GCSE and To Kill a Mockingbird

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Mon May 26, 2014 10:17 am

This isn't meant to be a post to get folks all wound up. At first, I was shocked that anyone would remove "To Kill a Mockingbird" from any reading list. Then I was happy that this novel is so well known outside the USA. That was the first adult novel that I read. That was also the first novel that a re-read, and re-read. I may read it again. I also can't help but stop and watch the movie when I'm cable cruising.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05 ... ostpopular

Education secretary, Michael Gove, has announced American authors will be dropped from English literature GCSEs in favour of British writers. (And it seems Irish authors too.)

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon May 26, 2014 11:09 am

mutepointe wrote:...American authors will be dropped from English literature GCSEs in favour of British writers. (And it seems Irish authors too.)

Erm...does that mean Irish writers will be favored or dropped?

chas · Post by **chas** » Mon May 26, 2014 11:39 am

Glad to know the US isn't alone in removing great books from its curricula.

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Mon May 26, 2014 11:44 am

Nanohedron wrote:
mutepointe wrote:...American authors will be dropped from English literature GCSEs in favour of British writers. (And it seems Irish authors too.)
Erm...does that mean Irish writers will be favored or dropped?

My good fortune that I included a link to the article so that the grammar police can only charge me with a misdemeanor.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon May 26, 2014 11:51 am

Police, shmolice. I just don't read minds.

weedie · Post by **weedie** » Mon May 26, 2014 6:22 pm

What a great film is "To Kill a Mockingbird" .. it gets a viewing 2 or 3 times a year at our place..
I've had the book for ages and not read it . Better rectify this !

chas · Post by **chas** » Mon May 26, 2014 7:39 pm

The movie is great, but to me it's very different from the book. The book is really about Scout (It's written from her point of view), but the movie is about Atticus. The movie doesn't change the plot, but it changes the flavor.

Post by **benhall.1** » Tue May 27, 2014 12:06 am

chas wrote:The movie is great, but to me it's very different from the book. The book is really about Scout (It's written from her point of view), but the movie is about Atticus. The movie doesn't change the plot, but it changes the flavor.

Yes, they're very different. I wouldn't agree that the book is about Scout. Writing it from her point of view is an inspired way of making a completely unacceptable, nasty subject less harsh. The brutal reality is filtered through the eyes of a child. The reader is, to an extent, protected, like the child is.

I think this is one of the great works of fiction in any language - to remove it from the curriculum is ... let's just call it 'short-sighted'.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Wed May 28, 2014 2:33 pm

We should get even! No more Shakespeare, or Sherlock Holmes, or Jane Austen or...

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Wed May 28, 2014 4:35 pm

brewerpaul wrote:We should get even! No more Shakespeare, or Sherlock Holmes, or Jane Austen or...

That wouldn't be even. That would be better.

weedie · Post by **weedie** » Wed May 28, 2014 5:48 pm

Yes,it's an interesting thing... the difference between the book and the film,the film sometimes not faithful to the book and vice a verso (sp ?) ..
One of my all-time favourite films is The African Queen.I've had the book for many years now but I'm too scared to read it, in case it might spoil my enjoyment of the film ! odd innit

..

trill · Post by **trill** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:49 pm

mutepointe wrote:That wouldn't be even. That would be better.

Heresy !

trill

nohoval_turrets · Post by **nohoval_turrets** » Thu May 29, 2014 3:35 am

This really is tragic. Gove seems to think that "English Literature" means books written in England in the 19th Century. Good books that really engage teenagers are worth their weight in gold, wherever they come from.

Brus · Post by **Brus** » Thu May 29, 2014 8:55 pm

nohoval_turrets wrote:Gove seems to think that "English Literature" means books written in England in the 19th Century.

That would rule out Shakespeare.

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Fri May 30, 2014 4:22 pm

trill wrote:
mutepointe wrote:That wouldn't be even. That would be better.
Heresy !

trill

You don't know the half of it. My wife studied Shakespeare. The closest that I have come to reading more than a few sentences of his work is clear back in college watching that Laurence Olivier movie "Hamlet". Yet I have managed to run the Shakespeare category on Jeopardy.

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