<p>I also loved Rebecca- it has been years so maybe I should go back and re-read it. </p>
<p>Just wondering if anyone else is having this issue. My youngest son has always been an avid reader, reading books way beyond his years. Now in 10th grade, he recently told me that reading has become a chore and he hates it. He says that the reading load for school has been so heavy last year and this that he has no time for recreational reading and is only reading what other people tell him to. While he has always challenged himself with reading some pretty heavy material from a wide range of authors, he resents being forced to read all of the requirements for school. Even during the summer he was limited to his summer reading assignments; The Prince, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, etc. He used to love English and Lit. classes and now says he dreads them. He gets A’s on all his papers, and in the classses, so it’s not a case of hating it because he is not doing well. He wants to drop down to CP English because then he would have time to read what he likes. This is really becoming an issue and I’m not sure what to do- anyone else out there having similar issues?</p>
<p>My D is kind of the opposite in that she doesn’t really like to read. She chose her summer reading from the list of options based upon the number of pages. She is also a sophomore in public school Honors British lit, and I wish their reading list were longer (DS had a MUCH longer list at his private hs), because it’s the only way it’s getting in there. She already thinks the teacher is nutso with work, but I forbade her to drop to 10R. Your S is doing well, and has the potential for high scores. I would not let him drop down. </p>
<p>What books are they going to be reading? maybe they won’t all be as bad as he thinks. DS has large requirements every year, and still manages to do a lot of outside reading as well.</p>
<p>Rebecca is great fun, but I wouldn’t call it great literature.</p>
<p>takeitallin, my kids loved to read, but both hated English classes in high school. They both refused to take honors or AP English as seniors and it made life so much more sane. No lengthy reading lists in the summer and they enjoyed their classes senior year. (My older son did an elective in Myths and Legends, my younger son in Mysteries.) They both got A’s in English for the first time senior year. They scored 800 and 790 on the SAT CR section and older son got into Harvard and Carnegie Mellon (and a couple of other tech schools) and younger son got into U of Chicago, Tufts and Vassar. They each had about 9 APs upon graduating - just not in English! </p>
<p>Neither of them read much that would be consider great literature, my oldest read fantasy, sci fi and computer manuals the younger son spent most of his senior year on a project to read every Star Wars book ever published (except the juvenalia).</p>
<p>All this is to say in your shoes, if the rest of the schedule is challenging - let them enjoy English. (They did both have honors English in 10th and 11th grade though.)</p>
<p>Only one of my three kids really likes to read but all learned to appreciate the different genre’s because they were forced to in English classes. If you think about it, for a true reader, there is ALWAYS time for reading your favorites.</p>
<p>I’ll second these suggestions that have already been made:</p>
<p>Melville - Moby Dick (don’t fear it!)
Steinbeck - Grapes of Wrath
Saul Bellow - Augie March
Capote - In Cold Blood
Catch 22
August Wilson
Flannery O’Connor - (but Wise Blood would be my choice)
Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls</p>
<p>And add:</p>
<p>Charles Brockden Brown - Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Ambrose Bierce - Any
Thomas Wolfe - Look Homeward, Angel
Theodore Dreiser - An American Tragedy
Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
John Williams - Stoner
John Collier - Fancies and Goodnights (s. stories)</p>
<p>mathmom-thanks for the encouragement. I don’t want to see him despise reading as a result of this “forced” reading. I think he will enjoy some of the books he has to read for class, others I know he will hate (he truly hated Jane Eyre- said it was a classic soap opera). We will have to make a decision at some point as to what level he wants to stay in. He has made the decision for this year, but next year is to be seen. He definitely enjoys science and math more, but has always loved to read and I don’t want that to fade. </p>
<p>Katiep- I would love to agree with you, but in this case the only time he would find time to read his choices would be after midnight during the week. He is really, truly that busy with school, EC’s and sports. He is usually not home before 7 or 8 at nite and does homework often until 12 or 1 AM. Weekends he is busy with sports, and the rest is used for catching up on homework. He rarely even has time to hang out with friends anymore. He is determined to be a 3-sport athlete thu-out HS (I don’t know why; it is just a goal he has set for himself). My D’s both love to read (one is an English teacher), but I have to say my older son definitely lost his love of reading, for whatever reason, during high school.</p>
<p>We have told him it is up to him. He starts off saying he will drop down to CP in English, and then ends up sticking it out in H’s.</p>
<p>I had one classic English student – one of her classmates, whom I met in another capacity, asked me earnestly if there were any poems written in English that she hadn’t already read, since apparently their AP Lit class had yet to find one – and one who hated English class (but not reading). The second used to write impassioned diatribes against the type of literature that was part of the official English Literature curriculum, and in favor of studying more genre fiction (sci fi, detective, fantasy). Funny thing was, along the way he turned into a pretty sophisticated reader, who has read pretty much all of Pynchon and Rushdie (along with, of course, Neil Gaiman and Orson Scott Card), who adored his Hum class at Chicago, and who voluntarily took a course on obscure Middle Eastern epic poems. He loved Kavalier & Clay, too (everyone does, as far as I can tell).</p>
<p>Kids have different paths.</p>
<p>He didn’t drop AP Eng Lit, though. Not an option for him, as far as I was concerned; too big a quality gap between that and the next-best at his school. And he had to sit still for a few parental lectures on how his lack of appreciation for Pride and Prejudice possibly meant he was a bad person. Literature is sort of a blood sport in our house.</p>
<p>By the way: Guided – John Collier? I don’t think I have ever met anyone I wasn’t related to who owned Fancies and Goodnights!</p>