Hey, Veeky Forums. Newly qualified English teacher here

Hey, Veeky Forums. Newly qualified English teacher here.

I've accepted a post at a high school and, incredibly, they've allowed me to pick my own texts for the students to study.

I can pick 3 books, one for each term (semester). Which should I pick?

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The Recognitions
Men and Women
The Tunnel

Frankenstein (Shelley)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)
The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)

Make sure you get 1984 in there so we can stop these socialism is good meme

Notes from Underground - Dostoyevsky
Ficciones - Borges
Les Enfants Terribles - Cocteau

i can't decide if this is b8 or you genuinely know nothing about Orwell

well played, i suppose

What year are you teaching? You have to keep in mind you will be literally trying to teach kids who can't read. Also try your hardest to not make reading books so unenjoyable that most kids literally skip English class, I love reading, loathed English class, nearly compleltly put me off literature all together

Nineteen-eighty-four - Orwell
Dubliners - Joyce
Candide - Voltaire

Nothing hard or long.
I'd put 1984 in the middle,since that is the longest.
I would start with Dubliners,and end with Candide

r8?

Where you at? Gotta read the little niggas something from their country.

i would pick something from these

Edgar Allan Poe
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

>Candide - Voltaire

This isn't a novel, it's an incoherent track.

yeah idk who the fuck ever thought candide was a worthwhile read

Terrible, I'm sorry. These kids won't be able to point out on Ireland on a map, let alone able to recognise or fathom the themes relating to Irish nationalism and class divide

1984 is taught in advanced in Australia for a reason, too much going on for most of the kids

This bloke should get them to watch a movie instead of read a book and get them to wrote about the the themes and dramatic techniques

>Highschoolers
>Can't read a book
>Can't point out fucking Ireland on the map
In what nation/country has he decided to become a teacher?

I'm American.

I'm reading it right now,and it's not incoherent at all.
It goes really fast with the story,and it's as simple as a straight line,I give you that,but it still forms a coherent whole so far.

I finished high school about 3 years ago so I'm probably more in touch than you are. I can gurantee less then half of the students would be able to point out Ireland on a map and you would be Lucky to find one who knows about its independence movement. Maybe one or two kids in the class won't be able to read very well, if not at all. Dubliners being easy to read is a meme anyway, he spouts a lot of drivel about an uninteresting dreary town

I work with many 16 year olds and you are severely overestimating their literary ability. About half of them won't even read the book you give them

but why?
How can you not point something as significant as Ireland on a map?
I'm not talking about Burma or Nepal,but a fucking country in Europe.

>Not being to able to read very well
>In Highschool
What is going on with the education in the US?

Ireland is completely irrelevant, as is most of Europe.

Majority of Americans will never even visit that continent in their life.

I'm Australian bruh

Trust me, with the exception of people with Irish grandparents maybe 1% of 16 year olds could point Ireland out on a map or tell you it's capital city

There are a substansial amount of 16 year olds I work with who can hardly form a coherent sentence

It's more than straightforward, it's shallow. Voltaire has no literary value whatsoever, and his insights are about as deep as you would find in a Jeremy Clarkson column. The only reason he's recognised is that a few British toffs found him funny when he ran off to London because the French were being too idealistic and proactive for his tastes.

Leave Redfern.

Wollongong cuzzy

But it's basic fucking knowledge.
what turns people stupid?

Portrait of a young man as an artist by Joyce
The Man Who was Thursday by Chesterton
Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
All 3 are short and beautiful and won't turn them into plebs who think they are masters of literature because they read Orwell and Fitzgerald in high school.

>But it's basic knowledge
Not really. Most people probably can't point to Ireland without help. You assume everyone knows what you do.

Low intellect combined with a lack of desire to learn things. Without a desire or an interest to learn and a low level of intellect making learning things more difficult then it is to everyone else people get left behind, they never develop the base skills in reading, writing, math smd language to do anything to serious with their lives

Is it that much to ask?

Yes, considering about 1% of the population will have fetal alcohol syndrome, another maybe 2% will abuse drugs and another 2% will have learning disabilities.

When was the last time you met a working class person? Knowing where Ireland is doesn't pay the bills so most people have no reason to know it.

Isn't there a mandatory geography class in the elementary schools of Australia/The USA?

Yes, but that is for continents. Also people don't remember stuff that isn't useful for them. They might know stuff that you don't. What they need to know and remember is different than what you do. Also remember that OP asked about high school students.

Can't complain about the Gong m809.

>I work with many 16 year olds and you are severely overestimating their literary ability. About half of them won't even read the book you give them

ITT: shitty public education @ anglophone countries

Why don't you guys try stimulating their developing brains for once, and not defeatistically make them feel stupid instead of teaching them that struggling with intellectually demanding material is normal, and even desirable.

I'm sure they would develop a much bigger """"level of intellect"""" (you do know their minds are still developing, just to check?), and a much bigger passion for learning things

Everything about this post says snooty, European fedora.

I'd recommend the Crucible. Fairly easy read, it's what go me into plays in highschool plus the themes are pretty spelt out so you have that to work with.

