Boston.com / News / Local / The tempest
“There are only two enduring questions in life: What do women really want, and what to do with ninth-graders?”
and
“They loved Twain, Poe, John Irving, Haruki Murakami, he reports, but rolled their eyes at ”The Great Gatsby.” Bauer was dumbfounded. How could they miss the allure of this haunting classic? Because they were forced on pain of death to expound on the meaning of the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock. Enter the Godzilla of high school English — the dreaded metaphor.”
I loved this article and it’s pretty timely since I’ve been sitting here avoiding work and thinking about what “school work” Michelle (who is a 9th grader) had done for the last year – in preparation for her homeschool evaluation. I started with her reading list, fast and easy and most interesting to ME. I have no idea if it was most interesting to Michelle – she hated some of the things that “I made her read” and enjoyed others. We did Shakespeare, which she hated reading but loved talking about, thinking about and WATCHING in movie and play form. We skipped The Great Gatsby but she will be doing To Kill a Mockingbird shortly.
I was thinking about having her do a little mini survey about her homeschool experience thus far, this article has given me some ideas about what to ask and maybe what not to ask…
Here’s what I’ve got for her reading list from the past 12 months – there’s more, I haven’t finished, but this is the bulk (in order of when they popped into my head):