Disturbing Assigned Reading

[Anonymous]

I am starting to think that people who try to defy classics are just not well trained in reading and not deep thinkers. They only take in the book if it’s relevant to their everyday existence. Basically lack of imagination and knowledge.

Agree with this. I read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Suns. They are good books but not great literature.


What is absolutely mind boggling is :
1) parents think a senior in HS is the same as an adult. They are not. Teens, especially many girls are at their most sensitive.
2) we wonder why kids are depressed and anxious, then we look at what they are reading/viewing.

DC loves to read. I ask at every B&N I go to- can you point me in the direction of an uplifting story they can read. It is near impossible to find something without individual trauma, a dystopian world or similar. The school assigned books are the worst. Reading one or two books, per year, maybe. But DC has 5 or 6 each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the anti-intellectual mob that crows against dead white men authors is that often the proposed alternatives rarely even qualify as literature.

Case in point, my child’s assigned reading, Esperanza Rising, by some no name author, but checks a bunch of boxes for what counts as the correct ‘lived experiences’. I’m sorry, but what a complete waste of time! Simplistic plot line, poor character development, vocabulary and sentence structure at the comic book level. And that’s the only book they read so far this year!

To the question of what constitutes classics, how shallow and simplistic is to judge and reject literature by the genitals of the author? Classics are works that have an outsized influence on the culture, on later authors, and how society perceives the world. Why can’t they read Aesop’s fables instead? Yeah, I know, dead (certainly), white (possibly), male.

My son has suffered through Esperanza Rising as well, and he said as much but in simpler terms. What a bunch of crock they have to read!

My kid read one complete book in their MCPS Middle School. Everything else was excerpts from Study Sync.

That one book was The Pact. My kid asked me to read it and it was simply terrible. Poorly written, disjointed and not worthy of spending weeks on in a MS English class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the anti-intellectual mob that crows against dead white men authors is that often the proposed alternatives rarely even qualify as literature.

Case in point, my child’s assigned reading, Esperanza Rising, by some no name author, but checks a bunch of boxes for what counts as the correct ‘lived experiences’. I’m sorry, but what a complete waste of time! Simplistic plot line, poor character development, vocabulary and sentence structure at the comic book level. And that’s the only book they read so far this year!

To the question of what constitutes classics, how shallow and simplistic is to judge and reject literature by the genitals of the author? Classics are works that have an outsized influence on the culture, on later authors, and how society perceives the world. Why can’t they read Aesop’s fables instead? Yeah, I know, dead (certainly), white (possibly), male.

Esperanza Rising is a good book. I'm sorry you didn't like it. Maybe you'd prefer for your child to read a very long book by a man about women characters behaving in ways he believed women to behave. Spoiler alert: after many hundreds of pages, one of these women characters meets a train.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am starting to think that people who try to defy classics are just not well trained in reading and not deep thinkers. They only take in the book if it’s relevant to their everyday existence. Basically lack of imagination and knowledge.

Agree with this. I read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Suns. They are good books but not great literature.


What is absolutely mind boggling is :
1) parents think a senior in HS is the same as an adult. They are not. Teens, especially many girls are at their most sensitive.
2) we wonder why kids are depressed and anxious, then we look at what they are reading/viewing.

DC loves to read. I ask at every B&N I go to- can you point me in the direction of an uplifting story they can read. It is near impossible to find something without individual trauma, a dystopian world or similar. The school assigned books are the worst. Reading one or two books, per year, maybe. But DC has 5 or 6 each year.

Maybe the "kids should read uplifting books" people can get together with the "kids should read classics" people and hash it out. With particular attention to the works of Sophocles and Tolstoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am starting to think that people who try to defy classics are just not well trained in reading and not deep thinkers. They only take in the book if it’s relevant to their everyday existence. Basically lack of imagination and knowledge.

Agree with this. I read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Suns. They are good books but not great literature.


What is absolutely mind boggling is :
1) parents think a senior in HS is the same as an adult. They are not. Teens, especially many girls are at their most sensitive.
2) we wonder why kids are depressed and anxious, then we look at what they are reading/viewing.

