Just got disturbing email regarding English class for my rising freshman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I might ask for an alternate book just to avoid reading a novel in verse, which my kid hates as much as I do.

I'm very left wing, but I'm actually a little disappointed that the schools are trending so hard away from reading the classics. I feel like kids will have lots of opportunities to read the controversial new lit-crit darling books. But when will they read The Grapes of Wrath, or The Crucible, Slaughterhouse Five, or Long Day's Journey Into Night, or anything by Hemingway or Wharton? (Seems like some of the classics, like Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Toni Morrison continue to be popular among schools.) I subscribe to the "Make New Friends, But Keep the Old" theory of literature -- I feel like we are tossing out all the old friends. It would be easier to mix in the new ones if kids read 6 novels a year, but it seems like a lot of classes really only have 2-3, plus maybe some poems or short stories.

Have them read these classics on their own.
This summer, my ninth grade child read Scarlett Letter, As the Bell Tolls, and The Crucible. Last summer, she read Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, Old Man and the Sea, and Of Mice and Men. She likes to shop the bookshelves in our family room, and she found most of these on our shelves. We only had to download one.

List. If you had such books around you would know the actual titles. Such as For Whom the Bell Tolls. Not to mention your dislike of “The.”

I am an engineer who reads, but I am not an aficionado of literature. My daughter's other parent is the literature lover. Yes, we have a rather expansive home library, but that doesn't mean everyone in this house, myself included, has read every title.

If it, pathetically, makes you feel better about yourself, continue to judge others for errors they make. I am sorry that you never matured past the developmental age of approximately 12-13.

DP. But you were literally on here bragging about having an "expansive library" of "classics" in your house, and you went typing at us, aggressively, a list of "classics" you had your child read with this look-at-us-with-our-family-priority-of-classic-literature-reading bs and then you go typing out some weird incorrect title for For Whom the Bell Tolls. Which is a title virtually everyone knows, not just people with an "expanded library." So you got what you deserved there.

--someone with a library that is probably significantly more "expansive" than yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, wouldn't any work of classic literature that references sexual activity get this warning? E.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sound and the Fury, Lolita, and lots more.

What? What is "sexually explicit" in To Kill a Mockingbird?

SHE IS RAPED!!! BY HER FATHER! OMG.

What? You did not read the book. No one is raped by their father in To Kill a Mockingbird. No one is even raped.

A man is on trial because he is wrongly accused of rape because the community is a bunch of racists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, wouldn't any work of classic literature that references sexual activity get this warning? E.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sound and the Fury, Lolita, and lots more.

What? What is "sexually explicit" in To Kill a Mockingbird?

SHE IS RAPED!!! BY HER FATHER! OMG.

Yes...but I would NOT call it "sexually explicit" - rape is implied and suggested but never stated outright and never in any sexual terms.

Did you read the book or watch the movie?

DP. They watched the movie, lol. A lot of references to this book here by people who clearly haven't read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember my friend and I sneaking into the library’s Young Adult fiction to read Judy Blume’s “Forever” when I was in the sixth grade. This was after I had asked the children’s librarian why it wasn’t there and she said it was for older girls and not me. Made me go read it faster.

By freshman year, we had read many more books in that section.

Did not make me go out and have sex early. In fact, I was a late bloomer on that front.

My friends and I passed a paperback copy of this around in 6th grade! I remember sitting on the grass behind the school during recess, every one of us confused about what "came" meant, lol. We had no clue.

I read it in the library so I didn't have to check it out. I still remember what the male protagonist did with the aftershave. Ewww!
It was a pretty awkward and vulgar book in a lot of ways. I never warmed to any Judy Blume kid books. They all seemed to be about awkward people - that didn't make me feel informed or better prepared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately yes. Teachers are required to alert parents! However, parents can ask for specific titles, read them and opt their child out of any they feel are not appropriate. Teachers are required to provide an alternative assignment and to avoid any action or statement that would be critical of the child or parent.

But if my child is the only one doing the alternative assignment, they won’t be part of any class discussions. How would that work? Won’t it be harder?

Would you really request this? Seems absurd to me, but ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, wouldn't any work of classic literature that references sexual activity get this warning? E.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sound and the Fury, Lolita, and lots more.

What? What is "sexually explicit" in To Kill a Mockingbird?

SHE IS RAPED!!! BY HER FATHER! OMG.

