Posts by Peter Doyle2

driftingcanyon16 said:It’s pretty obvious to both of us what counts as being offensive—but man, getting a strike just because of some dark humor? I guess that's a bit much.

I agree with you—and I guess that’s actually one of the things they've already decided to loosen up. 😉 If we aren't entirely sure how to "classify" something—I guess we'll just touch base first before handing out any yellow or red flags. 😉

driftingcanyon16 said:What kind of issues are we talking about?
Why can't the regular folks on this forum get access to the chat? Is it because one particular handful of people is being difficult?

Exactly—that little thing just throws everything completely out of whack.
Yeah, honestly—it feels like everyone is just losing their cool lately, even the people who usually keep things civil.

driftingcanyon16 said:Why does everyone have such a hard time with the chat? I guess it’s just me—maybe I'm overthinking it—but I don't really get why it's causing so much drama.
It’s the same reason I don't bother with chats on any other subforum—or honestly, any other forum for that matter. I just want to talk to people from the diaspora.

I guess we’d probably need about 18 people spread across every single time zone just to monitor that chat—constantly scrubbing it of nonsense, insults, hate speech, bickering, and you name it. Honestly, the chat issues go way back—even before I started hanging out in the diaspora. Back when I first started browsing in 2008, things were already a mess. And no, we definitely don't need that kind of communication style, nor do we need the subforums being torn apart. You can really feel the impact of it—when half of the active users are banned because they couldn't stop picking at each other in the chat, what kind of quality can you actually expect from a subforum? None, really—because there's practically nobody left to write.

driftingcanyon16 said:Personally, I’m against deleting posts—it’s a problematic practice across all the subforums if you ask me. When things get heated, it just turns into a whole "he said, she said" situation. And honestly, I know exactly how those "he said, she said" disputes with the mods tend to play out. Just leave the posts up—do it out of respect for the author, please.

It’s not exactly a smart move—or really a solution, I guess. If I leave an off-topic post with a placeholder like a cardboard box, someone is bound to notice it. They won't get that it's just a filler—especially since you can't even see those images properly when using the Tapatalk app—and they'll just start replying to it. Then, before you know it, the whole thread goes completely off the rails.
It’s the same deal with the value.
with the spam.
with everything.
Are the warnings bothering you? Fine—from now on, posts will just be deleted without any warning at all.
If you'd rather deal with constant deletions than actual warnings, then hey, fine by me—we can just issue warnings non-stop instead. It’s one way or the other, I guess. 🤷

Laura Rivera3 said:I just hope they don't start handing out bans to those of us who lose our cool every once in a while.😁

Look...
if you're venting because gas prices are insane, or there's a shortage of good homemade preserves, or some random troll is being a nuisance—that's fine. No big deal. 😁
But if you lose it and start throwing insults, trolling, using ad hominem attacks, or just generally being toxic toward other members... well, the ban hammer is a tool that won't be ignored. We aren't going to go easy on that.

eighty-six times over: there won't be a chat room due to all the intense issues within the diaspora. maybe someday, somewhere, once...
but not anytime soon.
and I don't really get why this is such a tragedy for you all, especially since you've been directed to off-topic sections plenty of times where you can talk about whatever you want—as long as you stay within the forum rules 🤷 a bunch of people who want to chat but there isn't any room in the "home" subforums, though everything works just fine in off-topic. I guess I don't see why that's such an issue? It’s just constant chatting, then more chatting, then even more chatting.
No, THAT isn't what this forum is for! This isn't a group instant messaging service; it's a place for coherent discussion that isn't cluttered by internal chatter.

