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October 22, 2008 |
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Book Report
FOUND by Rebekah Woolverton
in My High School
Well, at least he was being truthful...
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A+ February 02, 2007 |
Gravesite December 15, 2008 |
Dear Bobby March 06, 2007 |
Cat's Ass August 07, 2006 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
I appreciate the honesty here~!
Hey Doctor Jones, remember this: http://www.foundmagazine.com/find/3437
Today's find is folded like that one only a little better, and it looks like the same kind of notebook paper. Could this have been written by Crystalle's older brother?
I don't know:
- anything about manga
- how to make the buzzing stop
- why people watch Dr Phil
- how advection fog really works
- where I put my tax info for this year
- why people think that a little dog wearing a jumper isn't just humiliating for everyone
- what ever happened to handwritten thank you notes
- why dress sizes in america are just lies that everyone seems to accept
- how I got here
Not even the title?? How lazy can you be?
(Oooh...Librarian is gonna be all over this one!)
an F on the assignment.
but an A for honesty.
sadly though, this isn't "honesty 101". which means you fail the class and will be going to summer school.
@ Geek: absolutely! It's almost like they were saying "Hey, I may know jack shit about that boring pamphlet we were supposed to read, but look how neatly I managed to fold this piece of notebook paper!"
Reminds me of all these boring stories my teacher made us read back when I went to school. Why do these always have to be so... boring? Most of the stuff we were supposed to read put me to sleep faster than dormicum. Call me shallow, but a good book, to me, has to be entertaining. And after reading it, you're supposed to write an essay about it. Yeah, right. Let's see: YAWN!
I'm sure the book in question here was of the same boring, wanna-be deep stereotypical kind. No wonder they refrained from reading it ;)
I'm with the Doctor on this one. I am and always was a voracious reader; by the time I was 8 I was allowed to take books from the adult section of the library, and they overlooked the "2 books per visit" rule for me in any library I've ever been in. And yet, for highschool literature classes, they always found some obscure novel that made no sense to us, or some silly kid story that was just embarassing.
I finally figured it out a few years ago. They used the books the teachers themselves were forced to study in college; that meant they had all the notes, all the "motivations" and "analyses" done and could just sleep through it. Except they couldn't because most class discussion was met with blank stares on the part of the students, some of whom gave up in despair and didn't even try to read the book (like the writer of this note) or HAD read it and couldn't imagine what the teacher was on about.
I remember struggling through "A Separate Peace" in junior year. We knew what it was about: adolescent anger, jealousy and envy. To us it was just a badly-written book by someone who had forgotten what it was like to be 16 or 18. And of course in our small rural Midwestern town, for some odd reason we couldn't relate to teen angst in a swanky boarding school, let alone 1940's social rituals in the late 70s.
Wonder why!
I hated or disliked almost all the books I had to read in Jr High and High School. As an adult, I went back and read them again and found I actually enjoyed them. (except for 'Red Badge of Courage' which still is awful. Read every other page and you'll still not miss anything)
I think there are two problems with High School literature classes:
1) Most kids aren't ready to enjoy classic literature at that age.
2) When forced to read something, most of us will not like it, no matter what.
I think I wrote this note 30 years ago.
I think Baby Basil is right about teachers assigning things that students can't relate to. Jane Austin may be a great writer, but I assure you, there has NEVER been, nor never will be, a 16 year old straight boy who has even the slightest interest in anything she ever wrote.
By the way, I enjoy reading now (though I'm not "voracious", but it took a long time to overcome my high school experience.
I hope all the literature teachers are taking notes on these comments
I loved doing book reports and essays!!! I'll read anything...except *Harlequinn Romance* and *Sci-Fi*.
Oh...and, er...the sticky peel off thingies from Sanitary Napkins.
I just don't get how any woman can "Have a happy Period!" from Always.
My new favorite find.
basil, i'm sure the 1940s in the 1970s were just as bad as the 1940s in 2005 for me. i disliked a seperate peace with quite a passion myself. this note looks like a note passed to a friend during class rather than an assignment turned in...