>Just for continents
seriously?
8 years in the elementary school and you don't even learn the countries?
What is the point then?

You realize there are over 200 countries? The average person doesn't want to memorize all that.

>australian education

>be ausfag
>tfw have met several adult australians who thought africa was a country

Yes.
But learning at least the western countries + the important ones isn't that hard.

Just sit them on /int/ and make them fill in a map with all the flags.

But yeah the average person is awful, I can't believe we let these people vote. I can remember high school English with painful memories.

Brave new world, then pretend to be interested in what they think is more important between freedom and happinesz. This will spark a healthy discussion most of time and will make them feel smart.
Lolita. Because sex. There's none in the book but some might read it in the hope that there is.
Bukovsky. Because lol alcohol lol pussy lol i'm so sad. Works a charm with teenagers.

The average person probably does learn about both continents and countries in class but they don't retain it. I don't think you talk to a lot of working class people. Keep in mind that genre fiction fans are more intelligent and well read than most people.
>/int/
They would remember India as poo land and Canada as weed land.

Dapto though

Also, Lord of Flies and maybe a movie like psycho just to mix things up a little.
Alternatively, you could study rap lyrics as poetry, maybe that'll get the kids involved.

>thread consists of people calling out a whole country as stupid for not being able to point out ireland on a map

what fedora tipping m80s

Are you serious? It's actually fucking pathetic. High schoolers. I cannot imagine a Swiss highschooler that couldn't point out say Alaska (and I'd argue Alaska is of less relevance to us than Ireland to them) on a map.
>le fedora dib mene xDDDD
Pathetic.

woah these actually wouldn't be bad for highschool students
>1984 is taught in advanced in Australia for a reason, too much going on for most of the kids
hahah what cunt. I was never in 'advanced' English and heaps of my classmates had read 1984. We were never taught it though. The curriculum is pretty retarded.
Portrait would be ideal for hischool. When I read it at 17 it was pretty #relatable

Highschoolers struggling with books isn't normal.
Not knowing basic geography,isn't normal.
And not knowing it after you have recieved a "First World" education?
Disgusting

>struggling with books isn't normal
I guess you just buzz right through Finnegans wake.

>Highschoolers struggling with books isn't normal.
>Not knowing basic geography,isn't normal.

i bet you're not ausfag

I guess you have problems with 1984.
You shouldn't have problem reading a basic book that is just a highschool material.

It's a picaresque what are you on about? It's only slightly faster paced than Gullivers Travels or Robinson Crusoe

>be teacher in America
>it's literally below my level to even attempt to teach these fetal alcohol syndrome working class students they're so dumb
>I come on an international image board to lament
>a non-american makes a great point that I'm actually at fault for this because I'm not doing a very good job
>obviously can't make a counter-argument because he's right
>WAIT--- holy shit, I don't *have* to explain why I think I'm right -- I'm a T E A C H E R -- I'll just make a snotty remark and try to make him feel unintelligent for even attempting to argue with me
>wentbetterthanexpected.jpg

And? That still doesn't mean they'll get every single book.

The Picture of Dorian Grey
Hamlet
A Farewell To Arms

You didn't make any points. You rambled on about how shitty Anglophobe countries are. You do realize that Europe isn't really relevant on other continents? Your country knows geography from surrounding countries but that isn't relevant here.

Being so stupid that you struggel with 1984 or the fucking Great Gatsby means you are not the type of person that should go for a higher education.

Snob detected.

Hey guys, OP here- thanks for all the responses, a TON of great suggestions to think about. FYI the class I'm teaching will be 16-17 year olds.

I might be a bit of a snob,but that just shows how big of a mistake I make every day when I wake up assuming that everyone is just as smart as me if not smarter.
Every bloody day I wake up and the people around me dissapoint me.It's shameful really.

Also, I'm teaching in England. The students SHOULD be able to point out Ireland on a map. I'm starting in September.

Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, and Hamlet.

For leisure reading construct a list for each term which consists of medium-high brow lit from each literary period.

Not everyone is a genius but they still deserve an education. A lot of people who are taught in high school go on to trades anyway.

I could probably point out at least 60% of the US states on a map.
I could probably point out 90% of all countries in Europe and Asia and South America.
I had never put any terrible effort into learning to do that. I literally just went to geography classes and had C's and D's in it yet I can still point out all of this.

I made a point that you burger public school teachers never give the working class kids a chance at an education, and that this is why they are so "stupid". But I guess you have bad reading comprehension so you didn't catch that point.

And apart from the system being broken, I honestly believe that some of you teachers also personally go with this because you're secretly trying to compete with them because hey -- the upper class only needs so many 'lower class people who know anything' a.k.a. teachers -- so you'd just better discourage your competition.

backwards country -> backwards education -> backwards people -> backwards country

You may be right, but this one, single teacher asking the board for advice won't change that culture. It would be silly to ask him to swim against the tide.

