Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Judge Throws Out WTU Suit Over Teacher Layoffs
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
Morning Roundup: Rain Won't Go Away Edition
D.C. Public Schools will release its summer reading list for students Friday, and some local librarians have alleged that gay titles under early consideration were removed.
D.C. Public Library spokesman George Williams said that books with gay themes were included in the initial round of discussions on the reading lists, which are scaled for pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade.
“They were scrutinized along with many other books on the list,” Williams said. He noted that books may not be included because they are outdated, or are not available in large enough quantities.
The reading lists are created with input from DCPS and the D.C. Public Library. Williams said there was a meeting last week to address the inclusion of all titles under consideration, including LGBT-themed books, and that “there will be a balanced book list.”
The preliminary lists posted on the D.C. Public Schools Web site do feature some books with LGBT themes -- including Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The D.C. Public Library also offers its own LGBT teen reading list.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
No mention of the hermaphroditic coming-of-age classic, Heather Has Two Sets of Genitals? There's political correctness for you! Rest assured I'm registering my impotent rage in a sternly worded SMS to the Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Hermaphrodite, Southpaw, and Lazy-eye Affairs.
Mama CHUD Chinatown Sue used to read to me from the back of Womens Day Magazine. Boy, were those some hot stories.
Kept my hands occupied with all them bra advertisements.
Did anyone actually read the list? No wonder DC Public Schools have such "high" standards ... this is what our tax dollars support. Yikes.
Tell me about it. I didn't see Atlas Shrugged or How to Survive a Zombie Attack on any of the lists. What are they teaching these kids nowadays?
Y'know, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the old highschool classics like "Last Exit to Brooklyn," "Naked Lunch," and "The Torture Garden."
And by "soft spot in my heart" I mean "moist lump IN MY PANTS."
You mean moister than a Duncan Heinz cake!?
Well, the kids need to learn about Tek War sooner or later.
Hey Kids! There's a hole, see. Two of them. One's bad, but not really bad and other one is good, really good. It all depends on your needs. The body is full of holes to put things in or suckle.
They sould not have removed Curious George.
Curious George and the Auto-Erotica Asphyxiation Blues as read by Charles Bukowski.
And of course we all know Nancy Drew is a lesbian ... from the book "My Secret Crush on Bess."
And, of course, My Little Horny Pony.
Is there a story here? Clicking through the links, it seems like "some local librarians have alleged" means one person made an allegation in a yahoo group without any evidence to support it.
Is there any reason for this "issue" to be elevated?
Also, @ Jaynuze: What exactly is the problem?
Well, first of all, "Murder in the Cathedral" by T.S. Eliot is completely inappropriate for an 11th Grader since it's totally f**king boring (Who the f**k wants to sit through a two-act poem? Bitch, please.) They'd be better off reading a walkthrough book of video game cheat codes or something involving Yu Gi Oh or how to raise the dead in your basement or something.
pretty much the same point flapjack stated ... graphic novels ... seriously? I was thinking that they might suggest some of the classics, or at least some more challenging/thought provoking reads.
There's Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Dickens, James Baldwin, Joseph Conrad, Langston Hughes, Orwell, Bradbury, Du Bois. Many of the American 19th & 20th century classics, with some contemporary stuff, including graphic novels, thrown in.
Thought-provoking? To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Heart of Darkness, Of Mice & Men, etc. would seem to fit that bill, esp. for children.
And if Graphic Novels help get kids into books, seems like a good idea to me.
I don't have a stake in this, and am no DCPS apologist, but I think you'll just take any perceived opening to slam DC schools, gov't, or youth.
Well that will teach me to only look at the first link ... I had assumed that that particular link included all of the suggested reading material. On second glance (mind you I've only briefly looked at the 12th grade level), it looks a bit more robust that what I had first interpreted. Then again, I also assumed that DCist was an open forum to post one's impression of items being reported. Lighten up Q-Bert ... since when did you become an angst ridden, frustrated, curmudgeon? I thought Q-Bert was supposed to be the orange, fuzzy, fun loving, cube hopping alien. Sheesh. We now return you to your locally mandated graphic novel ...
since when did you become an angst ridden, frustrated, curmudgeon?
Since always! And I hate "graphic novels" (c'mon, people, it's a comic book).
Now get off my lawn/pyramid of cubes!
I wish I had the option to read some of these books (2 graphic novels for 12th graders?? jealous!) when I was in school, our selection was always really lame. I usually ended up buying the cliff notes and writing a bullshit paper about whatever I "read."
I had a subscription to Scholastic Magazine and the inner city version of 'Boys Life' called 'The Young Suspect'.
"The D.C. Public Library also offers its own LGBT teen reading list."
Really? Because when I follow that link and click on "Teens Read: GLBT Literature," the only message I get back is "You have not entered any search terms." Did someone make them pull the GLBT list down? (Because the other links on that page work.)
I think Monkey checked them all out already.
That's not funny. You know I can't read.
Make them all read "Infinite Jest".
How could anyone have Faulkner, Virgil, Voltaire and James Joyce on the same list as John Grisham or a graphic novel? And rising Seniors are reading this decidedly 10th grade fayre?
If they want "simple" writing, why not use Hemingway instead of Grisham? Oh, that's right! Papa was a misogynist who beat kittens and ate gerbils in his spare time.
Glad to see the stoodents in DC pUblic Skools is gettin' an edumakashun.
I was going to catch up on the Encyclopedia Brown series, but I will be too busy watching the penguin migration in the North Pole this summer.
...isn't low quantities going to be an inherant problem for any literature representing a socially stigmatized minority? perhaps they should push for more lgbt literature to be available, rather than simply dropping the books from the list.
I agree. I try to be a good gay person and get my fill of LGBT literature, but I don't think I've ever made it through a book with gay themes because none of them are that great.
It's hard enough to get kids interested in reading as it is; they shouldn't be required to read mediocre literature in the name of political correctness.
A friend who worked at B&N said that the most stolen books at his store were from the "Christian/Inspirational" section and graphic novels.
Apparently the people who wrote the synopsis for each book weren't required to have actually read the book. Example: The Secret Life of Bees is not a story about a young African American girl who is taken in by 3 beekeepers who tell her the truths she doesn't want to hear. It was about a white girl who was told the truths she did want to hear.
What a total non-story. None of the open admissions DC high schools require students to read over the summer, and most don't even require students to read during the school year. Moreover, since about 10% of DC high school students can read proficiently on grade level, they wouldn't be able to tackle any of these books, anyway.
The kids are required to read nothing but worksheets and reading "passages" from about 2nd grade on. It's very possible for a child to reach high school in DC never having read a complete book, other than a picture book, on his/her own. No, excerps in textbooks or passages in workbooks don't count.