DC loves to read. I ask at every B&N I go to- can you point me in the direction of an uplifting story they can read. It is near impossible to find something without individual trauma, a dystopian world or similar. The school assigned books are the worst. Reading one or two books, per year, maybe. But DC has 5 or 6 each year.

Maybe the "kids should read uplifting books" people can get together with the "kids should read classics" people and hash it out. With particular attention to the works of Sophocles and Tolstoy.

Being well read is nothing to be ashamed of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am starting to think that people who try to defy classics are just not well trained in reading and not deep thinkers. They only take in the book if it’s relevant to their everyday existence. Basically lack of imagination and knowledge.

Agree with this. I read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Suns. They are good books but not great literature.


What is absolutely mind boggling is :
1) parents think a senior in HS is the same as an adult. They are not. Teens, especially many girls are at their most sensitive.
2) we wonder why kids are depressed and anxious, then we look at what they are reading/viewing.

DC loves to read. I ask at every B&N I go to- can you point me in the direction of an uplifting story they can read. It is near impossible to find something without individual trauma, a dystopian world or similar. The school assigned books are the worst. Reading one or two books, per year, maybe. But DC has 5 or 6 each year.

Maybe the "kids should read uplifting books" people can get together with the "kids should read classics" people and hash it out. With particular attention to the works of Sophocles and Tolstoy.

Being well read is nothing to be ashamed of.

I'm the PP you're responding to. Indeed it isn't. In fact, I consider myself well-read. Which is why I know there's nothing "uplifting" about either Sophocles or Tolstoy. If you want uplifting, go read Mitch Albom (whom I have actually not read, so this is not based on first-hand experience).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the anti-intellectual mob that crows against dead white men authors is that often the proposed alternatives rarely even qualify as literature.

Case in point, my child’s assigned reading, Esperanza Rising, by some no name author, but checks a bunch of boxes for what counts as the correct ‘lived experiences’. I’m sorry, but what a complete waste of time! Simplistic plot line, poor character development, vocabulary and sentence structure at the comic book level. And that’s the only book they read so far this year!

To the question of what constitutes classics, how shallow and simplistic is to judge and reject literature by the genitals of the author? Classics are works that have an outsized influence on the culture, on later authors, and how society perceives the world. Why can’t they read Aesop’s fables instead? Yeah, I know, dead (certainly), white (possibly), male.

Esperanza Rising’s intended age group is 9-12. What do you expect? They should substitute Faulkner instead?

You would be amazed at what kids can learn when challenged. Perhaps not Faulkner at that age, but maybe Dickens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the anti-intellectual mob that crows against dead white men authors is that often the proposed alternatives rarely even qualify as literature.

Case in point, my child’s assigned reading, Esperanza Rising, by some no name author, but checks a bunch of boxes for what counts as the correct ‘lived experiences’. I’m sorry, but what a complete waste of time! Simplistic plot line, poor character development, vocabulary and sentence structure at the comic book level. And that’s the only book they read so far this year!

To the question of what constitutes classics, how shallow and simplistic is to judge and reject literature by the genitals of the author? Classics are works that have an outsized influence on the culture, on later authors, and how society perceives the world. Why can’t they read Aesop’s fables instead? Yeah, I know, dead (certainly), white (possibly), male.

Esperanza Rising’s intended age group is 9-12. What do you expect? They should substitute Faulkner instead?

You would be amazed at what kids can learn when challenged. Perhaps not Faulkner at that age, but maybe Dickens?

I like Dickens - or rather, there are many Dickens novels that I like a lot. Why should 9-12-year-olds in Montgomery County in 2023 read Bleak House instead of Esperanza Rising?

https://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/content/esperanza-rising-0

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the anti-intellectual mob that crows against dead white men authors is that often the proposed alternatives rarely even qualify as literature.

Case in point, my child’s assigned reading, Esperanza Rising, by some no name author, but checks a bunch of boxes for what counts as the correct ‘lived experiences’. I’m sorry, but what a complete waste of time! Simplistic plot line, poor character development, vocabulary and sentence structure at the comic book level. And that’s the only book they read so far this year!

To the question of what constitutes classics, how shallow and simplistic is to judge and reject literature by the genitals of the author? Classics are works that have an outsized influence on the culture, on later authors, and how society perceives the world. Why can’t they read Aesop’s fables instead? Yeah, I know, dead (certainly), white (possibly), male.

