Best and worst assigned novel

As of noon December 20, the results of the Silver Chips "Best and Worst Assigned Novel" contest are as follows: the best book assigned in Blair is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and the voted worst book assigned in Blair is a tie between Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Lord of the Flies is the most controversial of the books listed, as five students wrote it was their favorite and six wrote it was their least favorite.

More comments were posted concerning students' favorite books rather than their least favorite and preferences varied widely,. However, several books appeared often as either favorite or least favorite books. Besides Ender's Game, six other novels received significant numbers of votes as students' favorite assigned book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (9 votes), Catcher in the Rye by Jerome David Salinger (7 votes), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (5 votes), The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (5 votes), Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (5 votes) and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (5 votes).

Lord of the Flies and Great Expectations were Blazers' two least favorite books. Other disliked novels included Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (4 votes), Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn (4 votes), Fairwell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (3 votes), House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (3 votes) and House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (3 votes). Three other students, however, voted House of the Spirits as their favorite assigned book.

One of the most essential aspects of education in our school system is reading. Below is the list of novels available for Blair teachers. Each year, teachers have extensive meetings to discuss which books their students will read each year. A novel's selection is based on a particular year's curriculum and the teachers' perceptions of how well the novel can teach students.

Now, it is the students turn to vote for their favorite novel read during English class and their least favorite novel. For comment and vote to be posted, students must list their favorite and least favorite novel.

Votes will be recounted and the final results for the perceived best and worst assigned novels at Blair will be posted at the end of the first semester.

Grade 9

Antigone
April Morning
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Bless The Beasts
Children of the River
Cry, The Beloved Country
Currents in Fiction
Cyrano DeBergerac
Dances With Wolves
Day No Pigs Would Die
Ender's Game
Farewell to Arms
Farewell to Manzabar
Flowers for Algeron
Great Expectations
House on Mango Street
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Inherit the Wind
Jubilee
Les Miserables
Martian Chronicles
Miracle Worker
Moves Make the Man
My Antonia
Night Theoreau Spend in Jail
Of Mice and Men
Old Man and the Sea
Raisin in the Sun
Red Badge of Courage
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
Romeo and Juliet
Separate Peace
Shabanu
Sound of Waves
Spoon River Anthology
Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Tale of Two Cities
Three Plays by Thorton Wilder
To Kill a Mockinbird
Walden & Civil Disobedience

Grade 10

All Quiet on the Western Front
Animal Farm
Black Boy
Bless Me, Ultima
Bridge of San Luis Rey
Catcher in the Rye
Dandelion Wine
Darkness at Noon
Enemy of the People
Ethan Frome
Fahrenheit 451
Flex Text
Frankenstein
Franny and Zooey
Glass Menagerie
Grapes of Wrath
Heart of Darkness
Hiroshima
Joy Luck Club
Julius Caesar
Lord of the Flies
Main Street
Medea
Night
Nineteen Eight-Four
Odyssey, The
Picture of Dorian Gray
Princess Bride
Street Car Named Desire
Taming of the Shrew
Things Fall Apart
Zoo Story & American Dream

Grade 11

A Lesson Before Dying
Adventures of Huck Finn
All the King's Men
As I Lay Dying
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Bluest Eye
Brave New World
Cat's Cradle
Civil Disobedience
Coming of Age in Mississippi
Crucible
Death of a Salesman
Fences
Great Gatsby
Heart of a Woman
Hemingway Short Stories
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I, Tituba
Invisible Man
Macbeth
Native Son
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ordinary People
Scarlet Letter, The
Siddharta
So Long a Letter
Typical American
Woman Warrior
Wuthering Heights

Grade 12

Beloved
Beowulf
Brothers Karamazov
Candide
Canterbury Tales
Chekhov: Four Major Plays
Crime and Punishment
Dubliners
Emma
Gulliver's Travels
Hamlet
Hedda Gabler
House of the Spirits
Ibsen: Four Great Plays
J.B.
Jane Eyre
Jude the Obscure
King Lear
Later Plays of Eugene O'Neill
Light in August
Long Day's Journey into Night
Lord Jim
Luther
Madame Bovary
Man for All Seasons
Metamorphosis
Murder in the Cathedral
Oedipus
Othello
Plague
Portrait of the Artist
Pride and Prejudice
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Sartoris
Skin of Our Teeth
Song of Solomon
Sons and Lovers
Sound and the Fury
Stranger
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Three by Flannery O'Conner
Three Plays about Crime and Criminals
Trial, The
Waiting for Godot
Yellow Raft in Blue Water