I Agree with aladd. This is folded like a passed note. Chaucer and any olde english in high school is excruciating. Why the torture when there is Steinbeck to read?
Yep, I'm not sure what the motivation is for high school teachers to assign books that no high schooler would ever enjoy or get anything out of. Perhaps at the age of fifty, reading by your own choice, you enjoyed "Crime and Punishment," but I promise your tenth grade class won't. Which means they'll skip it, then stare blankly at you, while you simmer and rage about how "No one enjoys good literature these days. It must be because of all the text messaging."
My ninth grade teacher assigned us Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead." Ninth grade. I was fourteen.
man behind curtain in oz;
people watch dr. phil because they are under the assumption that he is God.
this looks like something one of my 4th graders would write. And it's not because I read boring books. Our read alouds are crazy exciting. I stand on tables and act things out. It's basically charades. They love it until you say... ok, stop telling me your comments, write them down.... and then you get this.
sigh.
in high school a truly evil teacher made us slog through all the russian lit... including the endless Anna Karenina. The question on the exam was "who was frou-frou?" turns out it's the horse. Only damn thing i remember from that russian love-fest...
I like how this person capitalized "A"nything, as if to further emphasize their complete lack of knowledge. Aside from this I can say that, even though this person did not read the assignment, or how would the recipient of the message know what "this book" was? unless the miniscule folded note was some how shoved inside the cover (which seems unlikely), at least they used their apostrophe correctly... and indented.
The other notes also found later in the day -
I don't know how to do this algebra formula
I don't know where the capital of Assyria is
I don't know what there periodic table is
I don't know where babies come from
I don't remember my locker combination
I can't find my backpack
I can't find my weed...
@Eden ... I was going to remark that 'at least this book report has all the words spelled correctly, that is, if you ignore the capital A in Anything'.
Also, it was folded up because Junior Holden Pony Boy carries all his homework assignments that way in order not to have appear to care while on his way back to school.
@ Night in gale ... I guess so. We have TONS of anonymous books in the catalog, but everything has a title (even if we have to make it up, as we sometimes have to do in rare books and manuscripts work). I'm guessing that Junior Holden Pony Boy never opened the book, so the title didn't sink in.
oh, and,
I don't know Anything about how "dew point" works or why it's supposed to be important to know about.
@ lawndude: 'The Miller's Tale' is hilarious. It wasn't one of the Canterbury Tales our English teacher assigned us to read, but he hinted we might like it. Best story in the book.
I'm surprised at all the whiners today!
I love reading, always have. And I did read Crime and Punishment (by my own choice-- not for class) in high school. But yeah, like most kids, I wasn't nuts about the assigned reading for English class. (Le Morte D'Arthur? Give me a break.) But I would NEVER hand something like this in. This is just laziness and stupidity!
Even if you don't read the assigned book (which I almost never did), you should still know enough to at least TRY to bullshit your way through a paper. The title, the author, what time period, whatever the teacher may have said about it in class, etc...
At least try to make something up-- that's the beauty of high school, the bullshittery.
The writer should have read "Skippyjon Jones"- but then, I think everyone ages 3 and up should read it!
I've seen plenty of preachers waving Bibles who could be the author of this note!
On another note - of all the books I've ever had to read, the WORST - and I mean THE WORST - was "Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." I was in honors English in Junior and Senior High, so we were always reading some real snooze-inducers. Among these were jewels like "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" by James Joyce and "The Bear" by Faulkner, neither of which were very long - they just seemed that way. And I don't know how many times I had to read Kafka's "Metamorphosis" in different classes through the years. But the all-time Razzie is reserved, in my opinion, for Conrad.
@ girl
Don't be surprised. Everyone whines. This site seems to be built on it (insert smiley icon here). This just struck a nerve with those of us that had lousy teachers (or assignments).
And I seriously don't think anyone here believes this was a turned in assignment. This was obviously a note to a friend.
....and neither do I!!
@ lying in jason... are you implying that He's not god?!?
this is essentially the report i turned in when forced to read finnegan's wake, although my report had many more words all scrambled up. i mean it was stream of consciousness.
