• Ananääs@sopuli.xyz
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    16 days ago

    Not a short story but I recall we read Call of the Wild in school. Some nice animal cruelty for kids to think about.

  • XaiwahBlue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    16 days ago

    Flashbacks to when only the teacher and I understood A Modest Proposal and not being able to explain to anyone else in that class that i was appreciating that he was sassing the english NOT the actual idea of eating babies. 🙃

  • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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    16 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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        15 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.

  • bruhbeans@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    Y’all are taking about the girl with the green ribbon, my first year college lit teacher had us read a short story where a kid fist-fucked his mom and I’m feeling like maybe my education was problematic.

    • hardcoreufo@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      My dad read “All summer in a day” to me when I was 5ish. I think I was being mean to another kid and he was trying to teach me a lesson. That story still sucks me up.

  • Subverb@lemmy.world
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    16 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.

  • Rooskie91@discuss.online
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    15 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.

  • Jubei Kibagami@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

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

  • Eranziel@lemmy.world
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    16 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.

  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    This thread unlocked an old memory of a poem we read Sophomore year about a frog getting killed by a lawnmower.

    • nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz
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      15 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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        15 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.