I've been out of high school for a year, and as I look back at the literary works that I had to read, most of them were by authors from long ago and to me, most of the stories were quite boring.
Has anyone had to read OSC as part of a school assignment?
Posted by alath (Member # 6150) on :
I haven't, but I know that my sister was required to read Ender's Game when she was in tenth grade.
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
I read Ender's Game as a ninth grade high school student. The first book I read cover-to-cover. I did get an A in English that term.... Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
No, but I've skipped out of a lot of assignments because I was too busy reading OSC. Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
Ditto.
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
lol
Posted by Erick the Great (Member # 6527) on :
Nope. I read the Ender Quartet on my own during High School.
Posted by gwan (Member # 6194) on :
It wasn't required reading, but my English teacher was a closet OSC fan. He highly encouraged it. Which is the reason I read Ender's game in the first place... and why I myself am an Osc fan. It is all thanks to him. Posted by LightBreath (Member # 6528) on :
I have not had any required reading of OSC. I chose to use several for various book reports and projects. In middle school I read Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead for book reports. I read Xenocide and Children of the Mind this year for enjoyment. Right now I'm doing a book report on Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets.
[ May 07, 2004, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: LightBreath ]
Posted by cRaZy ToM (Member # 6474) on :
i read them on my own..id die if it was an assignhend book... we get The Crucible and Johnny got hit gun....
Ugh
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
For some reason, I hate every book that I was assigned in school. I wonder if it would have been the same with OSC.
Posted by Crystal (Member # 5437) on :
I had to read Ender's Game for my 8th grade English class. Now I'm in 11th grade and EG is still the only book that I've ever been assigned to read for school that I accually liked reading.
Posted by I.Want.To.Be.Peter (Member # 6544) on :
I have had to read many books each year for english, and last year, in my seventh grade class, we had to read Enders Shadow, and that got me reading all of the OSC(Orson Scott Card) books.
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
I'm making my nephew read Ender's Game for his reading class (7th grade).
He is such a slacker, that he has to read 500 pages before Memorial day. I'm having him read Ender's Game and a short Louis L'amour novel.
I told him I'd buy him a sleeping bag if he can finish Ender's Game before I do (and I only get to read for an hour a day). He's just about done, now. I'm barely half way. So good news, eh? Luckily for him, I am a very slow reader, and he really enjoys the book.
Here's the killer: In the reading program that his school uses, Ender's Game is at reading level 5th grade, second month. The Louis L'Amour novel is 5th grade, 5th month.
I'm scratching my head over that. I guess they only take into account the size of the words, and not the underlying concepts or something. Weird.
Posted by amira tharani (Member # 182) on :
We stuck pretty much to the canon at my school - with one exception - a lesson on SF in year 7, for which I read "Farmer in the Sky." I lent EG and the rest of the series to my English teacher, though, and he really liked it.
Posted by barkeep49 (Member # 6553) on :
Despite EG being the most powerful novel I have read I do not put it on my bookshelf in 5th Grade because I think if students read it then almost all of them will miss out of what made it such a moving experience for me. It's too bad AR classifies it that way (the reading program I'm assuming your nephew is using). Just another example of the idiocy of that program.
Another teacher in my district has used it for 8th Grade Gifted which was an excellent decision I think.
[ May 18, 2004, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: barkeep49 ]
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Unfortunately, I don't think OSC was yet writing novels when I was in high school. He was probably in high school about that time as well....
Farmgirl
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
It's too bad AR classifies it that way (the reading program I'm assuming your nephew is using). Just another example of the idiocy of that program.
That's the program. I don't like the way the reading teachers teach required reading classes here in middle school.
They have all of this extraneous crap that can damage the grade of disorganized kids (such as my nephew). Plus, they have a very limited series of books in the school library. We had to go to the public library to find any AR books that looked even remotely interesting last year.
He had a math teacher for reading last year. Now, she was a good reading teacher. Basically, she set it up so that if you read 5 books of reasonable length, you would definitely pass the class. Who would have thunk it: teach reading by having them read some books?!!!! Wow, and no stupid reading logs.
For the first trimester, he had this annoying reading teacher who gave as many points for reading a book as for finishing a "worksheet" or keeping a "reading log."
Sorry. Am I ranting about how stupid it is to keep a "reading log?" Who thinks up this crap?
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
I don't know. I never had any homework for middle school reading. All the work I did was in class. All the reading was in class.
The only time I actually had to pick a pencil in that class was when we finished a book, and that was to test your comprehension. Posted by Anthro (Member # 6087) on :
The school system always seems to disdain science fiction. My lit teacher some years ago, eight grade, I think, was dying to put Ray Bradbury into the curriculum but whoops--most of it's fantasy or science fiction, which has no grounding in Real Life and is therefore useless to our future Productive And Sensible Citizens.
And I hated AR. Hated it dearly. Nothing good on the lists at all.