I recently discovered that almost every book I had to read in my Canadian high school are on the list of banned books (www.bannedbooks.com). They are still some of my favourite books, and I still re-read them. Mind you, as much as I love reading them, I don't ever want to have to write a book report on any of them again. Perhaps today's high school reading material is dreadful because all the books worth reading have been pulled from the curriculum?
My guess: Lord of the Flies.
It's gotta be...
Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
...
Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for
...
Oh man, do I ever sympathize with this one! I'm taking a literary criticism class, and have had to read the likes of Plato, Kant, Saussure and Derrida... sometimes I feel exactly the same:
I don't know anything about this book.
My daughters just read a book called... i dont know what the title is. Anyway. There was at least one sex scene, and a gay rape scene. They go to Catholic School. I want to ask the teacher how she got it past the censors or school board or whatever. I admire her.
Try it with Latin American Lit, which I took my degree in...not to knock those authors, but seriously, folks--if you don't take a college level course, a lot of the books we read simply don't make much sense. You needed the class to get anything out of them at all. I refer you to Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Paramo" as a case in point. Even the Latin American students referred to him as "Peter Moore" because his writing was so obscure we felt he HAD to be the lost Bronte.
Where I live, kids who major in Eng Lit are forced to read "Moby Dick." Why? Because the dean did her doctoral thesis on it. The third or fourth time I read it, I began to get something out of it...but trust me, it wasn't worth all the agony. It's only famous because Alexander Woolcot decided suddenly in the 1930's that it was his favourite book, and he and the rest of the Algonquin crowd puffed it mercilessly in the press as "the most lyrical novel in the English language." Well, here's the Womble's eye view: You don't have to be high to read it, but it helps.
Whenever I read the part about Ahab going down with the mast, I cheer!
Hey, I'm the one who found this, so I'd better clarify and say that I found this crumpled up in the school hallway, so I doubt he/she ever intended to turn it in.
Still, it made me laugh when I found it!
Librarian, I can't say that I do know that I love you (in fact, I know that I don't), but I do know that one and one are two.
The Metamorphosis has one of the best opening lines of any book ever, but it's really downhill from there.
My favorite part of Moby Dick involved the guy taking the skin from the whale penis and converting into a poncho to protect his clothes from the blood, etc. while he butchered the whale. Talk about adding insult to injury.
(whale talking)"OK, good harpoon shot. You got me, now just let me die. HEY! OW! Come on now, is that necessary?"
Trouble is, no one can force you to like a book.
Orinoco, I absolutely adored Moby Dick, and Tristram Shandy -- I remember thinking 'Why did no one force me to read these when I was younger?' But if they had, I wouldn't have appreciated them then. So you have to discover in your own time what speaks to you.
Still not got further than a few chapters into Don Quixote though.
(I have a feeling we've had this discussion before??)
(Ah, I see I am agreeing with Geek.)
The Find may not have been a sarky school comment. It might have been a note from an uncle or aunt or somebody giving a kid a book on someone else's recommendation despite knowing nothing about it him- or herself. If you see what I mean.
I feel bad for all the separate peace bashing going on. I actually kind of enjoyed that book sophomore year - I mean, it could have been a lot worse. Wuthering Heights, or Great Expectations, for example.
What if it had started: "As Captain Ahab awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic white whale."??
I love the hell out of Crime and Punishment and did in highschool. Heart of Darkness was good. Er... Then again, I had an awesome teacher - I think it helped.
Awesome teachers DO help you like and appreciate books that you never thought you would. That's the definition of "awesome teacher" and I was lucky enough to have several in AP English classes in high school. However, now I cannot remember many of the books I read in any of the classes, except "Animal Farm" and "The Jungle". I'm sure there were many more, but my memory has become muddled with age. I'm sure many can relate.
I don't know anything about blood pressure numbers or Figaro. And ditto on Librarian's "dew point".
hold on. where was this found? in her high school, or my high school. cuz i dont go to high school.
I don't know anything about Figaro either. I thought he was my friend. But he won't let me sleep with his bride on their wedding night! Why don't these servants know their place? I don't know what the world's coming to, to be sure.
