English class

are you in high school or college?

college

damn, you're lucky........my english teacher won't let me read chuck anymore, after me and my friend did a book talk on invisible monsters.......grrrrrrrrr.............

You'd think English teachers would be more open minded.

But then I see your location and I don't doubt it a bit. Which school? I'm from Evansville too

I did Fight Club as a book report for my 6th grade class. My teacher didn't seem to mind.

But then again, I didn't exactly explain to her in great detail what the book is about.

I also did Fight Club for a book report in 8th grade (recycled book reports...what an easy A+!).

I was actually going to do Choke...but ended up realizing that it would be impossible to do a "book report" and not include the sex...and my teacher back then would probably be pissed (but still probably give me an A+, but I didn't want to take the risk).

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by leonardshelby [/i]
[B]I was actually going to do Choke...but ended up realizing that it would be impossible to do a "book report" and not include the sex...and my teacher back then would probably be pissed (but still probably give me an A+, but I didn't want to take the risk). [/B][/QUOTE]

I know what you mean. I wrote only a one line summary of the novel in a column and that was hard without invloving sex.

I just did a power point presentation on Lullaby for my high school English class, get my grade back tomorrow, im 100% sure that i got a perfect score.

damnit. some schools get all the luck.

my high school summer reading always included stephen king. :mad:

way to ensure I woldn't enjoy my summer. "The Stand".

Ick.

stephen king is like bubble gum for the brain. it is good mindless fun

Hey, there is nothing wrong with a little mindless fun!!! My freind did a power point on the differences between fight club the book and the movie (I could not, since I had already read it) for film lit. It was very good. She got an A, also, I believe.

hey, are any of you two evansville people thespians?

I've been trying to get my teacher to pull some trick to let me do at least one Chuck book for my leaving cert... or even something similar... gotta wait and see what the books we can chose are... then either go "ok not to bad, pretty good" or "fucking hell this is bad"

shit i wanted to do a research paper on one of palahniuk's book but my teacher said she took the option to suggest your own book off after i told her the premise of choke...guess ill have to settle for catcher in the rye.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by ChiChi [/i]
[B]hey, are any of you two evansville people thespians? [/B][/QUOTE]

Nope. Not me.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by DoNotTrip [/i]
[B]stephen king is like bubble gum for the brain. it is good mindless fun [/B][/QUOTE]

maybe bubblegum in your hair or stuck on your chair. >:(

He's longwinded, meandering, and is SORELY in need of an editor.

and by fun, I'm hoping you mean that in the "gee, I like getting bamboo shoved under my fingernails!" kind of way.

painfull. just painfull.

Ick.

PsychoKeety..........i'm still in high school, i won't say where cuz i'm embarrassed, but i'm planning on going to ue next year.......hopefully get a better english teacher.......and chichi, i'm not really a thespian, i didn't get cast in the musical, but i enjoy theatre..............

Iz just wondering cause I went to this thespian convention where Evansville Central did a play called "Marvin's Room." Twas quite good.

Man, I wish my school were more lenient about books like Chuck's.
Reading Lord of the Flies and having to annotate in it for a whole frigging year! Though, I once had to read 1984 (George Orwell) for summer reading. They always want you to read Catcher in the Rye, every fucking year!

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by ChiChi [/i]
[B]Iz just wondering cause I went to this thespian convention where Evansville Central did a play called "Marvin's Room." Twas quite good. [/B][/QUOTE]

that's where i went to school...five years ago... I always wanted to do plays, but I couldn't make myself get up in front of an audience. Seriously, in college I dropped a couple of classes I didn't *really* need because we had to give presentations.

yah, i just auditioned for our play, and well, it was the first time i sang in front of people and well, i can sing, just not in front of people.........but i'll play in the band, and the band gets to sing a whole song themselves..........but i also do speech, so that helps calm nerves and learn how to speak in front of people.......my speech this year was from invisible monsters..........

I let my little brother borrow lullaby and little did I know he decided to do a book report on it. Hahah, he had a bit of trouble fitting the necrophelia into his oral report.

He really wanted to borrow "American Psycho" but I told him he had to read a Palahniuk book first though.

I think that the unwritten rule is this:

If school ever forces you to read a book, it will suck, no matter how good the book actually is. Yet if you read that [I]same book[/I] on your own, it may have been excellent.

And I didn't do Survivor or Choke or Lullaby as book reports (yet! haha!), and though I'm embaressed to say so, I havent read Invisible Monsters, mainly because my 8th grade art teacher ruined the end of the book for me =/

But I did Fight Club, twice! Once in 6th grade and once again in 8th. In 6th I did what I felt was an awesome bookmark that I still use today, that I got a 100 on. When I explained the book during my presentation, I remember the whole class being like, "What the fuck?" well except maybe without the fuck. And on the front of the bookmark I included this totally awesome picture I made, a cutout of the faces of brad pitt and ed norton (the movie had just come out, and I actually hadn't seen it yet--wasn't allowed to, too young haha) spliced together to form one face.

pan: uh, how old is your little brother, if he wants to read american psycho........that has to be the most unsettling book i have ever read.....i had to write a response to the book, and my teacher likes details (hehehe)........leonardshelby: i see that you like memento........damn good film..........and you must read invisible monsters, it's the best.............