Yes, I realize many of you have been here since the forum started, and I suppose you miss those old days. But folks, the users have changed, interests have shifted, and things will likely NEVER be the way they used to be—so a chat topic isn't going to help much with that 🤷

Now, for some specifics. We've all talked it over and decided we need to loosen the reins a little 😬
There won't be warnings—instead, we'll go straight to deletions. We'll also use bans if someone goes too far. We're going to allow more leeway—but that doesn't mean that on a thread about, say, my credentials or the IELTS, you can pivot into a debate about what you had for dinner yesterday 😁 that's off-topic and it will be deleted. However, if a discussion veers off the main path but still has the potential to become something constructive, we might pull it out or merge it with an existing thread rather than stopping it entirely (for instance, instead of just talking about credential evaluation under an immigration thread, I started an old thread where we could all exchange experiences regarding various countries and procedures).

Please use the report buttons!!!!!!!
They aren't just there to let us know when someone is being rude to someone else 😬 but also for things like this! If you think a thread has gone off course but the discussion is actually high quality, just flag it so we can decide how to handle it 😉
Let's try to cooperate instead of acting like we're the "evil moderators."
😬
Once again, yes, I haven't been very present lately. The admins knew I was away, and my colleagues did too. I've admitted it. I've said I'm sorry. And I'll try to be around more often.

Dammit!!!!!!

Well, here you go—straight from one guy🤣

speaking in pure, classic American vernacular🤣

Alright everyone, let's all pause for a second. Just a few minutes, guys...😁

I'm heading out to Panera to grab some pasta, and if she likes the idea, I'll give you all an update😁 maybe?

I'm getting ready to redesign Oftopić :modnimačak: 🙂

I haven't been around much lately—just some personal stuff I had to deal with. Skatte edit was basically flying solo here, which wasn't fair of me. Technically speaking—keeping threads organized, cleaning up duplicates, all that administrative work—she’s probably the best moderator this community could ask for. If she weren't here, we'd probably be drowning in a hundred different threads every single day asking things like, "How do I get to here-or-there?"
I've been deep in some emigration research recently, so jumping back into my role here feels a little bit selfish—not that I'm complaining, I guess, but it is a bit opportunistic of me 😬 🤣
Anyway, I promise I'll catch up on everything that's happened lately. I'm planning to sit down with my colleague to figure out where things went sideways and how we can fix it 😉

First off, let me apologize—my kid was sick, so I’ve been offline and am a little out of the loop. Please give me a moment to catch up.
placidfox55, could you maybe provide some specific links? It would really help me out. thanks.

No, what you posted in your second message was honestly quite unacceptable.
This isn't some random North American forum, and frankly, it doesn't matter how other forums look or how people in other countries behave.
The forum has clear rules—across the entire site, not just in the Diaspora section—stating that you can't comment on moderation outside of the designated area, so every warning stands.

@nosorog, please don't try to lecture me on my own tastes (my current 🤣). I’ve come to the realization that I’m basically just revisiting where I left off as a kid :O My reading level is pretty much stuck in the teenage years—which is probably why most of my Goodreads profile is dominated by YA 🤣
Jokes aside, you made an interesting point... genres, eras, history... sure, I agree, but I have to ask: is it actually necessary to read these works cover-to-cover as required school reading? Is it really insufficient to just analyze them during class? To me, it feels like a high schooler in music class being forced to listen to and memorize an entire Bach concerto in G major (just guessing here), rather than just the most essential movement.
I'm speaking from the perspective of a teenager—or at least, a young person who is constantly "at odds with everyone." Honestly, forcing this stuff on us feels like reading "Evangelion" to five-year-olds in preschool 🤷. A large portion of these books simply wasn't written for kids that age—and we are still talking about children 🤷
And regarding the books themselves—they're supposed to be read with deep understanding. Very few people here mentioned Faust. Luckily, we didn't read it, though I've heard of it; I know there are those for whom it was mandatory, but seriously, is THAT what a high schooler needs? Isn't there a more appropriate way to "introduce" that literary era and teach the facts and significance?

