Was "1984" required reading for you in school? ...... It was for me...

[marmar]

..... at my school, we had to read it in 7th grade. (maybe 8th, but I'm pretty sure it was 7th grade).

Well yesterday I was talking to a cousin of mine who just graduated high school about books and brought up "1984." She looked at me like I had 3 heads and said, "What's that?"

I always assumed that was a book that was almost universally read in school.

Iz the children learnin'?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I object to the shoddy analysis and examination of 1984 when I read it.

The book is too hot to handle I guess for it to be "taught" to its full potential.

[babylonsister]

2. Required reading in H.S. for me, too. nt

[Richard D]

3. Many of the required books when I was in HS

are now banned from many schools.

[RandomThoughts]

4. Brave new world. and Farenheit 451

Should also be required.

Amazon has it on a list.
http://www.amazon.com/High-School-Required-Reading/lm/YDYLA1LUQF9O

[sufrommich]

7. I forgot those two, also read in High School. nt

[RandomThoughts]

13. I think I can honestly say Fahrenheit 451 changed my life a bit.

There is some peer pressure against people that like to read in grade school, and when I read Fahrenheit 451. I started to think sort of like that fireman when I would read my fathers books.

It sorta made the reading of the books important, like there was some bigger purpose to it. I even picked the book I would memorize if something like that really happened, sounds silly, but children think like that when they are young.

Its funny how little I read now.

[Javaman]

35. Catcher in the Rye. Still one of my favorate books of all time.

now banded in my high school.

On edit, we also had to read, "the ugly american". I had a very progressive english teacher back then.

that is one book that should be required by all.

[RandomThoughts]

40. Never read it, although I have read parts of it.

But I buy a copy every few days, /twitch /twitch.

(just a joke and a movie refrence :) )

[sufrommich]

5. I grew up in the burbs of Detroit, graduated in '75. Not only was

1984 required reading, so was Animal Farm, Johnny Got His Gun,Slaughterhouse Five,One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest,The Grapes Of Wrath. It scares me that kids aren't getting exposed to the literature of protest anymore.

[Echo In Light]

15. Had I not dropped out I would have graduated in 87'

As we moved a lot I ended up attending several different schools, and can say that, at least around that time in the upper midwest, Orwell was definitely not required reading. Around junior high age, however, we had to choose a book to do our first 'serious' book report on, and I chose Kesey's very anti-establishment One Flew Over... - much to the delight of my teacher, actually, who, looking back on it was very leftward leaning (not that I understood it at the time)

I found my way to existential philosophy, Marcuse, Orwell, and Chomsky down the line. I'm going to have our daughter read Zinn's A People's History Of The United States when she's a bit older and learning "history" in school.

[Kitty Herder]

6. We had to read Animal Farm, which led me to read 1984 on my own.

There isn't enough time to read everything, so teachers have to pick and choose which books will be required reading. Some kids will take the initiative to read more books by the author and in the genres they were exposed to in school and some won't, but at least they get a taste.

[MotorCityMan]

8. It was not for this '82 graduate

although 'Animal Farm' was.

I finally read '1984' a couple of years ago. My partner's nephew had a copy that he was required to read and he loaned it to me.

[BolivarianHero]

9. Nope, and it's better that way...

The last thing we need is to turn a book intended to lionize Trotsky, democratic socialism, and civil libertarianism into a book glorifying the free market and Pax Americana. I've read my share of Orwell on my own time though.

[justabob]

10. 9th grade for me

When I went back to school at my local community college a few years ago I ran into this... The kids fresh from high school had not read any of the same books I read. No 1984, no Animal Farm, no Brave New World, no Shakespeare.... I'm sorry, but how do you go through four years of high school and never have to read Hamlet, Julius Caesar or Romeo and Juliet at least? At my high school we had at least one Shakespeare a year, complete with having to memorize a monologue.... Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.... :)

I mention Shakespeare because we had to read Hamlet in this class and most of the people in the class were not up to the job. I mean I know reading Shakespeare isn't always easy, but I was truly shocked at the complete lack of skills and basic knowledge exhibited by 2/3 of the class (nevermind the complete lack of will to learn or understand).

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. 1984, Animal Farm, and Who Rules America

The latter being an expose of the undue influence of the insurance and drug industries on public policies. The book is still in print, I believe, and should be required reading of all Americans. Oh, and I also was required to read The Communist Manifesto and the Blue Book of the John Birch Society, and to compare and contrast their viewpoints. I graduated in 1968. Got a fairly decent education in political science.

[zipplewrath]

12. Yes

Probably not in the course you might imagine though. It wasn't a literature course per se, it was called "the psychology of language" and it involved how language and communication could be used and abused. Strangely progressive in hindsight. I wonder if today though it won't come off to high school students as awfully "dated". There was a certain "science fiction" aspect to that book and really his job of modifying magazines and newspapers would seem ridiculous to today's students. It'd all be done electronically, and "on the web" instead. It'd probably be a "crime" to have paper copies. Strangely, the video "monitoring" would basically be "web cams" in today's vernacular I'm sure. And unfortunately, the torture aspects would probably be all too "real" although it probably wouldn't be rats, but water boarding.

[izquierdista]

14. It held more interest

When it was set in the future and not 25 years in the past. I could see that problem when I had to read it in school. It lost some of its punch when 1984 showed up and instead of Big Brother, there was Smiling Old Idiot saying "well....." all the time. Maybe Orwell should have put a counter on the book jacket, always 35 years into the future.

