What books were you tasked to read in your high school literature classes?

[Still-alive]

British or American literature for instance? or world literature even. What books were assigned to you to read?

for instance i read: Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, and Heart of Darkness were all the ones i remember most

[Kaneki05]

None. We were just given random parts of many books but we never actually were made to read the full book.
As for reading education that was taught by a self system basically you would have certain tiers of people and from those tiers you pick your own books. Then after reading them you do a quiz on this site they had.
It would ask you how long it took you to read it? And then multiple questions on things in the book testing one's memory. The more successful you would move up a tier. Honestly it's an amazing system made you feel like playing a video game progressing your levels.

Myself was at the very top tier, above pretty much everyone else. I went through every single goosebumps books since they were more simple but good. Then I moved onto the more full length books.
You also got more freedom with what you wanted to read at the higher tier. All books were color coded with dots showing what tier they were.
I think Pink or Black was the highest? Goosebumps on lower end were blue.

[RolandCuthbert]

Well, I am pretty old. . . so. . .

The weird thing is the book was totally wrong in its assumptions about "civilization". But we were being indoctrinated.

[Still-alive]

never read that one yet. im sure thug notes did one on it though lol ill check it out

[RolandCuthbert]

It is basically some nonsense about how if people are left to their own devices, they become savages.

Yet it doesn't address the savagery that has happened and still happens in what we call "civilization".

[goaded]

I'm not sure about that, I think it was a "three meals away from savagery" deal.

[RolandCuthbert]

@goaded Really?

"It isn’t long before their “savage natures” take over; they argue, paint their faces and hunt bloodthirstily, eventually even killing some of their own. They fear and stalk “the Beast,” whom they believe to be a dangerous creature on the island. In fact, there is no such animal — their anxiety about the Beast symbolizes their fear of the emerging monster within each of them."

It is the weird thing about how "we" use law and order and that prevents us from killing each other and being savages. Just like Indigenous folks killed other members of their tribe or clan. . . for the hell of it.

[goaded]

It's been decades since I read it. Yeah, normal people don't kill each other, but I'm seeing a lot of blaming "the other" and violence against them at the moment. The adults have left the room, at least in the Republican party. Is it, perhaps, an analogy that sensible people be in charge (and as I type that, I realise that that's a call for authoritarianism). I wish I'd been as engaged as this in school!

[Cynicaldreamer]

Just a few I remember off the top of my head (some of these were from my Honors English classes, so not sure if everyone was required to read them or not):

• Scarlet Letter
• And Then There Were None
• Lord of the Flies
• Animal Farm
• To Kill a Mockingbird- one of my absolute favorite books
• Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
• Pride and Prejudice

[Miristheiss]

I didn't have to read any of these for school but on my own I have read:
Scarlet Letter
Animal Farm
To Kill a Mockingbird (did you read her follow up novel Go Set a Watchman?)
Pride and Prejudice (I liked this a lot)

[Cynicaldreamer]

@Miristheiss Those were classics! You had good tastes in books sir-

And no, I did not realize there was a follow up book To Kill a Mockingbird? I am about to look into that right now. Wow, I learned something new today

[letuswaltzforthedead]

This year was the Handmaid's tale for summer reading and last year was The Namesake (which also has a flim I think). The two years prior to that, we read the Great Gatsby

As for class itself, we've read Macbeth (school always has a weird obsession with Shakespeare) and currently on Frankenstein.

[Still-alive]

what did you think of Handmaid's Tale?

[letuswaltzforthedead]

If I had to rate, I'd give it a 4 or 5 out of 10. The book's saving grace, in my opinion, was the way it's written. It's written entertaining and concise enough for it to be good to read. As for the story itself and the message, before I read the book, I read it summarized as 50 shades of gray for intellectual or feminists and now that I've read it, I kinda agree. What do you think of the book?

[whereismyjohnny]

We read Russian, French, British, German and American literature mostly. Some of the books we read that I really enjoyed are:

- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

- Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

- The Stranger by Albert Camus

- Hamlet by William Shakespeare

- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

[SnowedIn]

Both books and authors provided: Canterbury Tales, The Odyssey, The Great Gatsby, Jane Eyre, lots of Shakespeare, My Antonia, Maya Angelou, Dickinson, Poe, Byron, Charles Dickins, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, The Diary of Anne Frank. So many others.

[DarkCarousel]

A Farewell to Arms, Catcher in the Rye, Scarlet Letter. Those are the few that I remember. I read a ton of books on my own. Didn’t really care for the classics until I got a little older and reread them.

[menina]

When I was in high school, I had to read Portuguese literature. I only started reading Bristish literature when I went to college.

I guess there's no point in mentioning Portuguese books since most people don't know them.

[Belgie]

Animal Farm, 1984, Great Gatsby, The Pearl, the Old Man and the sea, A Handful of Dust, the Mayor of Castorbridge and a few others I've forgotten.

[Belgie]

Oh, Silas Marner was one.

[melanieeeB]

In English we didn't read books, but uhm German: Rome and Juliette from Shakespeare, Faust from Goethe, Nathan the wise one - Lessing, Wilhelm Tell - Schilling... a few more that I can't name tho

[WhitneySnow]

All the ones you mentioned plus Romeo and Juliet Hamlet and The Sun Also Rises. Oh and I did a term paper on Dracula last year but that was my choice for independent study.

[goaded]

Honestly, I can't remember, but I remember being upset that the previous year got to read The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which I'd read a dozen times already.

[Miristheiss]

Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn (Mark Twain)

Across Five Aprils

Edgar Allen Poe

Shakespeare

[mandyfire98]

Great Gatsby, Catcher in the rye, slaughter house five, Flowers for Algernon, Of mice and men.

[Apulu_Imback]

We aren't assigned any books. We just have our literature book.

[petitedollbabee]

The only ones I remember is I Am Not Esther and I Am Rebecca both written by Fleur Beale.

[Whatthefluff]

For high school: Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, Keesha's House, Lord of the Flies

[TroyDT2]

I specifically remember The Gulag Archipelago, Silas Marner, One Hundred Years of Solitude, To Kill A Mockingbird, David Copperfield.

[Amarah0]

I did They both die at the end this year. Previously Moby Dick, To kill a mockingbird and Frankenstein

[tfan1]

Well in my reading classes, I remember charlotte’s web, and the lion the witch and the wardrobe. That’s all I can remember.

[Phoenix98]

Heck if I can remember that was like 11 years ago lol.

[DancingQueen16]

During my senior year of high school my teacher made us read this book called Jazz

[Pete671]

1984, it was written as a description of a dystopian future, not designed to be an instruction manual!!!

[KostasKouvalis]

Great Gatsby, the one about the kids on the deserted island (something with "Fly" in the title), Slaughterhouse 5 and Edgar Allen Poe