Hey, /lit/, what are your thoughts on this? I'm interested in the opinions of those residing both in and out of the States.
>The Fault in Our Stars is half the country
Kill me senpai. Interesting that the 'deep south' states like Alabama and Georgia are reading some of the most patrician works.
I went to high-school in MA and though we read 'Night' it certainly wasn't senior year
>>7389765
That's what I was thinking as well. Northern states like to bash the intelligence of the southern states but I haven't seen anyone here in the north reading Shakespeare outside of my own family
>>7389781
Consider the following:
Most high schoolers are required to read Macbeth as part of public school curriculum. If your only reading is done in school, and you never read another thing after that, then the book that you've all been required to read is going to be overrepresented due to lack of other options.
I misread one as 'Flowers of Agamemnon' which is a good name for a book.
>>7389806
I wish I would have to read Macbeth in High school. I did it on my own time. The only Shakespeare our school ever required from us was Romeo & Juliet.
Fault for SENIORS?
Are these assigned books?
John Green is for middle school at best.
>>7389847
I'm pretty sure it's just the last book read. Which makes sense because most high schoolers don't read many books outside of class except john green and whatnot. Seriously though, good luck finding a teenage girl who hasn't read TFIOS
>>7389765
is this required reading or just books they pick up on their own time?
What the fuck is Fault in our stars?
>>7389994
Have you been living under a rock? Only the most representative novel of our generation.
>>7390005
>young adult
>>7390005
This is right, but what do you mean 'our'. I must be older, because mine seems to have been Harry fucking Potter.
>>7389994
Cancer.
>>7389994
Incomplete Shakespeare quote from Julius Caesar.
Cassius:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
mfw hawaii, delaware, virginia, alabama, oklahoma are the only patrician states
idaho georgia west virginia illinois are pretty good too
Frankenstein in Kentucky, bitches!
Suck on that, you YA hoarding fucktards!
>>7389769
It's surely just whatever books high school students are required to read statewide, patrician southern literary culture notwithstanding.
>>7390022
>tfw i just called kentucky west virginia
>tfw i am a dumb ameritard
>>7389765
East Coast as usual being the Patrician Coast, save a few exceptions
>>7389765
>Alaska
>The Hunger Games
pottery
>>7390047
Oh I was under the impression that this showed the books most read as part of school curriculum. That makes more sense, as I can't imagine a school curriculum assigning a John Green book
>>7389769
Those are standard English curriculum books.
You should interpret that as meaning they don't read outside of school, and so, like you thought, they are dumb pieces of shit.
>>7390025
the difference in Kentucky, Hawaii, etc is that in those states nobody reads anything if it's not for school.
I kind of like the southern states but literacy among the masses is not their strong point
Frankenstein for the Hoosiers!
Friend of mine goes to her second year in Swedish highschool. She's taking a course in literature and so far they've gone through the bible, the Odyssey, the Illiad, the divine comedy and now they are working on works from the middle age.
Why is USA so shit?
>>7390358
>Friend of mine goes to her second year in Swedish highschool. She's taking a course in literature
I'm pretty sure that must be an elective course. Also it must either be new or specific for that school. That sounds like nothing from my time in Swedish school.
Also remember that Swedish highschool means gymnasiet which means age 16.5-19.5.
>>7390016
Criminally underrated post
10/10
>>7390366
She studies humanities. Well it's actually 2 courses, Swedish and literature. Same teacher in both courses but he wanted them to read what he thought was the necessaries.
>>7389765
New Jersey confirmed for patrician
>>7389765
Glad my state isn't totally pleb (Mississippi).
Also, I don't know how it was for others, but most of my high school English classes provided a list to choose from to decide what you read with the exception of a few things everyone had to read. I remember loving Kurt Vonnegut in high school and always choosing his stuff whenever it was a choice.
I guess this is a high school curriculum reading list thread
so imma post the books I had to read in high school
grade 9: Pygmalion, can't remember anything else
grade 10: Romeo and Juliet, Catcher in the Rye
grade 11: Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Macbeth
grade 12: Two Keats poems, some haikus, Hamlet
We also had assignments to do book reports and a list of books to pick from. I can't remember any of them, except in grade 10 I did A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and The Pearl by Steinbeck (everyone did The Pearl because it was shortest)
>>7390384
>humanities
Ah, that program didn't exist when I was in gymnasiet.
>>7390441
We had to read The Sun Also Rises in 9th grade. I disliked it at the start, but eventually I loved it. As expected, sadly almost no one actually read it.
>>7390441
You just read a couple poems and a play in the entire senior year? I mean I guess you could do a whole course on Hamlet but what you describe seems barebones even compared to previous years
>>7390358
>they've gone through the Bible, the Odyssey . . .
