What Were They Reading?

Here is an interesting article about reading curriculum differences, comparing reading lists from over 100 years ago with those of today:

http://www.better-ed.org/blog/middle-school-reading-lists-100-years-ago-vs-today

It's a shame that many classics are being removed in favor of trendy items.

Fuzzi, this reminds me of something from my own past. When I was a senior in HS, my composition teacher gave our class a reading list. Everyone had to read 6 items on it. The books were challenging, from several time periods. They introduced me to authors I'd never heard of (and I was a well-read kid.) I kept the list for several years and then tossed it one day for no good reason.

I became a librarian in my hometown and worked the reference desk. One day a high school senior came in with the reading list I had had--sort of. It had been "cut" to add bestsellers like Flowers in the Attic and the authors I had discovered were mostly gone. How I wish I'd kept the original.

>2 Bjace: Oh, I was hoping that story would end, "One day as I was re-shelving books, a paper fell from one and there was the list!" :)

If a household isn't literary (which most are not any more), I can see that the 1908 titles would not be acceptable to 7th and 8th graders. Current titles at least encourage some exposure and enjoyment.

I've got many of those lists stashed away, and periodically try to check off more classics read. My children are the same, but their children have TOO MUCH TELEVISION.

>4 2wonderY:
Yes, I don't think they chose the best possible example to make their case. There aren't really many true classics on the 1908 list: Treasure Island is probably the only serious contender. Most of the other books seem to have been chosen because they convey a particular view of American history: I don't suppose there were all that many people of protestant, Anglo-Saxon descent in Minnesota in the 1900s, but the education authorities obviously wanted to convince them all that they should reject their European heritage and grow up in the tradition of the Pilgrim Fathers. And there's some serious dumbing-down going on: Stories from Dickens is obviously going to be a collection that has been heavily censored to get rid of anything unsuitable...

The modern list has at least three proper classics on it, with Tom Sawyer, Anne Frank and Fahrenheit 451, and the multi-culti stuff is at least well-intentioned, even if much of it is probably weak-minded.

ETA: Before anyone accuses me of not having any qualifications to be in this group, I should say that I still have very fond memories of reading (aged about 5) The song of Hiawatha with my aunt, who started her career as a schoolteacher (in England) some time before World War I. She would have been horrified that the 1908 list didn't have any Tennyson, Scott, or Charles Kingsley on it.

The removal of the classics from high school reading lists was already in full swing while I attended (1970's). One of the reading electives was Conan the Barbarian books, another was only SciFi.

I was not exposed to many of the Classics, and discovered them on my own, such as works by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens to name just a couple.

I went in the late 70s also, I don't remember ever having a reading list. We just read excerpts from the textbook of horrible short stories. If I didn't already love reading, The Glass Menagerie and several others would have killed the desire for good.

One difference I have noticed between my school reading and that of my children is that I hated almost everything I had to read for English, and that they enjoyed most of theirs.

Even today, I look at 1001 books and say, 'No, thank you, I don't want to read most of that stuff.' I sometimes read things that I want more to have read than to read, but certainly not because someone else thinks I should have read it.

As a reading volunteer in an elementary school I have come to believe that the best I can do for the kids is to bring in a variety of reading material that is different from their textbooks and that they enjoy.

>8 MarthaJeanne: I don't read the 1001 titles because "someone else thinks I should," I read them because it's a fairly comprehensive list of many classics and worthwhile titles that have some sort of significance/have withstood the test of time. I read classics because I want to see for myself what it is about them that makes those titles hang around. I don't always see it, nor do I have any intention of reading every single 1001 book, because the selections are repetitive and there are far too many titles from the past 20 years on the list, but it's a good place to get ideas from.

There are many children's classics that I could recommend for enjoyment - Heidi, Kidnapped, etc. etc.

But the first adult classic that made me sit up and take notice was the political/religious farce Candide. It was laugh out loud funny. I couldn't believe that a classic could be fun.

>7 MrsLee: I had to read that, too, and despised it.

I read The Grapes of Wrath after graduation, and disliked it, but would recommend it to others...strange?

>10 2wonderY: ah, Candide, I do recall you, but have never felt a desire to revisit.

Kidnapped was one I missed, until earlier this year. :)

>11 fuzzi: Grapes of Wrath, and many other Steinbecks, are books I have the utmost respect and admiration for. Their writing is superb, but because of that, and the very painful aspects of humanity that he wrote about, I will probably not reread any of them. I have no regrets for reading them though. Except for The Red Pony. I have a deep-felt grievance against it.

>12 MrsLee: I have a similar feeling about John Saul: I read one of his books, and could not put it down, but I never, ever want to read ANYTHING written by him, EVER again!

But if you like that sort of thing, it's very good.