Which book would you assign if you were an English teacher?

For an out of the ordinary book tube theme this video caught my attention. It makes me wonder if my English teachers had similar thoughts about their reading assignments and what they hoped the students would extrapolate from them. The ideas you presented are pertinent for the current culture so wrapped up in immediacy they cannot ponder or think about anything of depth. Books can allow us to step aside from the rush and let past generations speak to us and hopefully help our shortsightedness. I found your comment about Thomas Hardy revealing and true. BTW, there is a biography of him on KZfaq that’s very good. The title is “THOMAS HARDY - RURAL BRITAIN - A NOVEL APPROACH”. If I were an English teacher I would assign portions of the Bible from the Kings James Version-the English of Shakespeare. Thanks Valerie!

It depends on the grad level but I agree with Frankenstein. It is my favorite novel of all time.

After hearing you talk about Frankenstein and Jurassic Park, now I want to see a video comparing classics to modern books - see if there are any counterparts/connections like those two.

us: yawning throughout the tempest you: assigns it

Read beloved for my high school senior AP world lit class! Was amazingggg

Interesting selection and themes!I recently watched Jurassic Park Dominion,so I think I would treat the class to a day at the cinema.😁Was it Ernest Hemingway who said the American Novel begins with Huckleberry Finn?So I'd probably start at the beginning,go for something from the 1960's,70's or 80's and finish with a contemporary work.❤️

Apart from the Brontës and Hardy, which I'd have loved to get acquainted with at school already, here a contemporary one: 'Drop City' by T.C. Boyle - which de-glorifies the 70ies hippie movement in an amusing yet very unmasking way, and simultaneously teaches respect for the forces of nature.

If you aren't already in the field, I would suspect you being on your way to a high school English teacher, or professor... you always articulate so many thoughts and nuggets out of what you read. I would take your class in a heart beat.

my sr year was 84/85 and I would never assign a year with the same kind of books (they were similar to me) Beowulf, 1984, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, Hamlet come to mind - was a rough year and I was one who LOVED reading. I've gone back to re-read some but at the time I just couldn't grasp all that horrible creepy stuff. I wasn't even ready for Antigone and Rome/Juliet in 9th grade. I did like MacBeth and The Great Gatsby I think the absolute BEST book I was ever assigned was my freshman year of college - My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok - still one of my favorite books along with the sequel The Gift of Asher Lev.

Good call on Psycho! Beloved would depend on the age group you're talking about. Parts of it are pretty heavy/graphic for a lot of high schoolers, IMO, which is why it isn't often assigned (it's one of those books that gets banned from school libraries for that reason). I even struggled with it at times when I read it for the first time recently, and I'm pretty hardened. I don't know why more people don't talk about content warnings when they discuss that book.

i wish we were afforded more opportunities to read modern books in high school, especially because a lot of theme deal with similar themes, as you mentioned with jurassic park/frankenstein. even if it was just an extra credit opportunity and you could write an essay discussing the similar themes in the books. it would have been so much more fun. but instead we were put through torturous socratic seminars