Have you ever had a book that you read in class and enjoyed it, only to have your English teacher murder it with essays and presentations?

I liked the book "To Kill A Mockingbird", but my English teacher assigned us 3 essays and 1 20-min presentation on it. I liked it so much, but now I just want to kill the book.

Have you ever felt that way?
What are some books you've enjoyed, but only have your English teacher kill it?
What did you have to do on the book[s]?

Well one was were the red fern grows.

I had to make a slide show 10 mins long
Book report
Question sheets with 10 questions per chapter

I liked the Phantom Of The Opera, but then our teacher assigned it as a book, and we had to read each chapter out loud with the class, analyze bunches of it, write tons of little essay things on it, then do a huge project on it. Now I can't stand that book anymore.

Yeah, To Kill a Mockingbird was killed in my English class as well. Reading and a report or two is fine, but one should NOT HAVE TO SPEND AN ENTIRE SEMESTER ON THE GODDAMN BOOK. I kid you not.

That's the only major killed-by-school book I can think of. The rest I either hated to begin with, or managed to enjoy all the way through.

I too did To Kill A Mockingbird, I used to love it but after three years studying it and a hour and a half exam, it,s no surprise most of my class burnt it or stamped on it repeatedly.

Many, many times over. Just about every novel I had to read my Senior year of high school was destroyed by a teacher who thought his way was the only correct interpretation:

Grendel by Gardner
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Hardy
Things Fall Apart by Achebe
Heart of Darkness by Conrad

All of these are fantastic books. But because he felt that only his interpretation was at all supported, he ruined them for me.

You have a point there, reading a book strait by yourself is so much more comforting than if someone is forcing you. Even if you enjoy the book, they make it become a hastle.

God, 7th grade killed almost every book we read in class. Not becuase we had so much work to do on them but that we took sooooooo long to finish them. As a speed reader it was incredibly frustrating. >.<
Luckily, the teacher finally started giving me the tests when I finish the books and not when everyone else was finished after she found out that I had read all of the stories in our textbook... in 2 days. :mrgreen:

Originally Posted by lily_dragon

God, 7th grade killed almost every book we read in class. Not becuase we had so much work to do on them but that we took sooooooo long to finish them. As a speed reader it was incredibly frustrating. >.<
Luckily, the teacher finally started giving me the tests when I finish the books and not when everyone else was finished after she found out that I had read all of the stories in our textbook... in 2 days. :mrgreen:

Woah, niiiiiiiiice. You're...a fast reader.
xD

I'm a speed reader too. We read Holes in 8th grade and I was done after to classes. It took the rest of the class a month to read it. The teacher found out I had finished and got so mad. She made me read three more books while everyone else finished Holes. Then I had to take test on all of the books.

I really hate the over analysis that we are forced to do in middle and high school. You take a book that may be good to begin with and then beat it to death with symbolism that may not even be there. Not only that, but often the teacher demands that you agree with his or her interpretation of the symbols.

Thank god for college.

Have you ever felt that way?
Yes, every book in my AP English clas was like that and as well as my intro lit. analysis class in college.
What are some books you've enjoyed, but only have your English teacher kill it?
I've liked The Great Gatsby, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Grapes of Wrath.
What did you have to do on the book[s]?
Essays and many days of discussion.

Originally Posted by Lilith W

I'm a speed reader too. We read Holes in 8th grade and I was done after to classes. It took the rest of the class a month to read it. The teacher found out I had finished and got so mad. She made me read three more books while everyone else finished Holes. Then I had to take test on all of the books.

Ouch. Seriously? I would have complianed to the principle or something. I mean, I love reading but I wouldn't let myself be assigned extra work just because I can read and comprehend a book faster than most people.

Though there was this one teacher who got upset when I finished a book early. She only made me promise not to spoil it for the other kids. It was called This Side of Paradise. Not a bad book actually and thankfully she didn't ruin it (She was one of the few teachers that I've had that were fun to listen to). We got to meet the author at some young writers thing later on in the year. He was... special..

We read 'Crime and Punishment' in my Lit Comp class. I loved the book, until she made us break it down by chapter and over analyze every character. We had so many essays and discussions and videos for it; I came to hate hearing about the conflicts within the book.