What? You did not read the book. No one is raped by their father in To Kill a Mockingbird. No one is even raped.

A man is on trial because he is wrongly accused of rape because the community is a bunch of racists.

This is also true but it is absolutely most definitely implied that Mayella has been raped or sexually abused by her father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, wouldn't any work of classic literature that references sexual activity get this warning? E.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sound and the Fury, Lolita, and lots more.

What? What is "sexually explicit" in To Kill a Mockingbird?

SHE IS RAPED!!! BY HER FATHER! OMG.

Someone has daddy issues…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

Why?

Because my kids are too young to be required to read pornography?

You should read a dictionary. This book is not “pornography”.

I’m sorry—how is it not exactly??? I’ve read it. Have you?

Why exactly do you think it was pornographic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Youngkin made us go through every book in the curriculum. If ANY sexual content is in there, and that means any, we have to alert the parents. This email sounds insane and it’s actually just to tell you “Hey, your kid is reading Romeo and Juliet which contains a very obtuse joke about penises.” But legally we have to tell you.

-hs teacher

WTF?

I hate religious nutters trying to force their beliefs on everyone else.

Me too....the republicans love control.

It’s a perverted fetish for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Youngkin made us go through every book in the curriculum. If ANY sexual content is in there, and that means any, we have to alert the parents. This email sounds insane and it’s actually just to tell you “Hey, your kid is reading Romeo and Juliet which contains a very obtuse joke about penises.” But legally we have to tell you.

-hs teacher

WTF?

I hate religious nutters trying to force their beliefs on everyone else.

Are you okay with a teacher handing your kid a copy of penthouse….for the articles?

Because that’s essentially what this book is.

Why is it so hard for you to get the difference between kids being “allowed to” read what they want and being REQUIRED to read porn for a grade???

False. You don’t know what “pornography” is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately yes. Teachers are required to alert parents! However, parents can ask for specific titles, read them and opt their child out of any they feel are not appropriate. Teachers are required to provide an alternative assignment and to avoid any action or statement that would be critical of the child or parent.

But if my child is the only one doing the alternative assignment, they won’t be part of any class discussions. How would that work? Won’t it be harder?

It will make more work for the teacher, and your kid won't learn nearly enough, but you'll have saved your kid from the trauma of reading Romeo and Juliet. Plus, it's always fun to embarrass your kid!

It’s not a classic, unfortunately. I would totally be on board with a classic. It’s a woke novel with “masturbation, heavy naked petting,” etc.

Completely inappropriate. I would not allow it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

So you've read it?

The Poet X should not be a class required book due to the desecration of the most sacred part of Catholicism, the Eucharist.

FCPS would not allow a book anywhere near a classroom that denigrated Mohammed in the same way that this book desecrates the Eucharist.

Leave it as a classroom book for kids to choose on their own, but remove it from the class reading lists.

+1
Was waiting for someone to bring this up.
Puts a Catholic family in an extremely uncomfortable position and fcps would never dream of assigning a book where the main character has a crisis of Muslim faith based on the parents questionable interpretation of Islam.

Have you ever read Persepolis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I might ask for an alternate book just to avoid reading a novel in verse, which my kid hates as much as I do.

I'm very left wing, but I'm actually a little disappointed that the schools are trending so hard away from reading the classics. I feel like kids will have lots of opportunities to read the controversial new lit-crit darling books. But when will they read The Grapes of Wrath, or The Crucible, Slaughterhouse Five, or Long Day's Journey Into Night, or anything by Hemingway or Wharton? (Seems like some of the classics, like Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Toni Morrison continue to be popular among schools.) I subscribe to the "Make New Friends, But Keep the Old" theory of literature -- I feel like we are tossing out all the old friends. It would be easier to mix in the new ones if kids read 6 novels a year, but it seems like a lot of classes really only have 2-3, plus maybe some poems or short stories.

As a person of color, I get very little out of reading the "classics."

Not even To Kill A Mockingbird or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so dumb. Why don't they just say they'll be teaching The Grapes of Wrath name.the text so people know not to worry.

Grapes of Wrath references violence, prostitution and rape. The “classics” aren’t that much better.

[Anonymous]

Note that certain lawmakers are why opt out legislation exists. If you use it or appreciate its existence, see who voted for it and make sure they hear how helpful it was to you.