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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our public school never assigned a whole class novel. At the end of the year starting in 2nd they did do "book club" where kids would pick from a group of several books and discuss them with the group of other kids who picked the same book. There was occasional short passage reading comprehension homework in the reading packet as early as 1st, but that was highly teacher dependent and most years the kids didn't even have homework. When they did have homework one part of it might be "read for 15 minutes and log it."

Contrast that with our private, where whole class novels start as read-alouds in the primary grades but become homework or classwork (depending on the kid) in upper elementary and the middle and high school literature curriculum could have come straight out of the 1990s, with many of the same assigned books parents might recognize from that era.[/quote]

What are some of the novels?[/quote]

At which grade?

Off the top of my head, in 5th grade they read Prince Caspian, The Golden Goblet, and 2 others I'm forgetting. 6th grader is currently reading Bud, Not Buddy and will be reading City of Ember sometime later this year. 7th grader read The Hobbit, Inside Out and Back Again, something from Shakespeare, and others I'm forgetting. I know in 3rd grade they read Charlotte's Web, but there were more I'm not remembering (and 3rd is the last year where novels are mostly read alouds - they do other assigned reading in ability groups). 4th includes Misty of Chincoteague, Sign of the Beaver, and Because of Winn Dixie.

I know by high school they are reading Beowulf, Lord of the Flies, and other lit that most of us would remember from, well, high school.[/quote]

This elementary reading list sounds like some school out of 1990.  Hard to believe any elementary school is picking these instead of newer literature where characters are mostly non-white and mostly have some theme about marginalized people and racism [/quote]

Um, Inside Out and Back Again was published in 2013 and features a Vietnamese main character. But, Not Buddy won the Newberry, is about an African American character, and was published to late to be featured on any school reading lists in 1990. City of Ember also could not have appeared on any school reading list in 1990. The Golden Goblet is set in ancient Egypt.

It's really OK to mix new and old, fantasy and realistic fiction, themes of marginalized characters with other kinds of themes too. I'm glad my kids get exposed to a variety both in the literature we bring home for them and what their school assigns.[/quote]

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