I don’t think it’s super common but we did Absalom Absalom and Light in August in my high school and kids either loved or hated it, but people really had strong reactions
The ones I remember covering in secondary school (UK) were Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, The Bloody Chamber, and Of Mice and Men. That and a bunch of war poems (Charge of the Light Brigade) and Shakespeare plays (Much Ado, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, etc).
Having taught in 5 different high schools (private religious/private nonsectarian/ general public/ public magnet): Frankenstein, the Odyssey, 1984, R+J, Mockingbird, Gatsby.
I think Bread Givers should be a standard 9th-grade text, but it rarely is (it teaches so well to that age)
Lord of The Flies
A Separate Peace
R&J
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Outsiders
The Kite Runner
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
The Book Thief
Fahrenheit 451
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice & Men
O Pioneer
One more: the book I loved in high school and the students love when I’ve taught it is Don Quixote. Something about the old man LARPing as a knight and challenging people’s perceptions of what it means to be “crazy” when you’re actually sincere and kind…really compelling.
The two that I learned the most from (as a pair) were Their Eyes were Watching God and To Kill a Mockingbird. That said, I think we can learn a lot from plays as well and it feels like we need to teach The Crucible again if we aren't still.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Two Solitudes.
As I Lay Dying.
Catcher in the Rye.
Had these & others, wow, I’d make a guess none of them are even mentioned in curriculums now.
Jane Eyre, Things Fall Apart, Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, The Scarlet Letter, 1984, The Good Earth, Romeo + Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Mrs. Dalloway, The Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, The Joy Luck Club, Frankenstein, A Farewell to Arms
It really varied from year to year, depending on the students and on me. Walden, Hamlet, Our Town. The Awakening is a great book for looking at what the author did and how. Song of Solomon, once they were ready for it.
I love Lear but think it is lost on high schoolers, since so much of it revolves around intergenerational power and intergenerational ethical obligation, frustrated ambition, willful blindness, and misplaced trust - concepts which 17 y/os have a harder time relating to.
Yeah, it’s tricky to teach. Part of the calculus for what to teach senior year is “what if this is their last English class?” I’m ambivalent about students never encountering it/encountering it too soon for it to really resonate.
imo the Shakespeare you teach is the one you have access to the best interpretive performance of, either live or a taped performance (not a movie version). Having that second mode of encountering the text as a performance immediately available is more important than the specific play chosen.
The Henry’s are superior to Lear. The growth of price Hal is something appropriate for high schoolers to learn. And the relationship between Hal and Fallstaff also great for high school kids to learn.
I never read Lear. I think Romeo & Juliet is the one everyone reads, and then there's a grab bag of Shakespeare plays that gets read less consistently.
Read in high school: The Fountainhead, As I Lay Dying, The Crucible, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Ethan Frome, The Hobbit, To Kill a Mockingbird
Taught: The Crucible, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, A Separate Peace
For me it was Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, read with a dictionary ready at hand, 9th grade. The Razor's Edge and re-read it nearly every year for the next decade.
My high school reading was idiosyncratic at upper levels (Madame Bovary, Song of Solomon, Possession), so I really only think of the lower level stuff as classic: Of Mice and Men, Old Man and the Sea, Macbeth, Hamlet, Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird
One kid made a diorama out of fruits and vegetables depicting the Hamlet-Claudius prayer scene as an "alternative assignment" and the entire class was dying. Mrs Strickland was apoplectic
The above-mentioned books seem to align closely with the state of U.S. education. As someone who went through European education and has read the books mentioned, let me offer a different perspective:
Crime and Punishment
The Master and Margarita
The Divine Comedy
The Plague
Don Quixote
The Trial
A lot of good books here no doubt. But where are the 21st century novels? Too controversial? Too soon to tell? Too expensive for new classroom sets? (You should have seen some of the books that I passed out to kids.)
Most of the stuff I read in High School that I remember was what I read on my own.
The classroom reading was obviously chosen in an attempt to get the disgruntled readers interested. I was an undisgruntled reader and found characters like Holden Cawfield annoying as fuck.
I was so glad we had it at my all girls school. The instructor was thinking of swapping it out for the next year’s class, but we encouraged her to keep it on the syllabus for at least one more year.
I'd say "Great Expectations" and "To Kill a Mockingbird." Actually a lot of the ones mentioned are great books, but I think they can be difficult to teach to younger readers. With some books (e.g., "A Scarlet Letter"), you often need a bit more life experience to really appreciate them.
