English is characterized by the scrutiny and analysis of universally renowned works of literature. The class in geared towards preparing students for the Advanced Placement course the following year, should it be taken. As such, students spend an enormous amount of time developing their writing skills, as wells as their critical reading skills. Starting with J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the course progresses to such works as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. According to the College Board, these works are designed to “provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers.” While most of the selections for the Sophomore Accelerated course fit these criteria, there is one glaring exception: E.M. Forster’s 1924 novel A Passage to India. An uninteresting and drawn out novel, it alienates is audience while confusing readers as it buries meaning in extended metaphors and dated social commentary. Failing to meet the standards set by the College Board, teachers should feel compelled to eliminate the instruction this ill-suited novel from the curriculum.
Since 1990, A Passage to India has appeared on four AP Literature exam free response questions, the most recent in 2009, according to a by-title list compiled by Norma J. Wilkerson. Other novels taught during the Sophomore Accelerated course exceed this number, including Jane Eyre (twelve times) and Macbeth (five times), and nearly paralleled by The Catcher in the Rye (three times, all since 2000). As the Sophomore Accelerated course is designed to prepare students for the following year’s AP course – and ultimately the AP Exam – the instruction should be inclined toward what is more likely to appear on the exam. W...
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...the overwhelming dissatisfaction that the novel elicits from those reading it – which is based in the deep, layered prose of an intricate and sophisticated mind, geared toward older audiences – provide the groundwork for the argument of the book’s removal from the Sophomore Accelerated curriculum. The animosity shown toward the teachers and the subsequent resentment by the teachers’ students should only act as additional incentive to recognize a truly great work of literature as one that has no place in the hands of a sophomore student in the confines of an analysis-based classroom.
Works Cited
http://www.brainyquote.com
http://homepage.mac.com/mseffie/AP/APtitles.html
E.M. Forster's "A Passage to India"
Kelly Gallagher's "Readicide"
U.S. College Board
http://www.sparknotes.com
Glen O. Allen's "Structure, Symbol, and Theme in E.M. Forster's A Pasage to India"
Did you ever think that books that have sex, obscene language, and immoral subjects can make a good book? The Catcher in the Rye has been on the banned reading list for exactly those reasons. The book was mainly put on disapproval from between 1966 and 1975 in almost every school district in the United States. The book was said to be so bad that in 1960 a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for assigning the book to an eleventh-grade English class. Despite some opposition to the novel, however, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye should be on a reading list for the freshman students because it gives a crystal clear image on how the world is in violence, sex, and obscenity and the book also teaches the motifs of lying and deception.
Updlike, John. "A&P." Literature. An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 12th Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education (US), 2012. 17-21. Print
Updike, John. "A & P." Literature: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed. Robert DiYanni. 5th ed. New York: McGraw, 1998. 27-31.
...Literature. Vol.1. Ed. Rossi, Patricia. Addison Wesley Educational Publishers Inc. New York: Copyright 1999. 2655-57.
High school students in many American schools first read this book in an English class, which has been a staple for many schools. A required reading assignment exposes many more people to the book. Even though the book is considered to be a children’s book by many, it is still enjoyed by people of all ages.
After carefully analyzing the piece written by Alfred Lubrano entitled “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts”, the author makes a compelling attempt to inform students seeking higher education the cutoff between close connections with friends, and the newfound individuals that he or she encounters upon entering college. Lubrano places heavy emphasis on how college education takes away any common ground shared between longtime acquaintances. Although little information about the author is highlighted, Lubrano brings up the fact that children living in working-class families grew up differently from those living in middle-class families. The rules and expectations of the two social classes are widely divergent. According to Alfred Lubrano,
In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” (1999), Francine Prose argues that literature is not being exposed to and taught to high school students in the way that it should be and that students learn to “loathe” it due to this. Prose provides her audience with her personal experience as both a mother and a college professor along with her own research on the books and suggested purposed of them. She continues to expand on this topic in order to help illuminate the importance of literature itself, not being associated with personal experiences or morals. Prose’s position is valid and she makes her essay directed towards school boards, teachers, and students and continues to maintain a critical tone throughout her essay.
Therefore, it is critical for students to spend time analyzing required books to identify such themes in order to gain understanding about the purpose of the book as a whole. In Cold Blood offers many such opportunities for high school students to develop their analytical skills. In Cold Blood should be kept on high school required reading lists because it presents readers with a myriad of new information, encourages them to analyze the context of an author 's opinions and experiences, and challenges them to identify and discuss themes from the book. Each of these skills is useful for students to master before entering college, as they will be frequently required to absorb, examine, and draw conclusions from various passages.
Updike, John. "A&P." Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw, 2002. 27-31.
Updike, John. “A&P” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing, Compact. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner., and Stephen R. Mandell
Disliking Books By Gerald Graff is about the authors own aversions, starting as a young boy, who grew up simply disliking reading books, for both academic and leisure purposes. Growing up in his neighborhood, it was highly disregarded for a boy to enjoy reading; they were looked at as “sissies” and had the potential to have been beaten up. He maintained this ideology all the way into his college career, where ironically, he majored in English. Although by this point he replaced his fear of being beaten up with the fear of failing his college courses, he was able to squeak by with doing his homework at the mare minimum. He felt as though he wasn’t able to quite relate, much less, enjoy the text. It wasn’t until his junior year he was finally able to find the spark he had been lacking all these years. It was over the controversial ending of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Some of the critics believe the story really ended when the boys basically stole Jim away and other believed it was actually when they learned that Jim had already been freed. Finally realizing that “reading and intellectual discussion might actually have something to do with my real life, I became less embarrassed about using the intellectual formulas” (Graff, Para 12). He then turned to more and more literary works to understand further of what reading critically can help you appreciate, even turning his lesson into his future profession as an English Professor.
Meyer, M. (2013). Bedford introduction to literature: Reading, thinking, writing. Boston: Bedford Bks St Martin’s.
Kennedy, X. J., & Gioia, D. (2010). Literature an introduction to fiction, poetry, drama and
Novels for Students. Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Novels. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 1999. Print.