Question for English teachers

[WinterCarlisle]

This is something that’s been bugging me since I was at secondary school.

WHY are so many of the set texts so bloody depressing? When I was at school (mid to late 80s) we did A Kestrel for a Knave which was pretty tragic swiftly followed by Z for Zachariah which was utterly terrifying. They were no fun AT ALL to real and tbh I’m still a bit traumatised <dramatic>.

My DS is 13 and has just finished The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas and they’ve now moved onto A Monster Calls. He’s quite a sensitive boy and he’s really not liking the second one at all, especially as a family friend recently died of cancer in her mid 40s.

Obviously I understand that they need to explore different themes and life isn’t all jolly but AIBU that maybe a few cheerful books might encourage them to read a bit more rather than DOOOOOOOMMMMM??

So:

YABU - Buck up kids, stop being Wet Hens and just read about life’s depressing abyss

YANBU - There’s enough doom and gloom already in this world. Let’s read some cheerful, yet literary books while we’re at school

Our kids love Armitage's The Odysey and loved Agamemnon- though that isn't light hearted.
I say keep the war poets- no one does it like Sassoon.

If you're thinking of John Buchan, what about Greenmantle, the second Richard Hannay book? It's a jolly good story - I re-read it every so often - and the idea of jihad is relevant today in a way it wasn't when I first read it.

Of mice and men proved surprisingly useful when DC did a level history that focused on that time. The background knowledge is so important

I hate dystopia but each to their own!

The text I taught at A level that went down a storm was always Captain Corelli.

If you think English Lit is bad - look at Drama & Theatre Studies! You have the bonus of acting in and analysing all the misery and death (often suicides) as well. Then to add insult to the misery, the students do their own devising pieces which they then make as grim as possible (self harming, knife deaths, suicides involving ropes again - health and safety nightmare). I actually said to the school that this content needs to be acknowledged in the subject prospectus for anyone who has had a trauma in their life.

Maybe too long but what about Brideshead revisited , or Hemingway - the Old man and the Sea ( if wanting a short text ) or The Sun also Rises. DS liked Animal Farm . In my day it was Jane Austen and Dickens. I won't read Dickens today and I did Eng Lit at university. It put me off him.

I second these - great suggestions. Also agree with the Steinbeck suggestions.

we did The Colour Purple at A-Level but I think we could have all handled it in Secondary.

it’s not that the books can’t contain challenging or sad content or themes. It’s just that it helps if the writing style is somewhat approachable.

In secondary we did one extremely depressing text after the other - Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens - so dense and laborious, they are not ideal for a classroom of kids with mixed ability / interest in reading. There are so many less depressing options.

We did Empire of the Sun in the 80s in S2. Also Sunset Song, Coleridge and the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. My daughter has just ploughed through her 3rd Ray Bradbury text. They’re not going down well.

Oooh The Phantom Tollbooth, That is such a brilliant book!

I agree with everyone about Boy in the Striped pyjamas - so much that is so utterly ridiculous and basically a dangerous and dangerously misleading book. I'm relieved that so many English teachers here agree. I recall it being taught in a school I worked in about 12-14 years ago and when I read it I was really shocked and appalled.

I agree that great literature is so often predicated on disaster or despair; tho some suggestions I might make would include Bend it Like Beckham, The Catcher in the Rye (tho that is a bit doomy too), The Secret Garden, maybe Little Women? Diary of a Nobody is brilliant, maybe Evelyn Waugh (tho Decline and Fall ends badly for the hero), or Forster - Room with a View is pretty approachable and fairly joyous?

I would really question the ‘kids love’ comments about some of these books. I was an avid reader but some books upset me for a long time. Parts of Animal Farm, the Pearl, of Mice and Men, even bits of Dickens. Not all children like violence or even swearing, and it can make the classroom a more unpleasant place watching those who do.

Definitely yes to the Riddle of the Sands. And how about Howl’s Moving Castle, the Dark is Rising, or The Lark and the Laurel? Yr7s are still children, after all. Northanger Abbey?

Sorry, lots of ppl posted while I was not refreshing the thread! Some better ideas than mine on here.

DD studied Silas Marner for her degree and I laughed as I did it for O level #old. Not too depressing overall tho.

Sorry just catching up. I’m actually at work so will have a proper read later.

@Shakenbutbarelystirred The Dark is Rising sequence is possibly my favourite series ever. DS has read it but would be beyond delighted if they were doing it at school. It’s just brilliant.

Those who’ve suggested Terry Pratchett I love his books too. DS hasn’t read any Disc World yet but I know he will at some point. They’re fab.

