What book(s) did you read as a freshman in high school as a class assignment?

Question

I'm looking for something unique and interesting for my students to read this year. I tried My Antonia by Willa Cather last year and also have a novel set of Great Expectations, but today's students don't seem to really get interested in them.

Answer 1

The only ones I can remember are "Romeo and Juliet," "The Lord of the Flies," a biography on William T. Sherman, and "The Two Towers." The first two were class reads, that is to say the teacher picked out the book and we had to read them whether we wanted to or not. The second two I picked for book reports, and I only finished the biography as I just couldn't get into Tolkien at that time (I've managed to read "The Lord of the Rings" since then).

Personally, I don't think it's just today's student that don't get intrested in books for school. I loved to read, at home and when it was my choice. But for school, I was much more likely to be willing to read as long as it was something of my own choosing. And when I only had to keep a reading journal rather than do a book report it then became much more acceptable. I despised being forced to read books for class or book reports, and I wasn't the only one. If the teacher said it was a good book, or a book you absolutely must read before you die, it was anything but to most of the class.

Only one teacher could get most of us to actually want to read what was assigned for class, and that was our tenth grade English teacher. But he tended to earn our respect and make the lesson, no matter what it was (with the notable exceptions of "The History of English," a documentary on the English language, and the first book in the Foundation sereis), highly intresting. We read "Animal Farm," "The Odessey," Edith Hamilton's "Mythology," a book on Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller (I don't remember it actually being "The Miracle Worker") for his class, and most of us actually wanted to do so. Something we wouldn't have wanted to do for any of our other English teachers.

Most of my junior and senior high school English teachers were too often here is a book that is an absolute for you to read. The problem was most of them actually failed to make it something most of the class would want to read. The only reason we'd even bother reading it was so we didn't flat out fail. Since tenth grade I've always felt that if a teacher could get their students to want to read the books they assigned then most of those books would be viewed in a different way by the students.

Answer 2

We read Night by Elie Wiesel, and Romeo and Juliet. I can't remember the others. What does that say about them, though? :)

Get them to read something that actually means something to 15-year-olds. Like The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which is a book that 15-year olds who don't read read. Of course, you should probably get this approved by the school. It has been banned on numerous occasions and has "controversial" content. Also, Catcher in the Rye is a great book, but comes with the same caution.

Oh, and if you teach grammar as well, I reccomend giving the kids examples from Karen Elizabeth Gordon's The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, and the New Well Tempered sentences, the only truly literary grammar books I've ever encountered in my life.

Answer 3

I remember reading Great Expectations and Lord of the Flies in 9th grade and really hating them. Also, I wasn't too impressed by The House of Mango Street. But I did really enjoy And Then There Were None, Beowulf, Fahrenheit 451, and Romeo and Juliet (which we read together with West Side Story which I also loved). Oh, and we also read The Outsiders, but I had just read it for class in the 8th grade. An interesting book, but never one of my favorites. My sister is going to be a freshman in the fall and was assigned The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Feed for her summer reading. She isn't liking them that much so far though. It's been too long for me to remember any of the others, but I also recall having to keep an independent reading log each semester with a certain number of books we were supposed to read on our own.

Answer 4

When I was a freshman I read:
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
1984 by George Orwell

I actually liked them all. I loved Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, and I liked both Romeo and Juliet and a Separate Peace.

However, no one else in my class liked A Separate Peace, they all thought it was stupid. I really like symbolism and I felt like the book was full of it. It had a good plot and though I didn't quite believe the characters, I still liked it.

Slaughter-house 5 is also an amazing book. I read it freshman year, though not for class.

Answer 5

Last year when I was a freshman we read To Kill A Mockingbird. I thought it was an OK book. I didn't think it was great or a classic but most people in my class thought it was stupid and boring. Alot of people were saying it was the only book they have ever read which is really sad. People these days don't know how to enjoy a good book. They would rather sit around and play video games. Dissapointing.

Answer 6

We read:

The Outsiders: S.E. Hinton
Of Mice and Men: John Steinbeck
The Pearl: John Steinbeck
Speak: Laurie Halse Anderson
A Raisin in the Sun: Lorraine Hansberry

My favorites were probablyOf Mice and Men, Speak, and the Outsiders. I think all of these books are probably controversial but I really admired my teacher for letting us read them. I mean were aren't kids anymore.

There were some bad language and black people and retarded people being treated poorly in Of Mice and Men but it was a great story and an endless classic. We watched Radio before we read it.

Speak is really hard to take in because it was about a freshman in highschool who got raped. It's also a great story that I was really glad we got to read. Our teacher included assignments about going to rape informational websites and stuff so we were aware that that kind of stuff happens and you need to be careful.

They both had movies that we watched after we read it and compared them. Come to think of it, all of them had movies we watched with them except for the Pearl.

I think the kids liked the class because we got to do fun stuff like watch movies every once in awhile.

(Jane Eyre is pretty good so far too.)

Answer 7

to kill a mockingbird, fahrenheit 451, romeo and juliet (we ended up having to act out a scene as a project...that was really fun), animal farm

everyone in my class loved the first book and the second book was very interesting (sci-fi but still good)

sophomore year: in my hands(everyone loved this book abt. WW2), night, all quiet on the western front, lord of the flies, the power of one(veery good book but it's long so avoid it for freshmen), merchant of venice, in the time of the butterflies(requires maturity)

Answer 8

My son is going into freshman year and had to read A Separate Peace and Animal Farm for summer reading. He hated A Separate Peace. He said it was slow and had a stupid ending. I had to read it when I was in 9th grade and also hated it. I can't believe they still use it. He really liked Animal Farm though. I read it too just for fun and was surprised at what a really good book it was.

Answer 9

A cue for Treason
and
Romeo and Juliet, (then we watched the old version of the movie and a more modern one, and had to do some comparative writing on both of them,)

=]
Hope I've Helped!

Answer 10

My ninth grade teacher assigned us three books last year.

The first one was "Of Mice and Men". It was pretty good.
The second one was called "A Gathering of Old Men". It was horrible, dull, and I hated the way it wasn't told by one person's perspective.
The third one was "Lovely Bones". It was all right, but unfortunately, some people in my class couldn't handle its mature content.

Yeah, kids don't seem to enjoy books as much as they used to. I blame it on television; that's all people my age care about. Gives me a bad reputation.