Oh, sorry, we were talking about books.
Beware of that Beaumarchais fellow, he's nothing but trouble.
(But of course I'm an aristocrat so I can't read anyway.)
I've never read any of the books named here, except The Metamorphosis. My English teacher must have really had a lot of faith in me, I think she thought that I would like it. I remember telling her that I didn't get it. My favorite book was The Grapes of Wrath (and not just because it's the only other book I can remember reading for school, I really did like it).
I don't understand the stock market... but then again, neither do the people running it.
Don't know what to say about all these comments except- it makes me really sad that so many people don't like reading good books-(and even more sad that people like Danielle Steele are millionaires because of this fact). I agree that many books and short stories that are part (or have been in the past) of the typical High School curriculum are to difficult for the average High schooler to understand or appreciate, but that's where good teaching should come in and bridge that gap. To be honest my professors in college made the difference in my appreciation of certain writers. Without them I probably would never have realized how great such writers as John Milton and Mark Twain are!(To name just two.)
The point is, great writing (or even just better writing than the typical Steele novel or best selling thriller)is an important component of a healthy intellectual life. Not reading good books, or short stories or poems is to ignore our connection to the past and to other human beings. For good writing is about Us:living and dying, loving and leaving, sadness and pain, happiness and ectasy, all the best parts of being alive and the worst. It is a connection to who we are, who we have been and who we might be in the future. To read the books of the past, the 'classics', is to understand that only superficial details of life have changed,that people fifty, one-hundred, a thousand years ago are the same as you and I. We have the same joys, the same sorrows, the same hopes, desires and dreams. We can identify with the hero of "Metamorphosis" for instance because who hasn't had days where you experienced the awkwardness, the isolation and the feeling of complete and utter hopelessness and helplessness that Gregor Samsa does when he finds himself a giant bug!? This is a story about living in a world much like our modern one, impersonal and often overwhelming. At one point or another we are all Gregor Samsa!
To not read great books is no better than not listening to great music or eating only at Taco Bell and McDonald's....when you ignore the best of human creativity and ingenuity you ignore the best of yourself and are poorer for it. I know I am.
Before anyone else can I'll say it : "Smallbear is an elitest snob! (and proud of it too!)
I agree with Pastor Z - Heart of Darkness was bad. But I'm one of those who actually read every single book I was supposed to read in high school AP English. I guess I was scared I'd miss something really cool. I enjoyed A Separate Peace, also. And The Scarlet Letter! LOVED IT. Unfortunately, high school English class is the only time some people will EVER read something close to quality literature. Some people take it upon themselves to read in adulthood - but I think those numbers are going down with our youth today.
@ smallbear (and other lovers or good literature)
Take heart Smallbear <ad your own clever reference to Amy's sappy Mom-note here>
You said "I agree that many books and short stories that are part (or have been in the past) of the typical High School curriculum are to difficult for the average High schooler to understand or appreciate".
This is exactly the problem. Get people to LOVE reading first, then bring in more complex ideas. If you throw the heavy stuff at them, they will just be left with a bad experience to remember. Then as an adult, you remember the bad experience and say "Oh I hated the classics, and it was so hard to understand. I'll just read this junk novel or better yet go to a movie."
Yes good teaching should bridge the gap, but our best and brightest are not flocking to the profession of teaching (it's hard to live well on teacher salaries), so let's just get people to like reading first. By the way, I know there are lots of great teachers out there and I have great respect for them, but...
I had such awful teachers that i didn't really begin reading again for years. And based on the posts above, it would appear that I'm not alone in my experience.
Yeah, but who decides what books are great? Surely, the reader. One person's "great book" might be another person's "Danielle Steele."
In high school, I was supposed to read Tale of Two Cities. I bought Cliff Notes and read that instead,thinking that it was good enough.
It wasn't: Got an F and hated the classics until I became an adult.
This is so funny. I love this note.
Great point, Terrie! At least people are reading who cares what it is.
