Need help from literary minds!

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#1

I’m looking for a text/excerpt of a text to give my 11th graders in an exam. It should be about 600 words long and can be anything that is literature (prose/novel/short fiction or parts of a novel/short story) or about literature in general (an essay, a review, etc.)

I have literary hundreds of books and short fiction anthologies here, but most of them are scifi and my class has specifically stated that they don’t want any more scifi from me. (I gave them a text by William Shatner last week and that was the last straw for them, apparently, they told me about their being fed up with scifi today and I was like, okay, I had actually planned to show you an episode of the Twilight Zone today, but what the heck, let’s do creative writing then…)

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

#2

Work with Asimov’s Mysteries? Isaac Asimov wrote more than just Sci-Fi. I have a book of the mysteries in the collection here at home.

Beyond that, throw at them something from the libretto of Music Man.

#3

Are you looking for any specific themes or concepts?

#4

Lisa’s question is one I’d like an answer too as well, but with no frame of reference here are a few suggestions you might consider:

You could take a passage from a Toni Morisson novel. She’s one of the best writers I’ve ever read, her language is gorgeous.

You could use an excerpt from Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao.

Pieces of essays from the New Yorker. They’re available online (the most recent issues at least) and are nicely written, on a variety of topics. There are film/TV reviews, too. My mother got my spouse a subscription a few years ago to help him improve his English (style wise).

If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know. Unfortunately my most immediate reference is not in English, and I don’t know how you’d feel about using translations of things into English.

#5

GR, not sure if you know this but there’s a term “Flash Fiction” which describes such short-short stories. Googling that might turn up some choice ones.

#6

600 words? Wow, tall order. I would go with J.D. Salinger and one of the stories from Franey and Zoey, or hmmmm…<looking at my bookshelf> oh…are graphic novels out? Neil Gaiman Sandman…oooh. Otherwise, more traditional…any chapter from “My family and other animals” or just make them read the entirety of one of my favorite novels: “The Silent Gondoliers” (the same person who wrote, “The Princess Bride”)

#7

Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart”

#8

Here’s a site with free books online, especially classics:

http://www.readprint.com/

and this one with short stories:

http://www.world-english.org/stories.htm

#9

Hm…what about something by Dumas? The Three Musketeers is my all-time fav book (coincidentally, I first read it in 11th grade). It’s got the funny and the fighting and the bromance (er…guy love? sorry chuck :wink: ). What’s not to love for a group of high schoolers? The part in the beginning where they all realize that they booked d’Artagnan for a duel is pretty classic.

Or Princess Bride.

#10

You could give them a bit from Frankenstein, and then at the end of class mention, in passing, that it’s often cited as the first science fiction story…

#11

of “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg

Or Antler’s “Factory” a huge poem about industrial society from the collection of the same name.

I’ll be doing Fahrenheit 451 soon for my kids; good luck to you!

#12

Here are a few I have thought of. If you want me to find some specific passages, let me know what you are looking for and I certainly will.

Even though your students are burned out on Sci-Fi, what about fantasy of sorts? Stephen King’s Eyes of the Dragon is a fun read, and the narrator is great (just because so and so did x, and seems like a mean guy, are you sure you know the full story and can make that determination). Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon has some great sections as well.

What about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (I think that has been suggested already, actually)…

or Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo…

or Ian McEwan’s Atonement or Saturday…

or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale…

or Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian…

#13

Ooh! I echo the Atwood recommendation - literary distopia “isn’t” scifi, lol

#14

About 20 years ago I picked up this book on a whim’ It’s not science fiction or fantasy, just plain fiction. They made a movie based very loosely on the book called “Simon Birch”. The movie was “bleh” in my opinion, though a lot of people seemed to like it. However, it paled considerably to the book which in my mind was outstanding and very human. The authors name is John Irving and the book is “A Prayer for Owen Meany”. If you wish for something shorter , you could try “Different Seasons” by Stephen King. It is four novellas bound into one volume three of which were made into the following movies, “Apt Pupil”, “Stand By Me”, and “Shawshank Redemption” . “The Body” (“Stand By Me”) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” are the two I would recommend. The other two may be a little too grisly for some students.

#15

Thanks for all the help, guys, it is highly appreciated. In the end, I found a Twilight review on io9 that was about the right length and not too difficult to read.

And I’ve given up on instilling the scifi zest in my students. I did slip them a short story by Alfred Bester, though, without actively calling it scifi and they enjoyed it a lot.

And I made them watch The Breakfast Club today, there’s nothing greater in the world than looking into the faces of two dozen 17-year-olds and realizing that they’re taking a lot of pleasure in watching a movie that’s as old as I am and hear them laugh and go “blech” and all those things. Really looking forward to analyzing the movie with them next week.

#16

makes space for GR on the lawn

#17

No kidding, it totally feels like I’m belonging to the “old iron”, as we say, I made me 8th graders watch an episode of ALF on Wednesday, and it was their first time ever. I couldn’t believe it. They hadn’t seen ALF before. Sic transit gloria mundi.

#18

Now why would you torture those poor kids like that GR?!

#19

I take this whole educating thing very seriously!:smiley:

#20

ALF is not educational, it’s “turn your brain to mush”-onal