What books do you read in prep school for English courses?

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>Just trying to comparing the difference in reading between prep school and top public high schools. Feel free to list all the books you are required read in prep school.</p>

2

<p>I think you will find a wide range of reading among different schools and maybe even among teachers in the same school. My child (9th and 10th grades, lower-key boarding school) has read Potok, The Chosen; Salinger, Catcher in the Rye; Joyce, The Dubliners; Sophocles, Antigone; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; some Dante. A history segment on colonialism included reading Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.</p>

3

<p>Just a slightly off topic comment: I don’t think what you read - in BS or PS - is as important as <em>how</em> you are taught to read and how/how much you write about what you read.</p>

4

<p>Great point, @DAndrew.</p>

<p>I highly recommend “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” by Thomas C. Foster. I’m in a book club that reads a few “classics” each year, and it’s helped me immensely to identify and understand the many layers of meaning in a work of literature.</p>

5

<p>Thanks, @DAndrew</p>

<p>I agree with what you said. But given the fact that students don’t have the right to choose teachers, they do have the rights to choose what book to read outside of school.</p>

6

<p>kvnl, my point is that a book list may not be that helpful. The books used in prep schools vary greatly. If you pull up a common list of classics, that’d be close to a list you could compile from the info you’d gather here.</p>

7

<p>I think a book list can indicate the imagination and willingness to explore of a school or of a teacher. Yes, classics will be taught, but there are many works of literature worth exploring that fall outside the narrow sense of “classic.” </p>

<p>The National Association of Independent Schools had an article a few years ago on the teaching of books outside the canon: [The</a> Cool Books Project](<a href=“http://www.nais.org/publications/ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=150498]The”>http://www.nais.org/publications/ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=150498)</p>

8

<p>A quick google search generated an old Exeter list, perhaps you will find this of interest? <a href=“http://www.exeter.edu/documents/English_Reading_List_09-10.pdf[/URL]”>http://www.exeter.edu/documents/English_Reading_List_09-10.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

9

<p>Thanks Atyraulove~!!! this is very helpful</p>