@Daniel Perez6, I'm not nearly as optimistic as you. I'm actually kind of afraid that the book itself might simply—vanish—under the flood of technological advancement. Or perhaps it will become a very, very rare phenomenon—something akin to oral folklore before the invention of the printing press 😉
Maybe it's just inevitable 🤷
So how does high school required reading fit into all this? In my opinion, it doesn't encourage students to read at all; if anything, it pushes them away because of the sheer volume and content.
I'll say it again: we are talking about children (regardless of how much teenagers feel they are adults).
Which books require you to "immerse" yourself in characters who are adulterers, murderers, and so on, living in entirely different eras.

edit: And honestly, in defense of my high school teachers, I have to say they never asked us (or did so extremely, extremely rarely) questions about the color of curtains, wallpaper, or things like that. Our high school reading assignments usually boiled down to discussions during free periods. Sometimes there would be a quick review or even "tests," but generally, they were discussions. It wasn't a bad approach at all. Really. I can't blame my teachers one bit for my aversion to high school reading lists. I blame the content itself. I may have been a high school student, but I was also a teenager—dealing with wild hormones and a desire for something intimate when dealing with something deeply personal, individual, and open to interpretation, like a book.

In American English, we have grammar, literature, workbooks, and all of that (except for grammar) covers almost the exact same thing—the specific period or movement currently being studied. Why does the required reading list—which, realistically, is already becoming an alien concept to an increasing number of kids—have to be tied specifically to that curriculum?

🤣
Don't worry—if my kids ever end up under my roof, they'll have to read Waiting for Godot because it’s just—well, it's just how it is. 🤣 But I'll probably end up treating them with some modern, age-appropriate stuff instead. I have a daughter now. Twilight rules. 🤣 Honestly, I wish I had a mother who treated me with more relevant material when I was 17; the whole process left me pretty traumatized. Or whatever. Ugh, goosebumps. Forget it.
Anyway, it seems equally obvious to me that the curriculum and state testing put an insane amount of pressure on teachers. It's a mess...

But hey, we're on a forum. We aren't in a meeting with the Secretary of Education. Let's just, for a second, talk about what would be "ideal."
What should required reading actually serve in this day and age?
College students can process things at their own pace.
A person's relationship with books and reading is—in my opinion—something built over a lifetime.
And when it comes to high school reading lists, there are way more people who found them revolting than those who actually appreciate them. At least if you try to step into a teenager's shoes (and yeah, even at 30, with all this frustration toward the political establishment, I’d probably value the process more. When I was 17, it just left me with trauma).

Let's talk—even if we're just barking at the moon—about what needs to happen so that the voices of us mere mortals, the students and parents, are actually heard regarding this whole reading list issue.
As a book.
As a medium that is dying out.
As something many of us truly loved, but were taught to hate because of school assignments.
(I'm not the only one—again, Peter Doyle2, look back through the posts).

We live in mediocre times in a mediocre country with mediocre principles that seem stuck in the dark ages. Can we at least talk here about what isn't working? What could be better?
Maybe one day someone from this group will become the Secretary of Education and remember that adding fantasy to the curriculum would be a great idea. 🤣

Btw, my kid is years away from any kind of reading list, let alone high school level. Peace—I hope they don't even have to deal with it in this country this year. But still. This forum is for discussion. Let's talk about what's wrong.
And btw 2, my husband isn't a gas technician, but he is a graphic editor, and he had to wait for Godot 😬 how or why, beats me 🤷

Or maybe we look at it this way:
I have to admit, I always tend to view required reading through the lens of my own memories—how we used to handle it back in school. It was mostly just talking through the books during study halls, no actual writing involved. I keep forgetting that most students today still actually write about what they read.
In that spirit, wouldn't it be perfectly fine to give students a list of, say, five mandatory books per year, and let them pick the rest themselves? They could write about their own choices, dive into characterizing the characters that actually resonated with them, or pull out favorite quotes and explain why those lines stuck. That’s exactly what I felt was missing when we studied literature—that sense of personal connection, you know? Just focusing on what *I* personally found meaningful in the work.
You never know—maybe a teacher might even discover a new, fascinating book through a student's recommendation 😬
.
The last time that happened to me was back in middle school. After that, nobody ever asked me, "What did you read? What did you like? Why?"
It was always just "you have to do this" 🤷
. (A little side story regarding that 8th-grade era: near the end of the school year, my cousin showed up in a total panic because of her reading assignments, begging to copy mine. Being a good person, I let her copy the mandatory ones, but I definitely didn't let her touch "my" books. I'm being totally serious 😬)
.
Is that really the point of required reading? Especially (again) in this day and age?

