One of Columbia’s writing questions asks about required readings. None of my classes have any. What should I put there?
No matter what, don’t leave it blank. List a couple of readings from your Eng or Eng Lit classes or History/Econ/Govt classes (besides the text book).
List favorite articles assigned by the teacher, indicate title and author, or favorite novel (even if you only were assigned chapters) . You can’t possibly have only read secondary sources?
To jog your memory of books you may have been assigned, here are several standard books for high school–
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
Great Gatsby
Sound and the Fury
Raisin in the Sun
Romeo and Juliet/ Hamlet/ Macbeth or some other Shakespeare play
Lord of the Flies
Animal Farm
Catcher in the Rye
1984
Fahrenheit 451
Call of the Wild
Frankenstein
Tale of Two Cities
Huck Finn
Brave New World
Grapes of Wrath
Ann Frank
To Kill a Mockingbird
Their Eyes were Watching God
The Odyssey
Heart of Darkness
Ethan Frome
Scarlet Letter
Native Son
^^^^^^
Pride and Prejudice
All Quiet on the Western Front
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
A Farewell to Arms
Inherit the Wind
Red Badge of Courage
East of Eden
Great Expectations
Canterbury Tales
Siddhartha
Great Expectations
POETRY
So you weren’t assigned anything to read or write about in all of your high school English classes?
^ what about non fiction books… Articles in social science ?
Did you not take any English classes your senior year…? Most colleges HIGHLY suggest 4 years.
Oh, you’re international and this is your GAP year.
Did you take any literature courses at all? Unfortunately, these novels require some pensive study; you won’t be able to cram these novels and interpret them on the fly.
If you never took courses in literature or English, then you may be out of luck.
Oh yeah I’m intl. I didn’t have to read any english literature because my lit class wasn’t taught in english, but I did read quite some of them while I was studying for the SAT. Does that count.
What books were taught that were NON - ENGLISH??? That’s super interesting.
You should def talk about that!!!
Yay-us. Def talk about that.
This is Ivy league. They totally know the non-English classics or SHOULD. Tell them what you know!
There is no requirement that the works were written in English. If the works were in French/Spanish/Chinese, etc., list those.
You are you.
You are smart.
You have done things that can contribute to the campus.
You have read texts that . . . .perhaps no one in the adcome office has read. HURRAY! That’s really great. Write about what you’ve read.
Be you.
You have a lot to teach all of us. I would love to hear yours stories. I’m sure that the adcoms do too
im in the same boat. transfer student, only needed 2 english courses and we didn’t read any books in either of them.
This doesn’t have to be books in English. It can be in any language. What educational system doesn’t make students read literature from its own tradition, it’s own classics, or even contemporary authors from that culture?
A number of literature classics are translated from their original languages to English which are required readings is US English classes: I can think of two, offhand, that were written in Russian: The Cherry Orchard and Crime and Punishment.
As long as you’ve read something and had to discuss or interpret it, I don’t think it matters what language, or who wrote it.