Don't take her statement at face value. You know that she didn't go through the whole Bible. She also probably didn't do the whole Odyssey. She might have done three or four books from the Odyssey plus the book of Genesis, for all you know. Say what you want about American high schools, but when they do Macbeth, they do the whole play.
>>7390453
Haha they didn't have time to read the whole bible (obviously), they did the parts the teacher found valuable. For the Odyssey, they did the whole part, anything else would seem really stupid.
>>7390446
Yeah I think it's relatively new. It's a very small program with few students. I'd probably have taken it if it weren't for the fact that the people there aren't really my cup of tea.
The courses though, human language, philosophy. history, literature, religion, latin, psychology.
I mean I'd find all of those really interesting. It's like the /lit/-highschool starter kit.
>>7389765
>most eastern state
>looking for alaska
literal pottery
what is this pottery nonsense
>>7390502
They can even choose to take courses in classic Greek
>>7389994
>>7390016
BASED
A
S
E
D
>>7390016
Overrated post
>half the country is reading TFIOS
ayyyy lmao
Based Oregon
>>7389769
How is it surprising?
Yanks are plebs and the East Coast is a shithole.
>Mass and RI
>Night
Fucking jewish colonies.
Senior year, we read:
Beloved, City of Glass, As I Lay Dying, The Tempest, most of Williams poetry (WCW).
Junior year we read:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Frankenstein, some play I can't remember the name of, most of Kafka's stories, and a bunch of Neruda.
But then again, I did go to an IB school, though technically in the South, too.
Canuck here
Year 10: Merchant of Venice, Frankenstein, Percy Shelley poems
11: Death and the Maiden, Dolls House, The Stranger, Edgar Allan Poetry
12: Things Fall Apart, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Gatsby, pride and prejudice, heart of darkness, hamlet, poetry of Carrol Ann Duffy
Why were kids being fed John green in SCHOOL?
>>7391018
And Macbeth and In Cold Blood grade 11. Whoops. Thought it looked a little sparse there.
>>7389765
Based Indiana.
>>7391018
You read 7 book in grade 12?
We read hamlet and Gatsby
>>7390677
>West Coast claiming the East Coast is a shithole
Alright Jamal, go get your water rations and state-mandated hormone injections!
>>7391037
One of those is a play and one is a poetry collection, plus Things Fall Apart and Gatsby are very fast reads. What third-world shithole did you go to school in?
>>7389765
11th grade AP Lit: Walden, Scarlet Letter, Grapes of Wrath, Silent Spring, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Ethan Frome, a ton of poems (mostly environmentalist). I loved that class because taking literature seriously was encouraged by the teacher and students. So was literary criticisms. Our teacher encouraged us to do Poetry Out Loud competitions and read our own pieces in class. Fond memories.
Then...
12th grade AP Language: Othello, Macbeth, Wuthering Heights, The Things They Carried, I don't remember what else, teacher was a real dyke bitch.
The OP map scares me though.
>>7391037
Theoretically, only two of your choice were required from the first 5 (for comparison essays and shit) but it was best to read them all and choose which ones developed theme best for any chosen essay topic. I read them all but stuck mainly just to Gatsby and pride.
Hod and Hamlet were mandatory, hamlet was a participatory quasi-dramatic reading which was good fun. I played Claudius and hammed the fuck out of it.
>>7389765
>Animal Farm
not bad actually
>>7391057
Alberta
>>7391057
Yeah, so did I. Did you just read the two?
>>7390022
You forgot Oregon, pleb.
I thought standard US curriculum was Macbeth in the 10th grade? Never heard of a senior reading it.
>>7391083
That might have been the same for me. I turned 18 in the first semester and skipped most of my English classes to go to the bar in the second. Didn't even read either of the books, got a pity pass pretty much (I did very well in math and science and was accepted into an engineering school with scholarships).
I love reading now though. I think being forced to do read turned me off from it. Also I'm glad I wasn't influenced by my pleb high school teachers interpretations and analysis when I read those books later in life.
>>7391106
I went to a small town school, our teachers were pretty dumb. In "calculus" I was correcting my teacher just based on common sense.
>>7390677
>Yanks are plebs and the East Coast is a shithole.
New England
>Harvard
>Yale
>MIT
>Brown
>Herman Melville
>Nathaniel Hawthorne
>Ralph Waldo Emerson
>Henry David Thoreau
>Emily Dickinson
>Sylvia Path
>Anne Sexton
>Edna St. Vincent Millay
>Edgar Allan Poe
>Cormac McCarthy
>Mark Twain (moved here)
>John Updike
California
>John Steinbeck
>the hippie movement
>>7391121
My teacher (I had the same one all throughout high school) was cool as fuck, he pushed me into the direction of reading for pleasure. But I understand where you're coming from, most teachers in my school were pretentious and boring, probably turning a lot of students off of reading.