James Perez54 said:I am one of those people who pointed out how vital it is to have a high-quality, dedicated teacher if you want kids to actually love reading, yet you mocked that by bringing up math, calculus, underachieving students, and how parents always end up blaming the teachers and all that nonsense.

Now you're just contradicting yourself.🤷

I’m reading her latest post directed at me, and I guess it comes across as being somewhat... condescending? It feels like she's basically saying, "I'm the expert here—don't bother questioning me or challenging my opinion because I clearly know best."
I guess I can't help but wonder how she’d actually feel—you know, as a mom with a little one just starting daycare—if I were the one looking after her kid. It makes me think about how I should probably approach all those questions she has about the preschool. 🤷
We all have our own niche expertise, I guess.
Alright.
Look, I did ask some very specific questions here.
The title of this thread is actually a VERY specific question—one that I don't think any actual expert has managed to answer yet. 🤷
Required reading.
I don't really care about the definition of the American language as an academic subject—nor am I particularly interested in the supposed importance of "great literary works" throughout history.

I’m curious about what exactly defines "required reading"—and more importantly, what we should actually be aiming to deliver to our students through it.
If the answer boils down to reading comprehension or something similar—forgive me—but I honestly think about 90% of high school required reading just isn't clicking for most students. And we have to remember, this curriculum is pretty much identical across the board, whether you're attending a standard public high school or a specialized prep academy.

I’ve noticed that Mima brings up the SATs and how well she did on them quite a bit.
We aren't talking about that.
We’re talking about required reading here—you know, those books kids are forced to slog through. Is that really the whole point? Just checking boxes to get into college? It feels like there's zero actual value in the reading itself if that's the case. And why does a book have to be some massive, "highly acclaimed" literary masterpiece just to qualify? Why is it the exact same list for every student, whether they're planning to become a professor or just heading off to trade school to work on HVAC systems? 🤷

What exactly does a high schooler lose if they don't read the entirety of Godot and instead just get a classroom summary? I mean—let’s be more specific—what is that student actually missing out on if they spend their study hall reading Tolkien and having deep discussions about him instead?

Jamie Davis9 said:Assigned reading exists solely so that Jamie Davis9 and their little group of colleagues can pretend they possess actual intelligence. 🙂

So, what's the point of all this 😛
? I'm asking because, I don't know, it actually interests me—really. I think I've asked about this on this thread maybe a dozen times now.

Jamie Davis9 said:Domestic abuse! 🙄 😁Even Laura was being abusive to Ed, for God's sake. 🤣

The whole idea is to examine the process, to witness the transformation. Transformation is a much simpler concept to grasp. Honestly, I think it would be a crime to strip Kafka from the curriculum.
Fortunately, they don't bother asking parents. 😛

Not quite.
I've read through both the process and the transformation—I guess you could say I've seen the whole evolution.
A standard high school.
The transformation was easy enough to follow. Personally, I thought it was actually quite good—though I know it wasn't everyone's cup of tea. To each their own, I guess.
But the process...
I’m so lost right now—honestly, I’m at the point where I’d probably track down Kafka just to rip his fingernails out. 🤣 Man, I was only 17 back then. 🤣 I guess a whole lot of people seem to agree with me when it comes to how this process works—especially regarding how it's treated as some kind of staple for a seventeen-year-old.

Peter Doyle2, you seem to be an English professor, or maybe something along those lines.

Could you please answer the question from the thread title?
What is the actual purpose of required reading?
I mean—is there even a concrete definition for it?

