[HIVEMIND] Gamecat is a prince of nothing

[8XXX{0}====>]

wow... I sure cleared the room...

 

[Skade]

Thats exactly what I think about almost every book I read at school. Tale of Two Cities, The Awakening, Picture of Dorian Grey...

Oh, I loved the Awakening. That's one of those books you really have to look at in the context of it's period. Kate Chopin (is that right?) was really pushing boundries with that work. I can forgive its occasionally slow prose, and overuse of dialect for its daring.

 

[arwink]

Thats exactly what I think about almost every book I read at school. Tale of Two Cities, The Awakening, Picture of Dorian Grey...

Picture of Dorian Grey is a brilliant book, but english departments kill it.

 

[Crothian]

Thats exactly what I think about almost every book I read at school. Tale of Two Cities, The Awakening, Picture of Dorian Grey...

See if you can read Catch 22 or Slaughter House 5. Both are great works of liturature but a little more modern so the style is not as displeasing to people used to the hack modern books of today.

 

[DerianCypher]

m00!

 

[Skade]

m00!

d00d?

 

[8XXX{0}====>]

I think not looking at the peroid in context was the problem. That was sophmore year, with Ms. K. Probably the most boring english teacher i've ever had. All she would do is rant incoherently, or mumble as she went over homework. And we read The Awakening as summer reading, with basically no support structure or context. So, as something to do during out fun fun fun summer break, it wasnt really high on my list of fun stuff.

I could see the point of the book, especially compared to Jane Austen books (which i really like, oddly), as something revolutionary, but I think the ideas it presented were better than the words used to present them.

 

[8XXX{0}====>]

Picture of Dorian Grey is a brilliant book, but english departments kill it.

That seems to happen a lot at school. We read Brave New World for school, and reading it AS a school book, instead of a real book, basically killed whatever cool scifi-ness it had.

 

[Skade]

One thing I can say that was good about my high school education was that in the Gifted/Talented program, the reading assignments were very freeform. Though it was covered in as much , if not more detail than the book would in a normal class, it was never done in such a way that it detracted from the book. When literature is no longer enjoyable, what's the point?

 

[8XXX{0}====>]

My highschool has an advanced program, but because california has some crazy crazy politics, which i only mention in passing, not to start a debate (dont edit this mods), the program is getting some massive cuts.

Example: the paper budget ran out. So we have to bring paper from home to write down the problems for our homework. Because there is no money for paper, or saleries, or supplies, or anything but construction (crazy laws again), we lose five to ten minutes of classtime every period (about 45 minutes total every day), because we spend it writing down what our homework is about to be.

And the nature of our advanced classes isnt really like a Gifted/Talented program. Its more like advanced classes are regular classes that move twice as fast. We dont cover things more deeply, just faster.