English class texts

[elibats]

Hi all,

The school I'm student teaching at uses textbooks for all of their English classes. I'm in a ninth grade classroom and the only novel we're going to read the whole year is The Giver. Is this a common situation? When I was in high school we read novels almost exclusively.

Does anyone else use text books for English? What books do you teach in your high school classes?

Thanks,
Polly

[jsfowler]

I have a literature book that I give students at the beginning of the year. For the most part, it collects dust but we do dig it out every now and again for short stories, poems, etc. During a typical school year, my students read approximately 7 novels - some as a whole group, some in literature cirlces, one or two independantly.

[Clix]

I try to focus on teaching skills. Sometimes that involves using novels. Sometimes it's magazine or newspaper articles. We read short stories, drama, poetry and essays as well.

Pretty much we read anything I can get my hands on ;)

[sgaestel]

We also have textbooks for every English class. I have found myself using the ninth grade textbook more than the eleventh grade textbook, because the ninth grade text covers everything that is on our state assessment. I also only do one novel with my repeater freshman, but I am trying to revamp that to get them reading more this year.
I have my juniors read many novels.

[MissTeach]

I seldom used the textbook when I was teaching English. If I did use it, it was for one skill or one story. I used novels, magazines, newspapers, and various other nonfiction writings. I even used the directions for programming your DVD player. A textbook isn't 'bad', but there are so many other resources available!

[et cetera]

We rely almost exclusively on textbooks at my school. I try to read at least 3 or 4 novels with my students during the year, but as we only have a half dozen to choose from in each grade, it's hard to find ones that are engaging and worthwhile. I would love to use the textbook less and teach more of the Language Arts concepts through novels, but that's just not how my school is set up.

[wig]

I guess i don't see a problem with using anthologies. My students like the variety of stories. We also read news articles and magazines. We use the AR program to supplement, so they do read at least eight novels during the year. I require a certain number of informational books as well. Sometimes we use the skills we learned to through the anthologies and apply them to novels they are currently reading. The individual informational books are shared with the class through oral reports. We read about half of our anthology.