19th century novels for GCSE English....

[Hakluyt]

What do people think about this? In the new GCSE English syllabus, students will have to study a 19th Century novel. I think the choice is Great Expectations, The War of the Worlds, Jane Eyre, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Pride and Prejudice. (I might have missed a couple)

I suspect this is really going to stymie our school and our kids- they really need the C (or equivalent) for all sorts of things, but for the lower end of the ability range- which most of our kids are- are really going to struggle with the language.

I think studying whole books, rather than extracts is a fantastic idea, but there are so many wonderful books that are much more accessible. What's so special about the 19th century anyway?

A Christmas Carol is not particularly difficult, my 10 year old has read it. Plus a lot of the children would know the story already thanks to the muppets!
I would certainly prefer a Christmas Carol to the Lord of the Flies that I had to read many years ago.

I agree. A Christmas Carol is not particularly difficult.

Lots of the other books on the list are, though.

steamingnit yes, I agree with you about the need for a radical overhaul, and with MissMillament about the awful, imagination and curiosity-destroying Gradgrindyness of the curriculum as it's now conceived.

Just to amuse myself, I thought of a list of C19th novels I would set -- because I think the list is pretty dull actually:

Wuthering Heights (there's a book for teenagers if ever there was one)
Tess of the Durbervilles
Kidnapped and/or Treasure Island
The Nether World (grim, grim, grim tale of poverty in the East End)
Hard Times
Dracula
The Turn of the Screw
Mary Barton
The Woman in White
Heart of Darkness
The Island of Dr Moreau/The Time Machine

IMO a far better list than the unimaginative, unforgiving list dreamed up by the exam boards.

Niminy - yes indeed. The exam boards have played it safe with a set of boring choices. I would also have included Hardy, Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson and Wilkie Collins on the list. Also Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton could work as might The Mill on the Floss (rather than Silas Marner). There are so many more interesting 19th century novels out there than the ones the exam boards went for.

Oh yes Mill on the Floss.

And Lady Audley's Secret.

That's a much more fun list.

And I don't know, cos I'm not a teacher, but I could see Stoker working really well on lots of levels. It can be quite simple, but there's enough there that even if you are struggling, I'd think you'd not be restricted to making really simple comments by your slow/poor reading. I think you would be with Great Expectations, maybe?

Jeanne -absolutely. I use extracts from Dracula with Y8 as part of a Gothic fiction scheme and, as you say, it goes down well. There is plenty to explore on all sorts of levels.
I would also love to do The Woman in White as a GCSE text.

This is making me want to do GCSE English again.

And if you're going to have an Austen-Northanger Abbey is the one to go for. My dd read it when she was 14 and having a horrible time with friends- and it cheered her up so much to realize that 'twas ever thus!

I would die of boredom having to read A Christmas Carol, personally.

I like Niminy's list. But then I think everyone should be tied down and forced to read 19th century novels till their eyes drop out, which is possibly a little illiberal of me. I might make exceptions for Dickens, whom I've never quite seen the point of.

And Aurora Floyd. Any novel where the heroine's first question is about whether her bet on a horse-race has succeeded gets my vote.

Fistbumb with MI.

I don't like Dickens much.

If I were choosing I'd definitely do Sense and Sensibility if I had to do Austen. And it would have absolutely nothing to do with Alan Rickman in the film, ohno.

(I'd learn to spell fistbump first, of course.)

Oh, not Sense and Sensibility for teenagers- they won't be able to appreciate Elinor or Alan Rickman and they'll think Marianne's wonderful..

Has anyone mentioned Vanity Fair?

I wasn't being totally serious.

Sorry.

But I do think Northanger Abbey would be great for GCSE for girls.

And you could probably get away just watching the film of SandS- it's pretty close to the book.......

I can't see many boys getting enthused by Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. Great Expectations is fine though and one of the more accessible of Dickens' works.

I think Jekyll and Hyde, War of the Worlds and Christmas Carol are pretty simple by the standards of adult novels. I'd say they are an appropriate level to set for the lower bar of an Eng Lit GCSE - whilst upper set teachers can have a crack at Great Expectations and Austen to warm the potential A Level students up.

I was surprised to find Heart of Darkness on niminy's list - but of course it does just squeaks under the bar of C19th. I think it would be a great read for mid teens. Dracula is a cracking read for teens, because although full of dodgy sexual content.

Is it possible that sometimes people's memories sort of condense their teenage reading years? I can't remember when I read most things- although I do remember that the summer I was 15 , I somewhat bizarrely fell briefly in love with Walter Scott. But I have reading children, and I am sure that neither of them would have/will enjoy Great Expectations at 14. Or Jane Eyre.

Yes, Hak, I think that is exactly right. (And although I love Vanity Fair, at well over 300,000 words I think we might have to start it in Year 7 to get through it in time.)
I think what people do need to remember though is that the vast majority of GCSE candidates are going to find ANY 19th century text challenging.
And I disagree with you about S&S btw on two counts: I think it is OK to feel sympathetic to Marianne on a first reading and then change your mind when you are a bit more mature - but I also know my top sets would have no problem appreciating Elinor.
Northanger Abbey I really would enjoy teaching, especially in a Gothic context.
I just hate those exam board lists for being so confined and prescriptive.

Isn't that funny- and more evidence for my theory about people misremembering their own reading- I am amazed to hear that Vanity Fair is that long.

Another theory I have is that when people talk on here and in real life about their children "devouring the classics", they are talking about abridged versions. Or, like one of ds's friends "reading the classics" means having the classics on his bedside table while he reads Match magazine.

I read Jane Eyre at about 14 and was completely entranced. I have a complete empathy fail if I try to imagine someone finding it boring.

But I did Great expectations for GCSEa and hated it, even though I was a voracious reader. Personally I think Dickens is something you have to come to when you're ready - he's now my favourite nineteenth century novelist, and I get more out of him every time I read him.

But doing GCSE literature did nothing to increase my love of literary study - in fact I got an F. But then went on to study literature at university, do a PhD in it and then teach it.

Yes, and my DD1, who got A* at GCSE, is currently doing A-level lit and planning to study English at university found Jane Eyre unbearably tedious, ditto Austen. (And my DH managed to do an entire English degree at an RG university without reading any Austen. When I found out, I forced him to read Mansfield Park which he flung across the room in disgust once he finished it.) 19th century, while my passion, is clearly not everyone's cup of tea.

x-posted with you Niminy - my response was to Hak's post, but perhaps just as apposite to yours!