Originally Posted by lily_dragon

God, 7th grade killed almost every book we read in class. Not becuase we had so much work to do on them but that we took sooooooo long to finish them. As a speed reader it was incredibly frustrating. >.<
Luckily, the teacher finally started giving me the tests when I finish the books and not when everyone else was finished after she found out that I had read all of the stories in our textbook... in 2 days. :mrgreen:

Yeah, I hate reading slowly, I can finish a large book in about an hour if it grabs me, when I was reading to kill a mockingbird, the person I sat next to in class had to tell me which page we were on If I had to read aloud as I would be several chapters ahead. :roll:

Originally Posted by The Mystical Spoon

Yeah, I hate reading slowly, I can finish a large book in about an hour if it grabs me, when I was reading to kill a mockingbird, the person I sat next to in class had to tell me which page we were on If I had to read aloud as I would be several chapters ahead. :roll:

Lol, Teachers finally stopped calling on me to read out loud. I'm not that good at it anyway. Unless I'm reading to little kids. They're fun to entertain. :3

Originally Posted by The Mystical Spoon

Yeah, I hate reading slowly, I can finish a large book in about an hour if it grabs me, when I was reading to kill a mockingbird, the person I sat next to in class had to tell me which page we were on If I had to read aloud as I would be several chapters ahead. :roll:

xD
Lol. Same with me, but my partner wouldn't tell me the page. :? So the teachers finally stopped calling on me.
xD

Originally Posted by Winter Wind

xD
Lol. Same with me, but my partner wouldn't tell me the page. :? So the teachers finally stopped calling on me.
xD

We never got to read in class, for to kill a mockingbird we had to read like 5 chapter a night and my teacher would quiz us on what we read the next day, it really sucked

Over the years, I've been forced to read Hamlet a good three or four times. Of course, Shakespeare is great and all, but often times dissecting the same thing and getting the same conclusions is so annoying. If it was new information or a fresh outlook, that's fine, but not the same old boring academia over and over and over and over. Argh. I think I liked it best when I studied it the first time around in High School. We also looked at Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" which was just an awesome play (a fanfiction even) based off of Hamlet and focusing on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the nagging question of existence. I recommend checking it out, even if you're burned on dear Shakespeare. The movie version is also wonderful. :)

I enjoy reading books, and even reading some over and over. But when I was in english and my teacher had us do book reports and write essays and analyze every litte detail of the book.

I almost always did not choose my favorite books, but ones that I didn't understand as well. Like Shakespeare, or old english. It didn't butcher the novel for me, and by the end of it I understood the book way better than I had before.

Yes, we were reading Slaughter House 5 and I wes really in to it one of those ' Cant put it down books' but ...it was a senoir english class. That means a crap load of essays and progects,..I stop reading the book I wasnt interested in it inside of school and reading it at home felt like work. I still have to return it before summers over,.. but I will finish it,...I recamend it to you. :)

I hate reading anything in class, books, poetry...anything! I even told my teacher it once and made her giggle because I personafied the book we were ripping apart.
I can't say which books I enjoyed before we ripped them apart but now all I can feel in the back of my brain is fire alarms when the title is mentioned...I think I may have enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird once but I don't anymore...

Why do they make students spend so long on the same book, surely if you're just learning the techniques used to idenitify things then they could use a range of books so that you don't analyse the book to death?

Originally Posted by Furogane

I hate reading anything in class, books, poetry...anything! I even told my teacher it once and made her giggle because I personafied the book we were ripping apart.
I can't say which books I enjoyed before we ripped them apart but now all I can feel in the back of my brain is fire alarms when the title is mentioned...I think I may have enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird once but I don't anymore...

Why do they make students spend so long on the same book, surely if you're just learning the techniques used to idenitify things then they could use a range of books so that you don't analyse the book to death?

It's a form of torture that teachers use.
><

We were reading The Outsiders last year and we spent from Early November to Christmas break on it.

I was done a few days after we started. I couldn't put the book down!

The kids in my class are such slow readers. It takes them a month to read a 200 page book. It annoys me to no end when we have to read in class and it takes forever. Thankfully, I got into English I honors for next year, so it won't be so bad.

I had to write a research paper on To Kill A Mockingbird, and then our class had to act out the trial scene.

The next year, I went to high school and had to read the book AGAIN, and write a paper on it AGAIN. I wanted to smack someone.