Following on from the why do schools select bad books thread. What would you pick and why if you could set a school reading list? Something Old School (so nothing after 1800) Something Modern (Nothing before 2000) Something with Social Commentary (as long as its not the handmaids fake news) Something fun but with literary quality (so not andy mcnab).
Which age groups? Our kids here in Finland read totally different books at the age of 8 and 12 or 15. Here it goes like this: School gives a reading list. You pick what you want to - or not. You show it somehow if you have read some book. Many pupils don't read what school tells but what they like to read. Our 2 school age kids read quite a lot. But I don't think they pay any attention to what school tells them to read. I think it's important to them to read something else than adults recommend. Here is something I know they have been reading: - James Herriot - Alexander McCall Smith - Terry Pratchett - J.K. Rowling (again and again and...) - Robert D. Hare - Malala Yousafzai - Walt Disney comics - Enid Blyton - Sinikka Nopola - Yann Martell - Alex Scarron What I would pick? Let's say age group between 9-12. - I would throw to waste bin all that "old school, modern..." list. - I would let pupils to select what they like to read as long as it's books. - I would ask pupils to tell what they like so that others can seek if they also like same books. - The point would not be to teach pupils via selected books but to motivate them to read voluntarily and love it. I don't believe at all old school "big bottle, little bottles" -teaching methods.* And countries which still use them, don't manage well in international comparisons. Especially comparisons which take into account results per time and money are not at all polite to "bottle countries". I think we had something like this... ...somewhere between 1920 - 1970. But then pedagogics and didactics got some attention. *Teacher is a big bottle. Pupils are small bottles. Big bottle pours it's knowledge and wisdom to little bottles.
I was thinking older kids 16 - 18, for what in the UK would be A Level Literature exams. So not readong for the sake of learning to read, but for understanding writting.
Something Old School (so nothing after 1800) - Honestly, probably Beowulf. Short enough to be read over a few classes, literary enough to be worth teaching, and it has a dragon in it. Everyone loves dragons! Something Modern (Nothing before 2000) - This was hard to think of. Probably Hapax by A.E. Stallings, she's a good poet. Something with Social Commentary (as long as its not the handmaids fake news) - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It had such a big effect on me as a teenager, so yeah. Something fun but with literary quality (so not andy mcnab) - I don't know why I'm picking this, but No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre. All of those books could, I think, be at least appreciated by any intelligent teenager. They aren't exactly difficult on the surface at least, and might be interesting. I don't know if this is showing me up as out of touch with them kids these days. Woops!
I'll play. Something Old School (so nothing after 1800) -- Agree with Beowulf, alternatively a book of old ballads or maybe Gawain and the Green Knight. Something medieval, anyway. Something Modern (Nothing before 2000) -- Dude, I have no idea. Station Eleven? That one was okay. This is a gap in my reading, apparently. Something with Social Commentary (as long as its not the handmaids fake news) -- To Kill a Mockingbird. Something fun but with literary quality (so not andy mcnab) -- Watership Down or maybe A Canticle for Leibowitz.