@feeling in coherent: I agree that a love of reading should come first before kids are asked to read good books, yet there are two problems with that idea. One, relates to the old chestnut:'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.', no matter what a teacher does some kids are just never going to love reading. This is sometimes due to lack of support at home (reader parents breed kids who read) or due to a lack of intelligence or aptitude on the kid's part or the kid has interests that don't relate to sitting still and thinking, a needed skill to appreciate books. The second problem is nowadays in many schools, especially in the States, reading is taught with an eye towards improving test scores. Creativity is almost verboten in the average school reading program. It's not surprising that kids who are made to read the books in these creatively challenged programs sometimes lose interest in reading or just don't recognize good writing when they see it.
Jonathan in London England made a good point when he said, "...you have to discover in your own time what speaks to you." Every book isn't for everyone. This does not of course negate common consensus concerning the 'classics'. "Moby Dick, The Heart of Darkness, Metamorphosis, and Leaves of Grass" are always going to be classics, whether any particular reader likes or understands them, since plenty of other readers past and present have understood (sometimes with help of wonderful teachers) and loved them. My advice to everyone is to do as Jonathan said, read what speaks to you now, read what is relevant to your experience, your preferences, your taste. But don't ignore a book just because it's a classic, or because you hated it in High School. Go back to those books and try them again now that you are older and hopefully wiser. Sometimes the very thing you think you are going to hate is something you end up loving. This happens with food, people, music and yes books. I believe that a diet of mediocre books is just as bad for you as eating at McDonald's everyday. Feed your soul with quality. So,CuriousKat, in answer to your question (to paraphrase) who cares what people are reading? I do and so do many people who care about great writing.
So, Smallbear, I don't want to paraphrase but I am wondering if what you are saying is that if one isn't reading 'great writing' you'd rather see them reading nothing at all?
I hope the books of Danielle Steele and the likes inspire someone--anyone--to read. I'd rather see a person eat at a fast food joint than starve. Who knows it might even tempt them to have a taste of something even better!
*Sighs* *Thinking:Thought we were done with this topic :)*
@CuriousKat What I said in my previous post and which I'll now repeat is that the quality of what one reads is important and that reading 'junk' is no better than eating Fast food. This is not to say that reading for fun or reading something that isn't Great Literature (think Stephan King, or any NY Times best seller, for that matter) is wrong or at all harmful, BUT a steady diet is not good for you or the state of our civilization.
I respectfully disagree with your assertion that reading 'garbage' might tempt someone to try something better. The odds against this happening I'm afraid are great, judging by the success of authors like D. Steele et al, this just does not happen, at least not in great numbers.
I will not go so far as to confirm your assessment of my comments, that is, that I'd "...rather see them read nothing at all.." that is of course going too far and is akin to saying I'd rather see starving people starve than eat at McDonald's, yet I will go so far as to say I would be very happy to see fewer people reading such pulp fiction. This is due to the fact that as a lover of the English language and the way that good writers make it soar, jam and boogie, while illustrating the highs, lows and everything in between that life is about and the complexities of men and women and existence itself, I just simply and plainly desire that more people would allow themselves to read something that makes them feel more than cliche feelings. I just wish for people to get what I get out of a good book.A vain, snobbish desire, I know. Hope this explains my views for you. :)
I once had an open book quiz in seventh year: an essay on the summary of a novel i was supposed to had read. I was very close to giving a similar response when i noticed along with the publishing info was a very detailed synopsis.
this is ironic because I just got off to a bad start in my honors english 12 class by not turning in an essay. (I didn't really finish the book) (it WAS lord of the flies) I turned in a paper that looked similar to this one. (A girl in a cube, I'm not stupid, I'm just lazy and don't really care)
But I am in high school and I like some of the classics, just not when I forced to read them. And I will never, under any circumstances enjoy: A man for all seasons.
speaking of which....
I also love how the security questions is subliminally trying to remind us of how near 2012 is.
@Spider no offense intended, but "Lord of the Flies" being assigned in an Honors English class surprises me. Seems more appropriate for a middle school class than a high level High school class. And why didn't you finish the book? It's really good!