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Can you share what your highschoolers are reading?


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If you mean literature/history reading list:

 

Dd 14 is working through The Canterbury Tales (audiobook form) and almost through with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to go along with medieval history. I just finished printing out sonnets by Wyatt, Spenser, and Shakespeare, and a couple of poems praising Elizabethan country houses, which we will read in the next week or so (along with building a cardboard model of a country house; I found this unexpectedly in a used bookstore).

 

History books for the next few weeks include a short biography of Gutenberg, Who Was First?, Around the World in 100 Years, Walter Ralegh and the Search for El Dorado, a couple of chapters on the Spanish in America in the 1500s from A Voyage Long and Strange, and Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare.

 

At bedtime she's reading Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana, which she finds hilarious and fascinating. She's also got a Terry Pratchett novel going. These are not from a list but are her own choices.

 

I also read to her from UpFront, a New York Times news magazine for teens, and Muse magazine, whenever our issues arrive.

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for school my ds is focusing on poetry, IEW's Amer. Lit list - right now on House of 7 Gables (bk on CD), Shakespeare- the King Henry's, chem.

 

for fun: Hunger games trilogy, Orson Scott Card - we just discovered a ton more from him, Tolkien- found a book of short stories/poetry we haven't picked up for awhile, and has been on a Lawhead kick this year too.

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For fun I think she just started Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. ;) And we're reading The Once and Future King as part of schooling but it's so amazingly wonderful it's hard to call it schoolwork. I think she's got The Mists of Avalon waiting in the wings, too.

 

For school she's reading portions of Adlers How to Read a Book, Plutarch's Lives, The Brendan Voyage, selections of Bede, I forget who we're on for poetry, The Language of God for science (about the sequencing of the human genome), Henry V, we finished up The Canturbury Tales ... I can't think of any more of them right now. :glare:

Edited by justamouse
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If you mean literature/history reading list:

 

Dd 14 is working through The Canterbury Tales (audiobook form) and almost through with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to go along with medieval history. I just finished printing out sonnets by Wyatt, Spenser, and Shakespeare, and a couple of poems praising Elizabethan country houses, which we will read in the next week or so (along with building a cardboard model of a country house; I found this unexpectedly in a used bookstore).

 

History books for the next few weeks include a short biography of Gutenberg, Who Was First?, Around the World in 100 Years, Walter Ralegh and the Search for El Dorado, a couple of chapters on the Spanish in America in the 1500s from A Voyage Long and Strange, and Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare.

 

At bedtime she's reading Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana, which she finds hilarious and fascinating. She's also got a Terry Pratchett novel going. These are not from a list but are her own choices.

 

I also read to her from UpFront, a New York Times news magazine for teens, and Muse magazine, whenever our issues arrive.

 

Ooooh, this all sounds just lovely! I feel jealous.

 

My 14 yo is in 8th grade this year. She missed the cutoff by a few weeks or she'd be in 9th. Anyway, for fun, she just finished the Hunger Games trilogy. She loved them, so I thought I would share that. She read them all in maybe 3 days I think. She is also reading Pride and Prejudice right now. Unfortunately, her online lit/history course uses mainly texts so far. She is reading Laux's Church History and is using an anthology for the world lit portion of the course. I wish she was reading whole books, too, as part of the class but this course already takes up enough time as it is. So, as I think about it, I actually wish she was doing a more lit-based curriculum all around. Sigh.

 

So, I'm all :bigear: to hear what everyone else is reading right now for fun and for their courses.