I’m not a teacher and I don’t really know anything about education tbh. I just can’t help but feel that although some of the books on the KS4 curriculum may be worthy and robust from a literary point of view, I just don’t see how they encourage a love of reading, especially in this screen-obsessed age.

I was a huge reader despite being made to read depressing books at school but I think in part that’s because there was no Tik Tok or insta vying for my attention. However, I certainly didn’t / wouldn’t choose things like Z for Zachariah….

I don’t dispute that we can’t totally shield our children from the big issues like death, dystopia etc but surely these can come a bit later? They’ve all dealt with a pandemic so they know awful things exist. I would just rather that reading at school was more fun and entertaining - not just depressing. But, like I said I’m not in education!

By the way, I’m definitely NOT teacher bashing in anyway: you all have an incredibly challenging job and you should all be far more appreciated.

I think Harry Potter has probably taught me more about life than the dozens of depressing "literary" young adult novels I also read as a teenager.

The trouble is that curriculum time is limited and there aren't enough shorter yet still engaging and relevant texts. Perhaps the exam boards should have a competition and invite famous authors to write a shorter novel.

Northanger Abbey is good not just as a standalone book, but as one that give you an in to discussing a whole genre.

Similarly, but more recent, another vote for Pratchett. For English lessons the obvious one is Wyrd Sisters for the Shakespeare, but there is so much in those books that they can take the discussion anywhere. Sexism, capitalism, racism, nationalism, friendship, slavery, religious dogma, systems of government, labour relations, peer pressure, the hollowness of celebrity, policing without fear or favour - pick an issue and there's a book for it. With jokes. And footnotes.

Ex English teacher here. I totally agree with the difficulties of novels at KS3 but some of these suggestions ..! Northanger Abbey? Little Women? Have you met a class of 12/13 year old mixed ability? I’m not even sure those would make my ‘Extension’ reading lists at GCSE.

It’s so tough to find texts that are short enough to be read in class and engaging. I had some success with Animal Farm, The Outsiders,Of Mice and Men ( which is now problematic because of the language).

Personally I think classic short stories can work well. And please don’t abandon FWW poets - they never fail.

But doom and gloom keeps everyone interested and humour is very personalised so I think we’re stuck with that.

I think sometimes there's so much focus on things being "literary".

As long as it has plenty of interesting vocab, themes & writing styles to explore, they need not be so picky. I think sometimes there's a perception that darker themes present more complex emotional situations with more subtle inference but i think that's short sighted.

I think we did roll of thunder hear my cry at about 13. I remember doing some lovely poetry around themes like memory that weren't depressing. We must have read some fiction but for some reason i remember plays & poems more. We did oscar wilde, tennessee Williams, alan ayckbourn, obviously some shakespeare.

English lit classes were mixed ability at my school and with hindsight it must have been a nightmare for a teacher to navigate, you had 12 year olds with quite poor reading alongside kids capable of tackling much weightier stuff, near impossible to find titles everyone could access.

Not everything I teach is depressing!

The Sound of Whales by Kerr Thomson
Roald Dahl short stories
Amazing Maurice and his educated rodents
A Pack of Lies by Geraldine mccaughrean
Twelfth Night
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Paul Jennings short stories

In secondary school we did Kestrel for a knave, Z for Zachariah, MacBeth, Of Mice and Men, An Inspector Calls and I think we also looked at Streetcar and Carol Ann Duffy so mostly depressing stuff.

It didn’t get much better at A-Level where we did Tis Pity She’s a Whore (twin set where the male twin kills his sister), some ghastly Ian McEwan book about a stalker, more Carol Ann Duffy, The Tempest, Othello and Keats.

It killed y love for analysing literature and wanting to study it. I tried doing it at uni but ended up switching my major.

Personally I found that teaching short stories and extracts was the answer in KS3! No time to finish a novel anyway but you could get really in depth with an extract and set some good writing tasks from them as stimulus. Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected has already been mentioned, and we did Aesop’s Fables, twisted fairytales (Dahl and others), poetry, scenes from plays.

I mean…that all sounds great to me?

Twincest not twin set. It was a book about brother and sister lovers. 🤢

Yeah but it’s all death, destruction, weird creepy sex and miserable people living miserable lives.

*the awful, awful Handmaid's Tale.
What's wrong with the handmaid's tale? I love margaret Attwood.

The problem is that while schools happily set for maths, languages, science, there's a refusal to for English. This means that there's the inevitable focus on material that's accessible and/or engaging for the weakest, most reluctant readers (often boys). Anything vaguely romantic or considered unappealing to teenage boys (based on outdated stereotypes) is binned, in favour of lord of the flies and war poetry, because heaven forbid the boys not like it.

some ghastly Ian McEwan book about a stalker

Enduring love isn't that bad.