Posted by JO14921 (Member # 6562) on :
In my old school, EG is assigned to the 9th grade regular English class every year for 5 years now. My honors class had a different teacher, and the only good thing that came out of ninth grade was that woman suggesting the book in passing to us. I figured I'd give it a try; my friends in that class raved about it...and here I am.
As for high schools disdaining Science Fiction, I hear you on that one. The same teacher who suggested EG to us had somehow managed to push through the system an actual Science Fiction class. We read and read and read some of the most brilliant science fiction, and while nothing OSC ever made it as an assignment, we spoke of it often... all nine of us to sign up for a Science Fiction class Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
We had some contention over Ender's Game last year at the college that I attended. For the first time ever, it was required reading for the freshmen english classes. The prof. who got it through told me that several other profs trashed the book, saying it wasn't deep enough or challenging enough for college level students. We had a good laugh over that one.
space opera
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
As I look back, it seems that the goal of many of my English Teachers was to convince me that I don't like to read. Fortunately, I'm a slow learner. Posted by Rhapsody (Member # 6514) on :
one of my best friends in grad school hated reading and school cause all the teachers were always like you suck and you'll never amount to anything and then our grad nine teacher gave her Ender's game and told her just to read it and now she love's reading and english is her best class
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Because of my previous 3 English teachers, I was convinced that I wasn't very smart. But when I got my senior-year AP English teacher, she convinced me that I am. I am so grateful for her.
Posted by Kurtamus Maximus (Member # 6563) on :
kool. yeah...i got to read Ender's Game for required reading for 9th grade English. That was the only English class I made really good grades in . And I did manage to get my best friend hooked on the series, and now he's read more OSC books than I have... Posted by Nita (Member # 6568) on :
Yeah, I had to read Ender's Game this year for science [I'm in seventh grade] , but later on my own time I read Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and am currently looking for Shadow Puppets. I am officially addicted.
Posted by alath (Member # 6150) on :
wow. that's interesting that you had to read it for science. I've never heard of that. Do you remember how you used it in class?
Oh, and welcome to hatrack.
Posted by megaotaku (Member # 6389) on :
That's so cool! Lucky! All I get for reading a real book in english class is 10 points extra credit to be added to a quiz or test. So how 'bout this? I can read Michener's _The Sorce_ (an epic. 1078 pages) or _Holes_ by Lois Sachar (about 200 pages) and get the same credit. I actually tried to get my english teacher to have my class read the short story of Ender's Game for class, but it didn't work. (my class is comprised of idiots. they complained that they couldn't finish _The Pearl_ in time for the test. It's 90 pages and we had at least 3 weeks. I read it in an hour. Go figure)
Posted by pinkstripes (Member # 6566) on :
yes i had to read it for sophomore year of high school. i know osc didnt think it was necessarily good that it was required because then kids are just forced to read it, but i wouldnt have known it existed otherwise, and look where i am now.
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
I've never gotten to read OSC for school. I happened upon it in the YA section of the book store in nineth grade, and I've been addicted ever since. I think I'm up to 22 now, and I'm going to have to start searching for rarer ones soon.
Does anyone else find it really interesting that EG is on the curriculum for fifth grade in some schools, and everywhere up to college classes elsewhere? I think it's really cool that one book has so many layers of meaning.
Posted by Enderwillsaveusall (Member # 6227) on :
quote:I've never gotten to read OSC for school. I happened upon it in the YA section of the book store in nineth grade, and I've been addicted ever since
Thats my story in a nutshell, said by midnightblue. Gotta love that YA section
Posted by RyFitz13 (Member # 6582) on :
I never got to read any OSC for school, personally. There definitely seemed to be a stigma attached to SF. The only exceptions were Bradbury's Farenheit 451 (assigned by a liberal-minded 9th grade English teacher) and Heinlein's Starship Troopers (for a college Philosophy class).
Farenheit 451 had a lot more to do with freedom of speech issues than anything else - so it made sense as required reading. I never really understood Starship Troopers though. It served to make me a long-time Heinlein fan (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of my all-time favorite works!), but as Philosophy??? I never quite saw how it fit...
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Really? Half of Starship Troopers seems to be Heinlein talking about the moral justification/necessity of war, how public flogggin will cure most of societie's ills, and how we need to develop a systematic method of defining/discovering morality. The other half was about becoming a man in the military environment. Only the third half was actually about the war. And , of course, the fourth half was dedicated to bad math. Posted by RyFitz13 (Member # 6582) on :
Maybe I just have to read it again - it's been a few years now (geez - 8 years since sophomore philosophy???)...
Posted by Anthro (Member # 6087) on :
I thought that was the best part of Starship Troopers . . .
Hey, your parents may spank you when you're little. Application of the same concept, flogging.
I find it interesting . . . a lot of the greatest science fiction and fantasy (Asimov, Bradbury, yeah, OSC o'course) came out of America and EG is covered in one of the standard literary criticism books we use (big ol' section too) yet American Lit. classes won't touch the genre with a thirty-nine foot pole.
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