*Lord of the Flies* is the 9th grade reading for Wilson. sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may be in the minority here but I don't think that students should be assigned a title to re-read a book in high school that they have read in middle school. Re-reading is great outside of school on your own time, but students should be exposed to various different genres and classics as much as possible. Too much re-reading doesn't allow for that exposure.

Dp Not everyone will have read the book, I assume. I agree with others when they say that a 7th grader might have missed some things in reading it the first time.

[Anonymous]

I just reread it and feel like it’s a crappy choice for lots of reason—not even one female character, a slooooow beginning, hard to relate to. I would not have found it appealing as a ninth grader. It’s very dated. There are zillions of more interesting books for young people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just reread it and feel like it’s a crappy choice for lots of reason—not even one female character, a slooooow beginning, hard to relate to. I would not have found it appealing as a ninth grader. It’s very dated. There are zillions of more interesting books for young people.

PP this may be all true but, it is life which can be slow and dreary. Who knows the op's kid may like it. Life can't all be a box of chocolates.

[Anonymous]

OP is just sad because DC didn't get into Sidwell or GDS, and it just proves her point that Wilson is substandard. And no OP, because they are reading Lord of the Flies in the 9th grade it is going to hurt their cognitive abilities to the degree that they won't get into Harvard. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is just sad because DC didn't get into Sidwell or GDS, and it just proves her point that Wilson is substandard. And no OP, because they are reading Lord of the Flies in the 9th grade it is going to hurt their cognitive abilities to the degree that they won't get into Harvard. Sorry.

This is a rude post, I don't think that is true and you can take your snark elsewhere. I'm not the OP but I am offended by your negativity and I can smell your desperate attempt to be relevant through the screen. The OP has every right to be upset and annoyed that her child is re-reading a book from middle school. I think its lazy and substandard of the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Boy talk about self-absorbed. You specifically want a high school with over 500 incoming Freshmen to select a book that your child has not read? My Deal student did not read this in middle school and since Deal is the largest feeder to Wilson HS, it seems safe to assume that a large number of the incoming Freshmen have not read this book as a class assignment.

Lord of the Flies is a classic book about adolescence. It also contains a fair amount of violence that some would say makes it inappropriate for middle school students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boy talk about self-absorbed. You specifically want a high school with over 500 incoming Freshmen to select a book that your child has not read? My Deal student did not read this in middle school and since Deal is the largest feeder to Wilson HS, it seems safe to assume that a large number of the incoming Freshmen have not read this book as a class assignment.

Lord of the Flies is a classic book about adolescence. It also contains a fair amount of violence that some would say makes it inappropriate for middle school students.

I did a quick search online and Blair HS just across the DC/MD has a brochure in which they specifically state not re-reading books that you read in middle school [under the Choosing What To Do section]. In fact, the books in which you can read. No, the OP is not being selfish.

https://mbhs.edu/departments/english/2019%209th%20summer%20PDF.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are excited for our child to start at Wilson. But this just took the wind out of my sails. DD read this in her DCPS 7th grade (maybe even 6th?) class. So not only is it not particularly challenging, it's also such a boring, old school choice. I hope the entire curriculum won't be like this. I assume that high schools have progressed since I was a student 25 years ago?

Apply to independent schools right away. There is going to be so much stuff to take the wind out of your sails. Not cos Wilson is a bad school imo; but dcps period is not exactly jazzy state of the art teaching. Mostly due to being a huge unweildy bureaucracy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are excited for our child to start at Wilson. But this just took the wind out of my sails. DD read this in her DCPS 7th grade (maybe even 6th?) class. So not only is it not particularly challenging, it's also such a boring, old school choice. I hope the entire curriculum won't be like this. I assume that high schools have progressed since I was a student 25 years ago?

I read it recently and saw more in it than I did in 8th grade. If it's not "challenging" then they're not reading it right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is just sad because DC didn't get into Sidwell or GDS, and it just proves her point that Wilson is substandard. And no OP, because they are reading Lord of the Flies in the 9th grade it is going to hurt their cognitive abilities to the degree that they won't get into Harvard. Sorry.

This is a rude post, I don't think that is true and you can take your snark elsewhere. I'm not the OP but I am offended by your negativity and I can smell your desperate attempt to be relevant through the screen. The OP has every right to be upset and annoyed that her child is re-reading a book from middle school. I think its lazy and substandard of the teacher.

NP. I was an English major at a public Ivy. I reread several books in my college level literature courses that I'd read in high school. New perspectives and analysis. I agree with PPer, OP is just a typical high strung DC parent. Is she going to yell at her DC's professors for rereading books there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is just sad because DC didn't get into Sidwell or GDS, and it just proves her point that Wilson is substandard. And no OP, because they are reading Lord of the Flies in the 9th grade it is going to hurt their cognitive abilities to the degree that they won't get into Harvard. Sorry.

This is a rude post, I don't think that is true and you can take your snark elsewhere. I'm not the OP but I am offended by your negativity and I can smell your desperate attempt to be relevant through the screen. The OP has every right to be upset and annoyed that her child is re-reading a book from middle school. I think its lazy and substandard of the teacher.

NP. I was an English major at a public Ivy. I reread several books in my college level literature courses that I'd read in high school. New perspectives and analysis. I agree with PPer, OP is just a typical high strung DC parent. Is she going to yell at her DC's professors for rereading books there?

Reanalyzing from HS literature is vastly different than glazing over texts from middle school. I’m also willing to bet that any books you reread were in your freshman year and approx. 30 years ago. Times have changed, no OP is not being high strung. He/She is reasonably expecting Wilson to have a decent book list of suggested summer readings in case there were books that students perhaps have already read.

[Anonymous]

Is that for the honors level 9th grade or the regular classes?

[Anonymous]

Look, everyone should read Lord of the Flies at some point, so you can get the reference when people say, "It's like Lord of the Flies in there!" But as a PP said, it's a book about white boys. I like to think that we, today, strive to avoid making any one viewpoint the "normal," but it's hard to avoid when you also want kids reading the classics, because they mostly come from a period in time when the white male perspective was the one that mattered. This means teachers and parents and students have to work hard to ensure that yes, you read the classics, but you also combine that with books from different perspectives! Once you've read LOTF, then a separate peace, then grapes of wrath, then all the king's men, then the catcher in the rye, great gatsby, heart of darkness...MacBeth, Catch 22, etc. etc. etc., you've got a lot of white man perspective, and not much else. you only have so much time in school (and in life), so I get why the OP is annoyed. Sure, you can learn from re-reading, but two years is not that much distance, and if they must re-read books, let it be the color purple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, everyone should read Lord of the Flies at some point, so you can get the reference when people say, "It's like Lord of the Flies in there!" But as a PP said, it's a book about white boys. I like to think that we, today, strive to avoid making any one viewpoint the "normal," but it's hard to avoid when you also want kids reading the classics, because they mostly come from a period in time when the white male perspective was the one that mattered. This means teachers and parents and students have to work hard to ensure that yes, you read the classics, but you also combine that with books from different perspectives! Once you've read LOTF, then a separate peace, then grapes of wrath, then all the king's men, then the catcher in the rye, great gatsby, heart of darkness...MacBeth, Catch 22, etc. etc. etc., you've got a lot of white man perspective, and not much else. you only have so much time in school (and in life), so I get why the OP is annoyed. Sure, you can learn from re-reading, but two years is not that much distance, and if they must re-read books, let it be the color purple.

[Anonymous]

As a white man, I'd say that Lord of the Flies is not necessarily the most favorable representation of the supposed values of the white man.