>>7391137
Shitty. Did you ever make it out?
>>7391164
The small town is awesome, and I want to live there. The teachers were just dumb.
I found enjoyment in reading, math and learning in general on my own time.
>>7389765
nuke america
now
Books I read at my own accord:
9: Huckleberry, Mein Kampf
10: 1984, Brave New World
11: No Longer Human, Blood Meridian
12: The Brothers Karamazov, Gatsby, Notes from Underground, Divine Comedy
>>7389765
You know literary education in America is fucked when Oklahoma and Alabama are the only states reading real literature.
>>7391496
Delaware and Hawaii as well. I would consider Frankenstein and The Road "real literature" too but those four states have the best taste.
>>7391489
AYY
I'm reading 1984 for the first time
>>7389765
In class? Um I cry bullshit. I've taught at three high schools in Louisiana and none taught John Green unless it was for a summer reading assignment with multiple optional titles. Also, our parents are known to cry out to Jesus (and the school board) to get John Green banned because his books sometimes acknowledge that teenagers actually have sex. tl;dr Fuck the south.
Reading Animal Farm in senior year is nuts... 1984, sure. I taught Animal Farm to sophomores. Sadly, every other sophomore English teacher quit teaching it because "the kids don't get it and I think it's kind of boring." Well, there were no real readers teaching in my dept. so no huge shock there. They probably didn't grasp Stalinism either.
Why is no Beowulf on there? They only include full length works? Shakespeare is there. I'd say Beowulf is the most consistent read I've seen, maybe followed by Earnest and Frankenstein, for seniors at the high schools I've taught at.
>>7389826
That's a shit school then. You should have read at least 2-3 Shakespeare plays in high school. Most states with Common Core are supposed to teach Hamlet now. Don't know how that works out in non-accelerated classrooms. Hell, I taught Kafka to sophomores. Prose is simple, but shit they don't get the depth of his writing.
>>7390441
>The Pearl
Probably the worst book on the list too. I was required to read it in 10th grade and it was the absolute worst book I read for school. Steinbeck's strength is in dialogue, which is not in The Pearl.
>>7391018
>The Stranger in 11th grade
Damn you Canadians are based. Way to teach the kids nihilism. I got shit for endorsing Kafka being taught at my school because it "depresses the kids."
>>7391531
I'm American and we read The Stranger senior year.
>>7389765
Damn, I was wondering why I'd never heard of this book that seems all the rage but it's some new kids book.
That said, I went to high school for a few years in North Dakota (for the brief time I lived in the US) and I never remember Flowers for Algernon being mentioned at all. The most popular book at my high school was this one called Until They Bring the Streetcars Back.
>>7391537
Well that's pretty cool. Everyone would have lost their shit over it in my school. The only questionable content that parents and students gave a pass was Shakespeare because it's questionable material hidden behind words that most of them can't grasp.
>>7389765
Virginia patrician reporting in
I'm from MI and never heard of A Long Way Gone. I lived in a majority white trash town though, but most kids didn't read and those that did were fans of Harry Potter and Twilight.
Texasfag here. Never saw a single peer reading a book in my senior year of high school. Except...that one girl who read Fault in our-- FUCK
based Oklahoma
>>7389769
The deep south reading patrician novels makes sense. Most people don't read at all, but the kids who do are smart, and read worthwhile shit. The rest of the country is populated with people of average intelligence raised to believe that they are smart and read the most pseudo intellectual bullshit ever.
Source: from Connecticut, go to college in Tennessee
>>7391682
>Source: a pseud who thinks he's intelligent
FTFY
>>7391468
>Faulkner was from the South
Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and racism. What an extensive legacy.
>>7390450
I just didn't remember the others
but we didn't read very much
it was a Canadian public school
>>7390483
>For the Odyssey, they did the whole part, anything else would seem really stupid.
I took a uni course that skipped half the odyssey, and this is at a major university
we skipped half the Aeneid too . . . did like 1/3 of the Inferno and none of the Purgatorio or Paradiso . . . it was a first year course, though
we did all of the Epic of Gilgamesh though. lmao
>>7391704
Better than the East Coast
>>7392023
Melville alone is better than the collective talents of everyone born to the South of the Mason-Dixon line since the mid 19th century
>>7390274
Yeah this. Same same hawaii
>>7392085
Wrong, that's Faulkner to everything the EC has to offer.
>>7391480
Ahhhh I see. Glad to hear that you're making your own way
>>7390502
Those subjects are interesting, but I doubt that the courses are any good. I took elective English and philosophy courses in high school (Swedish high school, that is) and they were garbage. For the philosophy course they only made us read a single actual text, and it was Peter Singer's "All Animals Are Equal." Pretty much ever important philosopher that was brought up at all was only mentioned in passing and most of the time was spent on worthless, unproductive group discussions.