Jamie Davis9 said:and I suppose you're just tossing out information claiming that isn't how things are done?

If that’s the case, then what’s the point of reading these works in their entirety? (Most people just skim excerpts from massive stuff like the Bible, the Iliad, or the Odyssey...)

Why don't we just assign more contemporary books for school reading lists? I mean, books actually tailored to a kid's age group—don't give me that excuse that a seventeen-year-old's biggest life experience is dealing with the DMV—books where they can actually relate to the characters, or stories that tackle issues they could seriously benefit from understanding (there are plenty of great books out there about abusive relationships, for instance*) 🤷 the classics aren't really doing much for them here 🤷

*I have to admit, everything I've read lately has been in English; most of it is pretty recent, so I'm not even sure if there are American translations coming out anytime soon. But regardless, the point is that these are topics teenagers would find way more relatable and engaging.

Jamie Davis9 said:There you have it. 🙂

Regarding the second point, the American English and Literature curriculum is incomparably more extensive than music education, which, as its name implies, is categorized as an elective. English is one of the core pillars of the SATs, meaning every single student has to tackle it, requiring a massive amount of effort just to cover the necessary ground. There is a heavy burden on the instructor to properly address everything within the syllabus; otherwise, they’ve failed their students, potentially costing them admission to their preferred universities.
Furthermore, a cassette is a format you can actually finish listening to during a single class period, whereas reading a book is quite another matter entirely.

Fair enough.
But we aren't talking about English as an entire subject here, we're talking about required reading lists. What exactly is so vital and absolutely essential about these specific works that every single one must be read in its entirety? I mean, why can't most of them just be summarized through a certain passage and discussed during class?
To really grasp the point or the motivation behind Dante's Beatrice or Petrarch's Laura, is it—I guess—really necessary to read their complete works? Why?

Larry Walker24 said:If you ask me, it's just about building up some vocabulary and general culture. I can't think of anything else, really.

How can you say that?
Let's—and this is what I’ve been saying all along, even if nobody really listens to me—let's focus on the era we actually live in. We need to look at the media surrounding us, which, especially for kids and teenagers, is way more engaging and attractive than books.
In that context, shouldn't the required reading be adapted to the times to actually encourage kids to read? Why not offer them stories that are actually relevant and interesting to them—something they *have* to read, unfortunately—so they can see that reading has its own charm, rather than just mindlessly staring at a screen?
Do they really think they'll get that from reading the Iliad, the Odyssey, or Proust? Seriously?
No.

General culture and knowledge? I think standard literature covers that well enough. In an age where reading habits are dying out, the current state of high school reading lists—which has been like this for a long, long time—just makes kids want to run away from reading even faster.

Honestly, I feel like arguing about this topic is pretty much pointless until someone provides an actual, concrete definition of what the required reading is supposed to be—like, what should it specifically represent or aim to encourage?

Jamie Davis9 said:Perhaps if they weren't so sheltered, they might actually learn that the Equinox wasn't written in some archaic dialect from the coast.

Man, I finished high school and even wrapped up college, yet I still have no clue what dialect Equinox was written in. I guess I should've stayed in tenth grade.

That’s basically how much interest a teenager has in stuff like that. ☕

On a side note—back when I was in high school, we actually had music appreciation classes. We studied different historical eras of music and listened to period pieces. We even had exams where we had to identify a specific musical work just by listening to our teacher play it.
At the end of class, if there was any time left—which there usually was—our teacher would encourage us to bring in our own tapes (I mean, I went to school back in the era of cassette tapes 🤣), and every single period we'd listen to whatever one of the students picked.
So why is that impossible to do with American literature and those required reading lists or short stories?
In my entire life, I haven't heard of a single high school teacher asking for or allowing something like that during their class. I saw it in middle school, sure, but never in high school 🤷

Jamie Davis9 said:Learning is an incredibly individual journey, and honestly, trying to apply a one-size-fits-all set of metrics to everyone is a fool's errand.