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Below a list of books my DD13 read during the Fall 2010 semester (split into "school" and "fun"):

(edit: sorry, all my nice spaces between titles and authors have disappeared)

For "school":

The Iliad Homer (translated by Fitzgerald)

The Odyssey Homer (translated by Fitzgerald)

Histories Herodotus

Antigone Sophocles

Oedipus Rex Sophocles

Oedipus on Colonos Sophocles

Electra Euripides

Poetry Sappho

A Day in Old Athens William S. Davis

Aristotle leads the way Joy Hakim

The Greek Treasure Irving Stone

Everyday things in Ancient Greece C. H. Quennell

The King must die Mary Renault

 

 

For Fun:

A College of Magics Caroline Stevermer

Sir Apropos of Nothing Peter David

Swiss Family Robinson Johann Wyss

Blackberry Wine Joanne Harris

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Scahffer

The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury

Death is a Lonely Business Ray Bradbury

Vittorio the Vampire Anne Rice

The Labors of Hercules Agatha Christie

The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins

Eyes Like Stars Lisa Mantchev

Perchance to Dream Lisa Mantchev

The Secret of Lost Things Sheridan Hay

The Last Unicorn Peter S. Beagle

Coraline Neil gaiman

Shakespeare’s Secret Elise Broach

If not, winter :fragments of Sappho

Der Nomadengott Gerd Scherm

Catching Fire Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay Suzanne Collins

The Kneebone Boy Ellen Potter

Beatrice and Virgil Yann Martel

A Year in Provence Peter Mayle

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Regentrude, my dd is approaching the Greek classics backwards from satire, as she does with nearly all things. She just came across a musical based very loosely on Aristophanes' The Frogs (believe it or not), so now she wants to go back and read that.

 

Mel Brooks mentions Oedipus, among other references, in a farcical song, so that's on her list too.

 

I admire anyone who can interest young adolescents in ancient literature "straight," so to speak. It just does not work here!

 

Violet, I also envy your dd encountering Pride and Prejudice. My dd, who has NLD and is an Aspie, is unlikely to read some of my favorite classics because they are grounded in social relations she may never either understand or find interesting. It was one of the greatest griefs for me when she never really liked Heidi, my favorite childhood book. There are great compensations, and she's introduced me to worlds of books I would never otherwise have encountered; but there are corresponding losses, too. I'm sure everybody experiences this to some degree or other, because naturally kids are never miniatures of their parents.

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Regentrude, my dd is approaching the Greek classics backwards from satire, as she does with nearly all things. She just came across a musical based very loosely on Aristophanes' The Frogs (believe it or not), so now she wants to go back and read that.

 

Mel Brooks mentions Oedipus, among other references, in a farcical song, so that's on her list too.

 

I admire anyone who can interest young adolescents in ancient literature "straight," so to speak. It just does not work here!

 

 

My DD is a very ambitious overachiever. If something is hard she wants to do it. I am sure the reputation of classical literature as something complicated actually enhances her interest, LOL. But I also should add that she just loves poetry and likes to read herself the epics aloud.

I have given her the Aeneid yesterday, she jumped right in, asked whether we have the Teaching Company lectures again and when I said yes she jumped with joy.

We are a family of strange nerds, to say the least.

 

What is the musical called?

Edited by regentrude
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For our 2nd semester of Am. Lit. - Huck Finn, Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, The Glass Menagerie, Bright Lights Big City, Franny and Zooey, Slaughterhouse 5, Interpreter of Maladies, short stories by H. James, W. Faulkner, E. Wharton, E. Hemingway, M. Twain. Nothing for "fun" except the usual oceanography books!

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wow, my son's reading seems so light compared to many, but I'll list it anyway. :) He's a 10th grader.

 

These were of his own choosing, so I guess that's for fun: The Island of Dr. Moreu, The Invisible Man, Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2, and is now reading Treasure Island and The Legends of G'hoole. The next book he's planning is The Count of Monte Cristo.

 

For his school work he's read God's Tribesman (didn't really like the writing style) and is now reading The Hiding Place and is really enjoying it.

 

Hey, this was my dyslexic son who didn't pick up a book for pleasure until the 6th grade and now loves to read unabridged classics! I'm happy with that. :lol:

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He is reading his way through some John Irving books for fun. Sushi read A Prayer for Owen Meany at my request and quickly asked for more. Right now he is in The Cider House Rules.

 

As for school, he finished up readings in gothic lit and is moving in to Mississippi Writers. He'll read Black Boy, One Writer's Beginnings, My Dog Skip, As I Lay Dying, and The Firm.

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She just came across a musical based very loosely on Aristophanes' The Frogs (believe it or not), so now she wants to go back and read that.

