Hey,
So if you've looked at some of the books over spring break, LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!
Post a reply! It's so easy! And it makes my blog way cooler!
Also, I wanted to let you know: I am not biased towards those seven books I posted in the last blog... if you find other books on my list that look more interesting, vote with your keyboard: type me up a comment and reply to this blog!
Yeeaah,
Surrago
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
10hp - CLASS BOOK SELECTION
Hey again,
I decided that the following books have elicited the most interest among students:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov*
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess*
I also want to throw the following out there, as personal suggestions:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy*
White Noise by Don DeLillo
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
All in all, this is a fantastic list of books. Excepting A Clockwork Orange, all are literary masterpieces in their own right. Clockwork is no less important or interesting than the others--it is a deeply pervasive, seminal work, and is arguably as famous as any book published in the 20th century.
The books marked in an asterisk (*) will require parental permission from ALL students in order to be considered a book we read in class.
Lolita presents some challenges and some advantages. It deals with a man, Humbert Humbert, who writes from prison the story of how he seduces his 14-year-old stepdaughter. The novel contains nothing graphically or explicitly sexual--if anything, this Humbert considers himself far too intellectual to describe his sexual encounters in anything less than the most delicate, poetic prose. In fact, of all the books on this list, Lolita offers students the opportunity to read the words of Nabokov, whom I consider to be the finest prose stylist of the 20th century. Anyone who reads it will emerge a sharper thinker, and a better writer.
The Road also presents some challenges due to the graphic violence depicted within. I don't want to spoil any plot details, but do know that there are scenes within the book that would make even a heartless murderer cringe. That said, the novel is about as emotionally moving as novels can get. You will need a full box of tissues when you turn the final page. A profound experience to read.
A Clockwork Orange is just as graphic, and adds a vicious rape scene as well.
So what do we do, if indeed these books are chosen?
Well, a few years back I taught The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. That story deals with rape as well, and I allowed students to not read certain sections of the book that might be considered offensive (they would know from a summary in class). In teaching any of these books, I would make sure that students were aware ahead of time of any scenes they might come across that could offend the sensibilities.
That said, if any parent or student SERIOUSLY OBJECT to the teaching of these books, I would like to know from you firsthand: email me at msurrago@smmusd.org and let me know what you think. None of these books, in my opinion (or in the opinion of the literary establishment) are obscene. They treat their subjects with reverence and respect--violence and sex are used as a means to an end to prove a much larger point about human nature, society, and so on. However, I would be doing a disservice to all should I not expound upon the contents of these books up front.
So do let me know what you think. Voting begins the day we get back, and permission slips go out then.
I decided that the following books have elicited the most interest among students:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov*
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess*
I also want to throw the following out there, as personal suggestions:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy*
White Noise by Don DeLillo
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
All in all, this is a fantastic list of books. Excepting A Clockwork Orange, all are literary masterpieces in their own right. Clockwork is no less important or interesting than the others--it is a deeply pervasive, seminal work, and is arguably as famous as any book published in the 20th century.
The books marked in an asterisk (*) will require parental permission from ALL students in order to be considered a book we read in class.
Lolita presents some challenges and some advantages. It deals with a man, Humbert Humbert, who writes from prison the story of how he seduces his 14-year-old stepdaughter. The novel contains nothing graphically or explicitly sexual--if anything, this Humbert considers himself far too intellectual to describe his sexual encounters in anything less than the most delicate, poetic prose. In fact, of all the books on this list, Lolita offers students the opportunity to read the words of Nabokov, whom I consider to be the finest prose stylist of the 20th century. Anyone who reads it will emerge a sharper thinker, and a better writer.
The Road also presents some challenges due to the graphic violence depicted within. I don't want to spoil any plot details, but do know that there are scenes within the book that would make even a heartless murderer cringe. That said, the novel is about as emotionally moving as novels can get. You will need a full box of tissues when you turn the final page. A profound experience to read.
A Clockwork Orange is just as graphic, and adds a vicious rape scene as well.
So what do we do, if indeed these books are chosen?
Well, a few years back I taught The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. That story deals with rape as well, and I allowed students to not read certain sections of the book that might be considered offensive (they would know from a summary in class). In teaching any of these books, I would make sure that students were aware ahead of time of any scenes they might come across that could offend the sensibilities.
That said, if any parent or student SERIOUSLY OBJECT to the teaching of these books, I would like to know from you firsthand: email me at msurrago@smmusd.org and let me know what you think. None of these books, in my opinion (or in the opinion of the literary establishment) are obscene. They treat their subjects with reverence and respect--violence and sex are used as a means to an end to prove a much larger point about human nature, society, and so on. However, I would be doing a disservice to all should I not expound upon the contents of these books up front.
So do let me know what you think. Voting begins the day we get back, and permission slips go out then.