We also had to watch movies about successful government projects, like TVA and the building of Hoover Dam. I know those have been shoved aside. It's hard to tell people that "government IS the problem" when it is improving everyone's lives.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. We read it in High School, where we were taught

that the setting in time was only a pretense. 1984= 1948, and Orwell was in fact under surveillance at the time. Big Brother was watching him.
The tile is a literary device. The book was intended to be a comment on the current times, not a prediction of the future. That is what I was taught.

[izquierdista]

22. It's clearly a prediction

A prediction of a future if fascism and totalitarianism are not fought. As such, it was very sensitive to the era in which it was written. Some novels require the reader to take on the mind of the time, and this is one of them. Others, like 'Brave New World' have a timeless quality to them, that require only that the reader observe behaviors of humans that are timeless in nature.

[Cleita]

16. Yes, and Brave New World, but also a lot of Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters

who chronicled the world of haves and have nots of Victorian England. It seems like our Republicans and DLCers are trying to take us back there.

[Lancer]

18. Class of '78

There were two AP English classes and they each read different books with some overlap. My group read Animal Farm. I actually began reading 1984 on January 1, 1984. Just thought that would be cool.

I have no children so don't know what constitutes required reading these days.

I may have posted the story long ago about my high school teacher who had us read and learn to love The Canterbury Tales. Each student was assigned a particular pilgrim and had to tell that story to the class in any manner they so chose. Some used "puppet theater," others retold their tale in 1950s slang, others wore medieval costumes and told their stories more or less straight. I think I told mine in "Dear Diary" form. Everyone had a ball with this assignment. I hope there are still teachers out there who are this creative.

[InkAddict]

19. No 1984 here...but we did read Animal Farm,

The Scarlet Letter, Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Return of The Native, Evangeline, various short stories: On Walden Pond/The Lottery/The Crucible; Shakespeare: Richard III, MacBeth, Midsummer's Night Dream; portions of Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet.

I do remember the AP classes got to read Iliad/Odessey, Canterbury Tales; perhaps they read 1984, but I don't recall seeing the AP students carrying it around - It was in our little bookstore.

Twenty years later, the kids read The Great Gatsby; The Invisible Man, Romeo & Juliet

[high density]

20. Yeah

But when I was in high school I was rolling my eyes at it. Those were the days.

[RebelOne]

21. That book wasn't even published when I was in school. n/t

[ThomWV]

23. 1947?

[Ms. Toad]

24. Required reading for my daughter

who just graduated a year ago. (As well as for me back in the 70s)

[AngryOldDem]

25. All I remember reading are....

...Ethan Frome, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451. There may have been more, but I know for a fact which books I **wasn't** required to read. And there are a lot.

As I get older, I'm realizing that my formal education really wasn't worth a damn.

[KharmaTrain]

26. I Read The Book...My Kids Saw The Cartoon...

I think it was produced in the 50's...I recorded it and watched it with my kids at a young age (then tried to explain it to them)...My daughter, now a teacher, has a copy of the movie and the book in her home library.

[Solly Mack]

27. 7th grade was such a long time ago

I had to read it in school and I've read it several times since.


I got a list in 6th grade of books I should read before college and "1984" was on the list. Some of the books were school assignments and some I had to read on my own - and did. Some I had already read.

It should be required reading.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

28. I read it my junior year and it blew my mind

I graduated in 1990 so it was a few years ago.

[marmar]

30. Same here......Class of 1990.

Fellow aging GenXer.

[JerseygirlCT]

29. Yes, for me

But I did notice that the number of books, as well as the selection, changed for my older son. They didn't do nearly the amount of reading that I did.

I had a list of 12 or more novels to read *before* freshman year. Then the pace continued in HS (I loved it, personally). His curriculum (which was never available ahead of time, either) meant they'd read together about 4 books a year. That ought to have been covered in 2 months at the very least. Made me nuts. He even had teachers use videos of old, stupid movies, instead of teaching the actual subject. ("Clash of the Titans" instead of actually teaching Greek mythology, for example). Ridiculous.

Fortunately, my kids will get more of all that at home. But I think standards have gone steadily downhill. Kids will rise or fall to whatever expectations we have for them.

[Iggo]

31. Yeah, but so was The Outsiders.

:eyes:

[JenniferJuniper]

33. Funny, my daughter just read that as part of 7th grade English.

They made a huge project out of it. Surprising to me. Back in my day, (early 70's) that would have been one the last books a teacher would have sanctioned. We thought that one belonged to us. In fact, in the sixth grade, Hank Driscoll stole a paperback copy of the Outsiders from the public library and we clandestinely passed it among ourselves until everyone had read it. Mrs. Shea never had a clue what her class was up to.

Yesterday, a teenage angst novel, today, great literature. :shrug:

[Iggo]

38. This was probably '77 or '78.

So I wasn't that far behind ya.

[JuliantheApostate]

32. It was required reading for me

but we read it in high school.

[Raineyb]

34. It wasn't. But I ended up reading it and Animal Farm on my own.

Quite frankly I'm not all that surprised that it isn't. I mean seriously how can you train the next generation to be compliant corporate drones if you assign books that encourage people to question authority and think for themselves?

Regards

[MadBadger]

36. It was in the honors classes, not the regular ones.

[chatnoir]

37. Had to read it in 7th or 8th grade

Along with "Animal Farm" and "One Life in the Day of Ivan Denisovich".

That was in the late 70s.

[Neurotica]

39. Our local right-wing blogger likened 1984 to the Obama admin and made it

a focus of her online reading discussion group.

Too funny.

I couldn't bear to read her analysis of the book wrt Obama, but I'm sure she's projecting from our previous eight years!