For future referece:

First step: Communicate early with your professors and get to know each other. Once you're in, explain why you think a certain book should be covered in that course and why..have a pretty well thought out list of reasons, not just ..."uuh, cuz, it's cool."

Second step: If you're professor is convinced after reading the book and agrees to take it on...task accomplished. You need to find a professor who is passionate about teaching and getting students excited and motivated. Sometimes, this even involves the Professor creating a whole new class, take for instance, my Professor who had to take it to the English department meeting to get her banned books class admitted as a class for next fall.

Even if it's for a class you've already taken, but think others would benefit in the future...make it happen.

I was forced to read Catcher In The Rye and still liked it. we have a great english teacher, though she seems to be trying to set me up with a girl in the year below...

Heh.

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was twelve years old because my teacher forbid me from bringing it into the classroom.

It is still my favorite book of all time.

baby gal: my friend and i did stress how awesome invisible monsters is without saying some shit like "uhh, cuz it's cool"..........she won't listen to us try to explain chuck's brilliance, she's just close-minded........

I agree, Joe, Catcher in the Rye was the best book I was "forced" to read. I also enjoyed Frankenstein and Brave New World, which were books I had to read for various classes.

That's cool--what was the title of the class? Was it in a contemporary literature class?

"Lullaby" is the only Chuck novel I haven't read yet. I'm not sure whether it's cuz I'm waiting for it to be in paperback, or b/c I'm a pleasure delayer, or b/c I'm nervous to not have any Chuck stuff left to read.

I am not sure if ByuT's question was directed at me, but the class that Lullaby was being used in was an Intro level class. The title of the class is Literary Experience. In my Literary Experience clas I read The Great Gatsby, The Handmaid's Tale, The House of Mirth, and A Clockwork Orange

Clockwork is an awesome book. I have always tried to get my english teachers/profs to bring in some henry miller, at which they all laugh hysterically. Sure chuck's books are a little bit shocking, but just imagine a whole class talking about Tropic of Cancer...

DNT: Those are cool books. Clockwork Orange happens to be one of my favorite books of all time.

I was so happy today!! Our new college teachers made us do one of those name-game-get-to-know-you kind of things. So we all had to line up by order of our b-day. So of couse my "partner" was the stupid-annoying-ass cheerleader with the same b-day as I. We have to find one interesting thing about ourselves and the other person would present us. I said I liked to watch phyco-thrillers (her interesting thing was being a cheerleader). Come presentation time I tell my little fact about her and she tells hers about me. So the college teacher asks me what my favorite one is and I say quickly Fight Club. And then he says cool, has anyone ever read it? And my friend and I almost scream YES! And then he asks if we read IM!!! And we scream YES!!! itisocooliloveitsomuchomg!!!! And he went on about how crazy it was and my friend and I were the only ones who understood what he was talking about. I was quite suprised. Ya ok, that was a long story just to say that. Sorry.

I love getting cool teachers. How often is Joan Jett quoted at the end of a graded paper, or how many teachers mention Kevin Smith or Fight Club in their notes on the same paper when you get it back.

And then he brought in clips of The Daily Show to illustrate points.

Makes me wanna go back. (eh, not really)

I totally agree, it's all about the teacher. It actually wasn't until my senior year of high school that I actually enjoyed English classes because up until that point we'd been reading shit like The Scarlet Letter. Finally we started reading some real literature, although no CP. The improvement in reading material certainly helped, but it was the teacher himself that made the class. First of all, it was him that picked out the books in the first place. Second, HE WAS SO FUCKIN' COOL. He'd tell us stories all the time about things like the time he went to Mexico, tossed all his papers in a river and then smuggled himself across the border (he's hispanic), all for a class project. The books you read can certainly help make the class, but it all goes back to the teacher.

as a former high school english teacher, i feel the need to stick up for my colleagues. most of the time, we're required (by the school board), to deliver a certain curricula. i HATE HATE HATE the scarlet letter, yet every fall i found myself rehashing the finer points of that piece of shit because it was in my job description. basically, i had no say in what i taught, and this is the case for most public school teachers. when i assigned an analysis paper, i never prohibited any book, though. i always got excited when a student chose something unusual...it made me believe they were actually reading.

hey, just think: your english teacher/prof could be reading/responding to your posts right now...

Teachers make classes, in all classes. Last year maths was taught by the best teacher I have ever met, she got us through 3 years of work in one because our last two had been terrible. And this year, we've got our teacher from first year again and i've given up working.

NirvanaPunker...

Yeah, that's why I say it's all about the teacher. It's impossible to try and convince some Professor who's burned out from teaching or who's just plain close-minded and stubborn.

moe.ron...

it's got to be extremely frusterating as hell to stick to the same material to meet the criteria for course objectives, and that they can't trust the teachers to come up with finding the right material to make the same point express the same themes as say..."The Scarlet Letter." It must leave a lot of English teachers wondering why the hell they went to grad school and spent so much hard work on a thesis. I mean, damn...doesn't that count for anything. I plan on teaching college level lit/humanities classes and I'd take it as a personal insult that after grad school my judgements can't be trusted. It's hard to keep the passion in teaching when it's the same material over and over and second, when it's something you find weak content in or there's another alternative...and you know it...but can't use it....

ish.