INDEPENDENT READING BOOK SELECTION - 10hp
Homework over break:
1. Enjoy yourself to the best of your ability (this is a full time job)
2. Relax and rejuvenate yourself - enough to sustain yourself through a vigorous race to the finish line through June
3. Research the following books for your INDEPENDENT READING BOOK
Each book is rated on a scale of 1-5 Os. To get a sense of the vocabulary, I recommend you look up each book on Google Books - http://books.google.com/
As for Length, O means anywhere from 0-200 pages. OOO means 400-600 pages. OOOOO means up to 1000 pages. Notice how the longer books have easier content and vocabulary.
Also research this: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/
(The future of the publishing industry runs through blogs, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Know and understand this: you might be a published author within the year if you use this information wisely.)
1. Enjoy yourself to the best of your ability (this is a full time job)
2. Relax and rejuvenate yourself - enough to sustain yourself through a vigorous race to the finish line through June
3. Research the following books for your INDEPENDENT READING BOOK
Each book is rated on a scale of 1-5 Os. To get a sense of the vocabulary, I recommend you look up each book on Google Books - http://books.google.com/
As for Length, O means anywhere from 0-200 pages. OOO means 400-600 pages. OOOOO means up to 1000 pages. Notice how the longer books have easier content and vocabulary.
Also research this: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/
(The future of the publishing industry runs through blogs, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Know and understand this: you might be a published author within the year if you use this information wisely.)
| Classic Work | Author | Vocab | Content | Length |
| A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | James Joyce | OOOOO | OOOOO | OO |
| Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | OO | OO | OO |
| Breakfast of Champions | Kurt Vonnegut | O | OO | OO |
| Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | OOO | | OOO |
| Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | OOOO | OOOOO | OO |
| Slaughterhouse Five | Kurt Vonnegut | O | OOO | OO |
| The Sound and the Fury | William Faulkner | OOOO | OOOOO | OOO |
| Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf | OOOO | OOOOO | O |
| To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | OOOOO | OOOOO | OO |
| Pale Fire | Vladimir Nabokov | OOOOO | OOOOO | OOO |
| Deliverance | James Dickey | OOOO | OO | OO |
| Howard’s End | EM Forster | OO | OOO | OO |
| The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon | OOOO | OOOOO | O |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway | OO | OOO | OOO |
| A Farewell to Arms | Ernest Hemingway | OO | OO | OO |
| Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | OOOOO | OOOO | O |
| Lucky Jim | Kingsley Amis | OOOOO | OO | OO |
| Classic Work | Author | Vocab | Content | Length |
| A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess | OOO | OO | OO |
| On the Road | Jack Keroac | O | OOO | OO |
| The Subterraneans | Jack Keroac | OO | OO | O |
| A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving | O | OO | OOO |
| The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison | OOOO | OOOO | OO |
| The Road | Cormac McCarthy | OOOO | OO | OO |
| The Bridge of San Luis Rey | Thornton Wilder | OO | O | OO |
| White Noise | Don DeLillo | OO | OOOO | OO |
| No Longer at Ease | Chinua Achebe | OO | OOO | O |
| Rabbit Run | John Updike | OOOOO | OO | OO |
| A Book of Common Prayer | Joan Didion | OO | OO | OO |
| Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | O | O | OO |
| The Corrections | Jonathan Franzen | OOO | OOOO | OOO |
| Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 100 Years of Solitude | OO | OOO | OOO |
| Classic Work | Author | Vocab | Content | Length |
| Albert Camus | The Stranger | O | OOOO | O |
| The Brothers Karamazov | Fyodor Dostoevsky | O | OO | OOOOO |
| Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | O | OO | OOOOO |
| Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | OOO | OOO | OOO |
| A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy O’Toole | OO | OO | OO |
| The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Milan Kundera | OO | OO | OO |
| Siddartha | Hermann Hesse | O | OOOO | O |
| The World According to Garp | John Irving | O | OO | OOO |
| Ficciones (short stories) | Jorge Luis Borges | OO | OOOOO | O |
| Interpreter of Maladies (short stories) | Jhumpa Lahiri | OO | OO | OO |
| The Dubliners (short stories) | James Joyce | OOOO | OOO | OO |
| Midnight’s Children | Salman Rushdie | OOOO | OOOO | OOO |
| Classic Work | Author | Vocab | Content | Length |
| A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Dave Eggers | OO | OO | OO |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | Frank L. Baum | OO | OO | OO |
| The French Lieutenant’s Woman | John Fowles | OOOO | OOOO | OO |
| Sophie’s Choice | William Styron | OO | OO | OO |
| Blindness | Jose Luis Saramago | OO | OO | OO |
| The Intuitionist | Colson Whitehead | OOO | OO | OO |
| The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay | Michael Chabon | OO | OOO | OOO |
| Of Human Bondage | W Somerset Maugham | OO | OO | OOO |
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