Catcher in the Rye comes to mind first (even though I hated it). Of Mice and Men is another really common one.
Shakespeare is also pretty much required reading in any anglosphere high school, tho obviously every teacher/school covers different sets of his oeuvre
From the UK, over a century old, but applicable to the near future in the US.
Written by a working class semi skilled, low education labourer.
"The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist" by Robert Trestle.
Highly recommended, l scour used book store for copies and gift to friends.
Please try it. ⚘
We read a lot of common titles in my HS english classes, but it’s the book that I never see listed by anyone else that I think should become one: Toni Morrison’s Beloved
I think Invisible Man, Gatsby, and Catcher in the Rye, although Catcher in the Rye made absolutely no impression on me whatsoever. I still think it might involve rural life/life on a farm. Gatsby, I hated, but it stuck with me.
Echoing a lot of what's said in this thread. I recall Romeo & Juliet, the Odyssey, Song of Solomon, and The Trial were long-time regulars in my school system and remained so for years, though maybe no longer
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" was so quintessential that it was read and discussed my freshmen year, my sophomore year, and my junior year. I kept waiting for it to pop up throughout my entire senior year, but alas....
I loved The Great Gatsby. But I think thats the only one. I liked Frankenstein reading it as a senior more than I did a Freshmen, but I did not love it.
Particularly, now w/ James taught alongside, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Beloved (although I think Jazz is better to teach with), American Born Chinese (although some might question if it is a classic), The Tempest, Things Fall Apart, Frankenstein, Beowulf, Sundiata, and Fun Home.
absolutely, and also a lot of subtext about the First World War, class, and intra-white ethnic tension that isn’t easy to unpack even when teaching it in a university!
Things Fall Apart, Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Handmaid’s Tale, Bell Jar, Jane Eyre, The Stranger, Song Of Solomon…(I’m biased as that’s what I teach…)
Not counting plays: Rebecca, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, To the Lighthouse (or some Woolf), Beloved (or some Morrison), The Heart of Darkness, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (or some Hardy), Pride & Prejudice (or some Austen).
I’m glad I didn’t get to Moby-Dick until I was older. It became a favorite of mine, but I think it helps to have some life under your belt to fully appreciate it.
A few of us passed around William Kotzwinkle's "The Fan Man" in grade 11. Not on the curriculum, but it's the one that captures exactly what it was like to be a teen in the late 70s. Dorky dorky dorky dorky
Comments
much preferred by everyone was The Friends, by Rosa Guy
I think Bread Givers should be a standard 9th-grade text, but it rarely is (it teaches so well to that age)
A Separate Peace
R&J
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Outsiders
The Kite Runner
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
The Book Thief
Fahrenheit 451
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice & Men
O Pioneer
To name a few 😊
Two suits, two tokens in hand.
I got no respect 'cause I'm the new man.
Got my shovel, shoes full of sand.
Check out the tag the name's Caveman uh
Dig it oh oh oh dig it
Dig it oh oh oh
Dig it oh oh oh dig it
Dig it oh oh oh yeah
Two Solitudes.
As I Lay Dying.
Catcher in the Rye.
Had these & others, wow, I’d make a guess none of them are even mentioned in curriculums now.
once switched classes midyear and read 1984 twice in one grade
Taught: The Crucible, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, A Separate Peace
Those were the first books I remember that I couldn’t put down.
One kid made a diorama out of fruits and vegetables depicting the Hamlet-Claudius prayer scene as an "alternative assignment" and the entire class was dying. Mrs Strickland was apoplectic
Crime and Punishment
The Master and Margarita
The Divine Comedy
The Plague
Don Quixote
The Trial
Delete Catcher in the Rye from every HS survey class and replace it with David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green.
Catcher in the Rye
Red Badge of Courage
Old Yeller
A Separate Peace
Romeo and Juliet
Iliad
The classroom reading was obviously chosen in an attempt to get the disgruntled readers interested. I was an undisgruntled reader and found characters like Holden Cawfield annoying as fuck.
Shakespeare is also pretty much required reading in any anglosphere high school, tho obviously every teacher/school covers different sets of his oeuvre
Death of a Salesman
Written by a working class semi skilled, low education labourer.
"The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist" by Robert Trestle.
Highly recommended, l scour used book store for copies and gift to friends.
Please try it. ⚘
There Eyes Were Watching God
Invisible Man
Lear
Measure for Measure
East of Eden
Song of Solomon
Interpreter of Maladies
I taught Great Expectations for the first time last spring and had a blast