 

 

What is the musical called?

 

 

I suspect that I can answer on behalf of KarenAnne as my daughter also loves this musical.

 

My daughter has this version which includes Evening Primrose though there is also this newer version which has additional tracks.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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I suspect that I can answer on behalf of KarenAnne as my daughter also loves this musical.

 

My daughter has this version which includes Evening Primrose though there is also this newer version which has additional tracks.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Yep, that's the one. Kareni, my daughter is falling all over herself in delight that there's another young girl somewhere who actually like something she does. With an Aspie, this sort of connection is pretty rare.

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Elmer Gantry, Babbit, Arrowsmith, Summertime Blues (by Sharon Sheeley), Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs, The Fabric of the Universe, Proofiness, Bad Moon Rising, Rockabilly: A 40 Year Journey, Woodsong, and Three Steps to Heaven: The Eddie Cochran Story

If only I could motivate her to move swiftly through History Odyssey Ancients, Level III ...

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Current books:

The Scarlet Letter

The Odyssey

The Scarlet Pimpernel (although on hold at the moment)

Betsy and the Great World

 

I'm glad she waited to read this particular Betsy-Tacy book because it seems more geared to someone who knows a bit about the political situation in the world at that time.

 

Next week, most of these will be replaced by other books.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This year dd18 is graduating and so far hasn't had much reading other than her economics curriculum ~Whatever Happened to Penny Candy and A Free Market Reader,followed up with Economic Based Writing Lessons reading excerpts.

Last year her reading list included

Dante's Divine Comedy

Paradise Lost

The Pilgrims Progress (One of her favorites)

Animal Farm

Tale of Two Cities (Now her all time favorite book)

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My 10th grader has just finished Frankenstein. She loved it--found it heartbreaking and dramatic--and that's a very exciting development, because she has NEVER loved anything we've read for school. She's actually asked for suggestions for similar stuff to read on her own. I'm so happy :). I've suggested Dracula and LeFanu.

 

She recently volunteered to me that exposure to more challenging classic works is beginning to make her YA favorites seem insipid. I have not lived in vain :).

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My 9th grader (ps) read:

 

To Kill a Mockingbird

Iron Man

The Giver

Of Mice and Men

All's Quiet on the Western Front

 

in his Honors 9th grade English class. He's now reading:

 

Black Like Me because it was supposed to have been read in his class, but they ran out of time and I feel it is a very worthy book.

 

For fun he's reading Asterix books (in French).

 

My junior homeschooled son is currently reading various doctor books he got for Christmas. I know he just finished:

 

Letters to a Young Doctor

The Ben Carson story

 

and is currently reading

 

Not Entirely a Benign Procedure

 

Otherwise, he's catching up on "Top 100" books that he's missed. The last one I know of was Hamlet.

 

He has oodles of other books on his book list (already read), but I can't find it right now and he's not home to ask.

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What else he's read this year:

 

The Iliad, The Histories (Herodotus), selections from Canterbury Tales, Tristan and Isolde ... I think a selection from Everyman, and I think a selection from The Inferno. (He has one class on ancient Great Books, and another class in Humanities.)

 

I can't remember what he's read for fun this year besides Zelazny. He doesn't tend to read quickly though, so our lists will not be long.

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My dd15's required list for this year is:

 

The Hobbit

Walden

Through Gates of Splendor

The Red Pony(Steinbeck short story)

To Kill a Mockingbird

Lord of the Flies

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

I Am the Cheese

Frankenstein

All Creatures Great & Small

 

+ excerpts of books in her Literature Curriculum.

 

For pleasure, I let her read whatever she wants to--usually it's the Black Stallion series or Christian romances by Beverly Lewis. She recently finished My Side of the Mountain, Sign of the Beaver, Hatchet and A Wrinkle in Time. She has developed an affinity for cheap little paperback "inspirational" romances, which goes against the grain for me, but as long as she has her nose in a book, I don't complain too much.

 

My dd13 actually is reading on the same level as my 9th grader, and so basically everything dd15 reads we pass on to her. I imagine her high school list will look a lot different.

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