I don't think these students are failures by any means. It’s just human nature—especially for a child—to resist things they're forced to do. Most kids only engage with learning because they have no other choice.
It’s perfectly valid to question whether our entire educational system is obsolete; forcing this top-down, authoritative style of teaching in the 21st century feels outdated, though I realize that's a much larger issue than what we're debating right now.

A truly great professor can inspire a student to do meaningful, productive work, but if they find themselves fighting that battle entirely alone, all that effort often ends up being wasted.

I have no idea who you people are or what kind of nonsense you're peddling, but I fail to see a single logical reason why a kid wouldn't pick up Harry Potter on their own without some teacher breathing down their neck about it.

Alright, let me try to explain this—maybe I can make it make sense:
Your average American high schooler—not a genius, but certainly not some "failure just dragging through life"—is sitting in class for maybe 6 or 7 hours a day. On average, at least four of those subjects involve giving them homework, often quite extensive homework; you have to account for learning new material, plus reviewing everything, and then you add in the required reading, which is often dense and totally incomprehensible (like some classic American literature from the 1800s where the language is so archaic that you have to check a glossary for every other word, making it impossible to follow the plot). Add in the fact that this teenager probably has extracurricular activities or just wants to be a normal teen and hang out with friends... when is this poor kid supposed to read Harry Potter, unless they basically have zero social life? 😬

That one specific classic is just too much for a sixteen-year-old; it's completely uninteresting and written in such a way that nobody can summarize it without constantly checking a dictionary—it really ought to be taught in class, much like many other old American literary works from that era.
And I don't think anyone is being cheated out of anything by that.

But now we're back to the question that, I guess, no one has actually answered logically: what is the actual purpose of required reading?
Is the goal that students (in high school) must be introduced exclusively to "great works" and nothing else?
Or is the point of reading assignments to encourage kids to actually read books, to practice reading comprehension, analysis, characterization...
If it's the latter, then the specific book mentioned here is a total failure. I mean, seriously, an American honors student might struggle less with a Latin text than with a book written in some archaic regional dialect 🙄 where you're trying to analyze and characterize something you barely understood because it's practically written in a foreign language. 🙄

Jamie Davis9 said:Exactly—it’s just like how people who struggle with math often face the brunt of the blame when their teachers failed to properly introduce them to basic intervals.
Honestly, I don't understand where this obsession comes from regarding whether children "must" love reading; some kids will enjoy it, and others won't, and that's just life.
Children who already possess an affinity for reading will naturally find the curriculum easier to navigate than those who don't, but you can't force that spark.
The required reading list isn't to blame for a lack of interest in books.
When I talk about high school reading lists, I'm referring to a curated collection of the finest literary works ever produced, organized chronologically so that any true lover of literature can always find something profound and engaging.
In elementary school, the selections are age-appropriate—some might be dull and others fun—but I find it utterly baffling that people think school holds more influence over a child's interest in books than, say, their own parents do.
At its core, required reading is just a monthly assignment to be completed, and there is no logical way it could serve as the primary or most decisive driver for a lifelong passion for reading; I hope it's clear to everyone just how absurd it is to expect such a thing.

p.s. I should also mention that the death of Smail aga Cengica is an exceptionally well-written epic.

how yes no.

There are more of us who have already pointed this out in this thread, but take me as an example: back in elementary school, I absolutely devoured books and read anything I could get my hands on. Some assignments were great, others were boring, but none of them made me hate reading

High school, however, totally wrecked me.
Literally. The mandatory reading lists made me loathe reading so much that I didn't touch a book for ten years—mostly because I simply didn't have to!

And honestly, a ton of people in real life will tell you the same thing. From the person working at the local newsstand to highly educated professionals... ☕

In this era we live in, where digital media and online content are becoming increasingly dominant in our daily lives, sticking to these traditional reading lists feels like doing a disservice to students.

Whether experts agree or not, that's just how it is.