plot points that didn't happen and even characters that weren't even in the book. I got an A+.
― plate of dinosaurs (San Te), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:37 (fourteen years ago) link
if you get a good translation it is good
this one was great (also a breeze to read)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oedipus-King-Greek-Tragedy-Translations/dp/0195054938/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281721013&sr=8-5
― plax (ico), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:37 (fourteen years ago) link
we had to read antigone in 9th grade. (that's what it's called, right?) i liked it! i feel like a significant proportion of the stuff i read in high school was (self)righteous-woman-is-misunderstood-and-persecuted. i ate that shit up.
― horseshoe, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:38 (fourteen years ago) link
too bad it wasn't the vincent price one because that is a rad movie
― call all destroyer, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:38 (fourteen years ago) link
thanks, plax!
― horseshoe, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
oh just remembered we also read The Awakening senior year
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
As if on cue, from McSweeneys: OUR DAUGHTER ISN'T A SELFISH BRAT; YOUR SON JUST HASN'T READATLAS SHRUGGED
When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, "Have a ball, peas [sic]?" And I'm sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, "No! Looter!" right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.
To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, "No! Looter!" right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.
― a mix of music (Lionel Ritchie) and kicks (my tongue) (Phil D.), Friday, 13 August 2010 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
lol that's why this got revived
― call all destroyer, Friday, 13 August 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
it's been a while (like, almost 2 decades) since i've thought about it, but i did read some pretty heavy-duty books in HS. i remember four shakespeare plays (one per year); "crime and punishment;" "sons and lovers;" "billy budd;" "les miserables;" and "oedipus rex" are the ones that come to mind. we also read "anthem," which compared to those other books was pretty paltry.
― The Beatles are not pizza!!! (Eisbaer), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Anthem is terrible, terrible writing
― bobby moore's whine (crüt), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah we did one Shakespeare play a year, too. 9: Romeo and Juliet, 10: Julius Caesar 11: Hamlet 12: King Lear
― kenan, Friday, 13 August 2010 18:37 (fourteen years ago) link
One Shakespeare/year, plus a senior research project on another. I did Much Ado About Nothing because the Branagh movie was recent and easily available at Blockbuster. Senior AP teacher threw in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead for kicks.
― a cross between lily allen and fetal alcohol syndrome (milo z), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
All I can remember from AP was Metamorphosis, Crime & Punishment, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
― Danny Dyer (dan m), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:43 (fourteen years ago) link
we read Things Fall Apart to counterbalance Heart of Darkness
― bobby moore's whine (crüt), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:46 (fourteen years ago) link
to repeat something i said years ago upthread: besides the (lack of) quality of anthem, what struck me at the time i read the book (i was 15) was that it was so OFF about what life in a communal/communistic society was REALLY like. i had family that had lived in a bona fide communist country (i.e., Poland) and anthem in no way was like what life was like there. and while Rand was Russian and not Polish, i seriously doubt that Bolshevik Russia was like what she wrote in anthem either. then there was the story's basic conceit about someone whose ego had been totally eradicated by a coercive communal society -- even at 15 and with no knowledge of psychology, i figured that there was something pretty fishy about that from a psychological viewpoint.
― The Beatles are not pizza!!! (Eisbaer), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:46 (fourteen years ago) link
DOH we read Things Fall Apart too
also Cry, The Beloved Country was in there somewhere as an elective option on one year's reading lists
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Haven't read any AR:
I don't think her fiction is that hot either but it is illuminating, again for its historic relevance. In the same way that detective fiction might be. I thought the "great books" model died with postmodernism.
It hasn't, and many of the detective novels are in no way historical curiosities - they are good, can be re-read and are still good.
xp = gotta say I might have to read Anthem
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 13 August 2010 18:48 (fourteen years ago) link
speaking about dystopian novels: we read animal farm and 1984.
― The Beatles are not pizza!!! (Eisbaer), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:49 (fourteen years ago) link
eisbaer OTM about anthem
nobody is trying to take away your first person singular, ayn rand
― bobby moore's whine (crüt), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:51 (fourteen years ago) link
lol I read Animal Farm and 1984 for fun in junior high
also read Flatland then
it's really no wonder that I only ever want to read trashy sci-fi/fantasy now
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:52 (fourteen years ago) link
according to the wikipedia entry on anthem, there are apparently some thematic similarities w/ it and zamyatin's we (a book i've been curious about for a long time but haven't actually read). particularly w/ characters have numbers instead of names and a collective "hive mind" having some sort of hold over people psychologically. i would be curious to know if anyone has read both and just how similar anthem is to we.
― The Beatles are not pizza!!! (Eisbaer), Friday, 13 August 2010 18:58 (fourteen years ago) link
We is a masterpiece. Anthem is a piece of shit.
― glitter hands! glitter hands! razzle! dazzle! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 13 August 2010 19:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh wow I was gonna start on We in a month or so. Might have to read this w/Anthem now, if I can find a copy.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 13 August 2010 19:04 (fourteen years ago) link
I honestly can't remember any of the details of Anthem it's been so long - We I read (and re-read, and then wrote a song about lol) just a few years ago. it's the diary of an unreliable narrator who is working on the collective's project to send a rocket into space to colonize other worlds, everyone lives in a city that is made entirely of glass, privacy does not exist, sex is a random, emotionless act, there's intimations of a wild, natural world beyond the city's borders but no one ever goes there (or is allowed to). everyone has a number instead of a name. Major precursor to 1984, a bit stranger in its conception.
― glitter hands! glitter hands! razzle! dazzle! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 13 August 2010 19:05 (fourteen years ago) link
and to think she was writing this as a dystopia.
― rage for the machine (banaka), Friday, 13 August 2010 19:07 (fourteen years ago) link
We read absolutely NO Rand in school.
― duchy of Pornwall (suzy), Friday, 13 August 2010 19:09 (fourteen years ago) link
The Fountainhead's one contribution to my life is that it gave me a reference for my pre-existing disdain for buildings with balconies stuck all over them. Whenever I see a new one being built, I think to myself, "Gary Cooper would dynamite that piece of shit."
― kenan, Friday, 13 August 2010 19:15 (fourteen years ago) link
There are very good reasons why something like The Fountainhead ought not be taught in an AP senior English course, the two most important are:
-it diminishes the value of the AP (college credit) course. Do you want to insult your students by sending them packing to college with an English credit worth less than what other high schools might provide? You may as well tattoo your students with "my high school is dumbed down shit" before sending them off to college. Not fair, snobbish, etc.....but you're supposed to prepare your students to compete.
-I personally would feel intimidated if a teacher (especially a male one) included something as ideologically biased and aligned with power as The Fountainhead. He may as well pull his dick out in class and ask who wants to blow him.
The job of a teacher of AP ENGLISH is to unselfishly prepare his or her students for college, to give them the best equivalent of a college credit he or she can. Concerned parents ought to tear that guy's nuts off.
― allows bourbon enthusiasts a view into how america’s native spirit (u s steel), Friday, 13 August 2010 19:19 (fourteen years ago) link
hayhttp://i38.tinypic.com/2ljky93.jpg
― Z S, Friday, 13 August 2010 19:21 (fourteen years ago) link