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Originally posted by VirginiaR:
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Originally posted by Annie B.:
[b] I decided to read the books the kids have been assigned so I could answer their questions, if they had any. I'd read some of these before, while others were new to me.
Just out of curiosity, Annie, how often are the kids assigned to read classics written by women? These were all written by men. Where are the "Frankstein", "To Kill a Mockingbird", or the "Pride and Prejudice" (without Zombies) novels? I remember many stories being assigned to me in school ("1984", "Lord of the Flies", and "Great Gatsby", included, as well as the writings of Charles Dickens), but I cannot remember being assigned anything by a classic female author outside of the poetry lesson (and that horrible "Jane Eyre" book, ugh). Most of the great classic female writers I read were on my own *after* graduation. I hope this has changed in the :rolleyes: 25 years since I graduated high school. [/b]
For a few years, no novels were taught at all, since the textbooks had little snippets of literature that were supposed to make the kids enthusiastic about literature (I call it Literature: Twitter Style). When this turned out not to work in spite of the opinions of experts who hadn't been in a classroom in years, they started using actual novels again. (Good thing we librarians in the district had just put them away instead of getting rid of them like we were told to -- we knew they'd be needed in the future.) Last year the kids read Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Raisin in the Sun (all written by women). This year the theme seems to be dystopia (other than The Great Gatsby), so they're reading all the depressing books. One teacher showed up with her first period class today to check out a dystopiate novel written by a woman -- The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. This would have been fine, except the teacher and the AP neglected one important detail -- telling me, the librarian, to get the book. grumble As such, the teacher wanted 120 copies, while I have a grand total of 2. (Given a couple of weeks' notice, I could probably scrounge up a class set -- not 120, but enough for the kids to use in the classroom.) Given no notice, I couldn't give them much of anything. In keeping with the dystopian theme, however, the teacher checked out a class set of Fahrenheit 451.

"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland