• Eranziel@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Nobody going to mention a Cask of Amontillado? Maybe not the most mind-bending example, but the tale of leading a supposed friend to their own horrific murder was not a thing I expected to be reading in school.

  • Subverb@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Maybe try a poem.

    The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

    From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,

    And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

    Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

    I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

    When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

    Randall Jarrell, 1945

    • nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz
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      6 days ago

      I still can’t figure out why this is taught to children. What value does it offer, other than being generally well written, which a lot of other less disturbing stories also are? Did the teachers just hate us?

      • person___man@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        The theme I remember is that if established in a community and reinforced by tradition, any violence could be perpetuated and even endorsed.

  • Rooskie91@discuss.online
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    6 days ago

    The Great Gatsby is a great novel about the immobility of class in America, despite the country’s claim to the opposite. I didn’t realize this in highschool when I read it, but damned if it wasn’t a warning of things to come.

  • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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    7 days ago

    “Alright Class, today we are going to read “The Jaunt” by Stephen King and write a report about the effects of eternal nothingness on the human psyche” -my sick fuck English teacher in grade 7 for some reason.

    • frigidaphelion@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I just read this as an adult a few weeks ago actually. Pretty dope thing to have read in class but I can see how it would make a lasting impression

      • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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        7 days ago

        I mean I loved it. We also got to read some ray bradbury and Isaac Asimov in that semester.

        • frigidaphelion@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Asimov in school is a true power move, hell yeah. I did *read Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 and that book changed my (literary) life as a kid. My school was christian so good literature was few and far between

          • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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            7 days ago

            I’m jealous of anyone who got to do bradbury in class. I did a book report on him but there was no class discussion. I just reread Kaleidoscope the other day, one of my faves. Actually most stuff from The Illustrated Man was dope.

          • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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            7 days ago

            Oh we just read The Veldt, which was a bomb ass short story to get to read in grade 7.

            • frigidaphelion@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              That’s a great one. Maybe it’s time to reread the bradbury anthology collection I have. Some of his work can be a total brain bender

              • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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                7 days ago

                Yeah it was great for me because from grade four on I was super into reading horror and sci fi, and when we got to read them in class and all my friends also had to read it I got to talk about it with people.

  • Hobo@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Not exactly a short story, but Kipling’s The Young British Soldier still tumbles around in my head some 25 years later. Really cemented in me that I don’t want to go die in some other country for some fabricated sense of duty to my country. Not that I wanted to at that point, but for sure made it seem like an extra terrible idea.

  • Jubei Kibagami@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    9th Grade English, got assigned Invisible Man by Ellison. It wasn’t science fiction like I thought it’d be 😅

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    7 days ago

    I don’t really remember any of the short stories assigned in English specifically, but I do remember one in my middle school textbook that I only remember because of the artwork. It was done by Stephen Gammel; the same dude that did the original artwork for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It’s especially memorable because the story was just about some cute anthropomorphic animals working on a farm or something, but it had the same crazy “spider webs dripping with blood” style from the Scary Stories books.

    I hella wish I could remember the name of the story, or at least the specific textbook it was in.

    • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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      7 days ago

      Is that the one where

      (spoiler to be nice cuz if it’s the one I’m thinking of it was actually pretty good)

      Tap for spoiler

      it gets untied and her head falls off?

        • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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          7 days ago

          Shit I haven’t thought about these sort of weird semi-horror books in such a wildly long time. I used to go out of my way to find somewhat morbid stuff like that (not to be edgy, but because I was reading prolifically, and ahead of my age group, so it was a whole new paradigm).

          Thanks for the reminder :)

  • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Either I have a higher tolerance than most or my English teachers were pansies.

    Though we did read the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank when I was in 8th grade.

      • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        I don’t know that I’ve ever read the Diary in it’s entirety, but I’ve heard that there are some rather explicit parts, especially pertaining to Anne’s puberty, so maybe they did it to avoid that.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        6 days ago

        Oh id forgotten they did that. We had to read the play of Of Mice and Men. It is not a book that is improved by being a play.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    This is not limited to short stories and English. If I had not been an avid reader when entering my teen years, the selection of books thrown at me in school would have turned me into a passionate hater of books.