Any list without 1984 and Animal Farm on it is a very poor and incomplete list.
Pseoudo-intellectual nonsense, almost certainly by a non-native speaker of English.
A couple of good films:Bartleby (1972)
And another one with Crispin Glover, but I can't find that one.
I have Catch-22 around the corner (my place is full of bookshelves). Of course, there's the 'comedy' movie, but the Hulu series goes into a lot more depth.
And the kids can not read the classics because they do not have the vocabulary.
Kids today in high school have an active vocabulary of 3000 words.
That is considered the basic needed to communicate in any language. Any less and you can not communicate with any fluency.
You need an active vocabulary of 10,000 to read the classics.
But all the books that they read will be written to that 3000 words level. In fact one of the ways they are taught is the "finger method". When they come across a word they do not know in school reading they are to hold up a finger. Does the teacher then give them a dictionary to look up the word? No. Because that would be logical. They are suppose to "figure it out". When they reach five words they do not know the book is considered above their reading level and they are given something less challenging to read. They are never be forced to grow and stretch their vocabulary so when the classics are presented to them they are truly in another language.
They were never prepared.
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes should be included on that list.
Nine Stories - J.D. Salinger
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Holy Moses, no Bible!
I would add Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 to the list as well as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Even if these great books might be allowed in public schools, many of the current crop of teachers would themselves be unable to grasp their greater meaning.
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For later
Not English Lit, but the list needs Darkness At Noon.
Didn’t see the Bible in there.
Remember, Bible is an acronym that stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
5.56mm
My girls are 10+ years post-high school and things were just beginning to deteriorate. Even the difference between the experience of our oldest and the twins (3 years) was pretty dramatic.
True story: I remember having to buy two copies of ‘Julius Caesar’ and asked the girls how they were doing with Shakespeare.
“We’re not actually reading it. Just watching a movie.”
Me: “Well hopefully it’s well-acted. You can get a lot out of hearing Shakespeare, although it would be even better if you followed along.”
“No...not that movie. We are watching Mean Girls. Our teacher says it’s basically the same story.”