Hamlet is a must for real. Then do brave new world and maybe Keats or Paradise lost? Structure your lessons around whether it is better to be happy and blind or knowledgeable

Would it really? Be so silly as to make a faint suggestion that he could actually make an effort to be above-average successful at his job?

>Portrait

You're a fucking nerd toff, stop spreading your cancer, you are literally negativly influencing literature by trying to get a teacher to give content that will only make the students grow to resent literature

>relating to portrait
Tell me more boy genius, normal kids have aspirations to be football stars and will grow up to be brick layers with their dads, give them appropriate books to read

Most American classes deal with American geography and history. A lot of the lessons deal with the Revolutionary and Civil wars and other stuff that isn't relevant to you.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Teach them the joy of literature. Don't commit symbolic violence on your pupils. Fundamentally this class is about them, not you flaunting your Veeky Forums-approved taste and telling them what they should take away from the book.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_power

This guy has an opportunity to completely change the course of some kids life for the better.
A well chosen book could do wonders for giving someone life goals.

That's beyond my point, sorry if I didn't get that through properly.

cont.
But then again I really might just not know how fucked up your guys' education system is, so I guess do whatever feels right. I just know that if you're about to feed some books to a kid, you better not give him John Green just because you (or the kid themself) thought that fucking Great Gatsby was beyond his reading comprehension

What's wrong with young adults reading young adult literature?

they're not young adults.
they're on-their-wayers-to-become-adults.

nothing wrong with reading YA literature if they do it in their spare time, but not in place of reading actual C L A S S I C S in a C L A S S room

They all need suitable books though.

They can't look up Sparknotes for YA lit

Why are you automatically operating under the assumption that they will want to read Sparknotes?
A teacher's job isn't to make students read literature, their job is to make students want to read literature.

Also why do you care if they do read Sparknotes? Their loss. At least you gave them the opportunity to actually read good lit. And it's much easier to start when someone at least points you to the right works.

Btw, am I wrong when as an European I get the impression that YA is only part of the curriculum in _public_ high schools in America?

1984, Orwell
Atlas Shrugged, Rand
The Hobbit, Tolkien

I went to a private school in Australia and while the cohort was fairly academic overall, most kids just read the Sparknotes the day before the assessment.

There was some YA assigned but mostly it was contemporary classics like Hemingway.

Dubliners, 1984 and On The Road.

the author of 1984 was a socialist who fought in the Spanish civil war
you're a meme, kid

The author of 1984 was George Orwell,who got scared of stalinism.

Yeah it's their loss but in terms of merely achieving a good score for assessment, a student receives no immediate motive to actually read the text given the level of expected understanding.

Start with the Greeks op. If you really are an English teacher, let me tell you that once I finally read then I was shocked that I had never read them in highschool. They teach everything essential to language. Mythology, poetry, history (context), etc. They might be too long though. Macbeth, Hamlet, R&J, merchant of Venice, etc.

Maybe selections from the Bible. Job, Ecclesiastes, or even just Genesis could be good.

Are you retarded? He's an English teacher.

Hypersphere
Infinite Jest
TLOTIAT

>help what is orthography

Read his essays you poltroon, of course he was scared of stalinism, stalinism was awful. That doesn't undermine his support for non-authoritarian socialism, in fact it was his experience in the Spanish civil war which convinced him that Stalin had abandoned the principles which the communists professed and was nothing but a murderous dictator.
Homage to Catalonia actually has several quite touching portraits of a (mostly) functioning anarcho-syndicalist state under war.

I'm sick of this "the Bible is good literature" meme. It sucks. If you can't enjoy it religiously, it's impossible to be enjoyed. Read secularly, the Bible is absolutely terrible. The writing is shit, the plots of the books are ridiculously inconsistent, the morals to be learned from it are generally terrible (if you're reading for morals, there are *far* better books to choose), there's just nothing desirable about reading it whatsoever. Trust me, I've read the whole thing, cover to cover, back when I was a wee Catholic school lad. It sucked nuts.

The God Delusion
The Fault in Our Stars
any PHP manual

Make them read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle so they're forever horrified by Murakami

>Lolita
>Fight Club
>Books of Blood vol 1-3 by Clive Barker

Let see where this goes

Lolita
50 Shades of Gray
The Bible

american psycho
no country for old men
the oxygen thief

Robinson Crusoe
>Great book about survival, castaway situations make teenagers think of themselves in the situation and is vital to building their imagination.
Mao's Last Dancer
>Read that recently, fucking great book
Lord of the Flies
>Nuff said

Short reads of varying difficulty:

Picture of Dorian Gray
Heart of Darkness
Maybe a couple of the inner chapters of Xhuangzi

E N G L I S H teacher

Ulysses
Gravity's Rainbow
Infinite Jest
>how has nobody posted this by now

Teaching the meme trilogy to students who don't know where Ireland is. OP can just fill the void in the classroom when he asks a question about the text with his laughter.

OP you should also finish off the year with Bloom's The Western Canon that you will read aloud in class.

Seriously though, I need to have some description of the students you'll receive. I'm a current high school senior (18+ fuck with me) who took the """""""elite"""""""" English classes and they were still full of retards.