Freaky Book Tag
I’ve been tagged here, here and here to list books high schoolers should read so I suppose I should comply, but just about all my books are packed up in boxes right now so I can’t just look at my bookshelf and type up the list. I will, however, write up a list of the few books that managed to evade boxing and are on my shelf.
The Holy Bible (ESV)
The Concordia Self-Study Bible (NIV)
The Joys of Yiddish (the original, non-PC version)
Dying to Live
Spirituality of the Cross
Christ Among Other Gods
Rappin’ With Jesus
The Screenwriters Bible
Search for the Truth
Christian Worship
We Confess the Sacraments
Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives
Shakespeare’s Insults
Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation
The Prayer of Jesus
I’m not tagging any bloggers except my sister-in-law, but I will tag Maria - someone I know reads blogs and commenter Simon. You can both put your lists in my comment section if you like.
June 25th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
Blah….I was hoping I would escape this, not being a blogger and all. =P
Books highschoolers would read? How should I know? But I figured if I’ve read it, a highschooler should be able to.
1. The Bible
2. Bondage of the Will
3. City of God by St. Augustine
4. The Aeneid
5. The Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone)
6. Taras Bulba
7. Lord of the Rings
8. The Silmarillion
9. CS Lewis’ Space Trilogy
10. Luther’s Catechisms
11. The Dragonriders of Pern series. (Which I’m too lazy to look up on Amazon.)
That’s all I can think of at the moment.
I tag Bryan (let the Reformed have a bit of fun too =P ), and maybe more people when I think of some. =P
June 25th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
….and I also tag The Philosopher. (No cheating. Your list, not Harold Bloom’s.
)
June 26th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Thanks, Elle. But I’m afraid I will be disappointing here. There are great classic books for high school kids to read, and many of them are already on a lot of high school/college bound reading lists — so I wouldn’t be adding much with my own list.
But a recurrent thought I have about high schoolers is this: I think there is not enough teaching them about the very ideas behind the kind of government we have and the remarkable constitution we have. I think one reason that the country is so incredibly polarized is that people don’t have a good sense of what we have to rally around as americans - and that is, in part, a failing of the schools. Sure … some people are conservative, some liberal — some belong to one sect of Christianity, some to others, and some are not Christian at all. Other countries have stronger nationality-related identities (they see themselves as related in some way, part of a shared culture), and I think it’s a shame that we as americans don’t keep in mind what we have in common: the incredible and revolutionary ideas behind our constitution (even if we disagree about the particulars as to how it should be interpreted in some cases).
So … my recommendation for a high school curriculum would be to add more about the intellectual ideas behind the constitution and readings about the constitution itself. I think it’s important for kids who are about to become voting age to understand it … and I think it’s important for people to have a better idea of what unites us.
And now, I’m stepping down from the soap box. Thanks for the invitation (that I didn’t quite follow).