Esperanza Rising’s intended age group is 9-12. What do you expect? They should substitute Faulkner instead?

You would be amazed at what kids can learn when challenged. Perhaps not Faulkner at that age, but maybe Dickens?

I enjoyed reading Dickens as a kid and Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t HS kids today read the classics?

LOL, we all know why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it Kite Runner? My child had to read that in ninth grade and found it extremely disturbing.

A Thousand Splendid Sons by the same author.

The problem with this book is that it is completely devoid of any kind of hope, even in the end. It left me depressed. Not so with Kite Runner. Humans need a glimmer of hope to survive and thrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am starting to think that people who try to defy classics are just not well trained in reading and not deep thinkers. They only take in the book if it’s relevant to their everyday existence. Basically lack of imagination and knowledge.

Agree with this. I read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Suns. They are good books but not great literature.


What is absolutely mind boggling is :
1) parents think a senior in HS is the same as an adult. They are not. Teens, especially many girls are at their most sensitive.
2) we wonder why kids are depressed and anxious, then we look at what they are reading/viewing.

DC loves to read. I ask at every B&N I go to- can you point me in the direction of an uplifting story they can read. It is near impossible to find something without individual trauma, a dystopian world or similar. The school assigned books are the worst. Reading one or two books, per year, maybe. But DC has 5 or 6 each year.

I read these books as an adult and I enjoyed them but I can also understand the difficulty reading them. I had to read Beloved as a child and that book was a really difficult read that I couldn't finish because it was just too much.

There was a time when I just hated reading books because (mainly inspired by Dickens and Angelou) I thought that too many writers were trying to sound poetic rather than just telling a story. My teacher in HS gave me an option to pick any book, run it by him and if he approved it, I could read it and write my report on it. I chose a Dennis Rodman autobiography which wasn't a great book but was a much funnier read than some of the other stuff that had been on the reading lists,

What I fear at that age is that people form these hardened opinions about reading where they hate the activity because of a small subset of books that their teacher liked or told them to read. I think the more important thing is getting students interested in reading and if they read, they will eventually find their lane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t HS kids today read the classics?

LOL, we all know why.

Because the classics were written in a different time about a different society and they may not feel like the problems they're facing right now aren't addressed in those books. This relates to the "why do you read" thread but HS students don't just read because they're told to. Maybe that's one reason, but just like with anything else you want to enjoy what you're doing and if you do enjoy it you're more likely to keep doing similar things.

Telling a child who hates Treasure Island or Dickens or Tolstoy or whoever else that they must read X number of those books to finish a class only makes them hate the class more, especially if there are newer stories like say Harry Potter or Percy Jackson that they enjoy more and may be easier reads.

[Anonymous]

If your child is traumatized by the content in the book, tell her to stop reading it, and you should talk to her teacher.
We wouldn't force this child to watch the George Floyd video for educational purposes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the anti-intellectual mob that crows against dead white men authors is that often the proposed alternatives rarely even qualify as literature.

Case in point, my child’s assigned reading, Esperanza Rising, by some no name author, but checks a bunch of boxes for what counts as the correct ‘lived experiences’. I’m sorry, but what a complete waste of time! Simplistic plot line, poor character development, vocabulary and sentence structure at the comic book level. And that’s the only book they read so far this year!

To the question of what constitutes classics, how shallow and simplistic is to judge and reject literature by the genitals of the author? Classics are works that have an outsized influence on the culture, on later authors, and how society perceives the world. Why can’t they read Aesop’s fables instead? Yeah, I know, dead (certainly), white (possibly), male.

Esperanza Rising’s intended age group is 9-12. What do you expect? They should substitute Faulkner instead?

You would be amazed at what kids can learn when challenged. Perhaps not Faulkner at that age, but maybe Dickens?

I enjoyed reading Dickens as a kid and Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo.

I read The Count of Monte Cristo as an adult. It's 1,243 pages long, because Alexandre Dumas (père) got paid by the word.

It's fine to read Treasure Island, but why should kids have to read Treasure Island when there are so many other books that will likely resonate with them more?