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So, I'm back to school tomorrow. Which, Yay for my resurrected social life. And Ugh for homework. Seriously, who the hell invented that s**t?

Anyways. So I go in today to get my registration and my schedule and all that funk, and something new is included this year.

An approved reading list.

Guess which four books were at the top? The worst part was, the list was signed and approved by the head of department, which was also one of my favourite teachers. Apparently the *cough cough* "Series" is part of the curriculum now.

I'm torn between the moral dilemma of hacking the school system (which I've done), and risk getting kicked out, or just leaving it alone and writing my opinion pieces on why the series sucks.

OH MY SWEET JESUS. They DIDN'T. They DID NOT.
If they think that they can relate to dumbass adolescents by having them explain the sexuality metaphor and the anti-feminist undertones, they can...But if that's all that they expect out of today's kids(to identify literary devices with no real meaning other than to sell to a specific demographic), then they goofed up REAL good. Yes, perhaps this is 'hip' with the kids, but if there are any kiddos with real potential in there, they'll recognize the bad writing and lack of a message immediately.
Twilight is to books as Olive Garden is to chain restaurants - Created with an intent to cash in on a specific demographic with a specific appeal, while lacking any real substance or quality. That's why they are so successful. Unless what they're trying to do is to simply teach kids the lesson that I stated above(so that they may succeed in a business world populated by suckers), then I see no reason to pollute the curriculum.
I call bullshit, school board. I. CALL. BULLSHIT.

Well, its obvious they chose it more for its popularity than its literary quality, so I'm thinking maybe they have never read it before, or they've missed some major warning signs.

I say, turn it against them and use that pesky homework as a weapon against it, and write an article or a book report or something exposing their "approved reading" for what it really is.

A load of subtle anti-feminism, glorified stalker/abusive relationships, poor overall writing and insult to mythology disguised as a "saga."

If the job is well done and eloquently expressed, it cou

ld very well impress. And ideally, influence.

And yet the schools tend to easily ignore Chesterton and Belloc. How annoying of the school board!

I can only suggest being careful. I had an English teacher downgrade me an entire letter grade in college from an A to a B all because of "Into the Wild." Seriously, I hated the book so badly that I would would rather be trapped on a dessert island for an entire month with no source of entertainment other than rereading all of the Twilight books over and over again until rescued than be forced to read that book even one more time.

The teacher on the other hand thought that "Into the Wild" was absolute the greatest book ever written, like far surpassing all the works of Shakespeare easily, and was not receptive to anything that said otherwise no matter how well researched the essay was.

Dear God no...

They should put some Discworld on those lists...

For one thing they might be popular with some girls because of making classes read Twilight - but what sane teenage boy would be interested in sparkly vampire romance? So they've got half the class alienated from the subject by default of gender.

That happened to me in highschool, in AP English, only it was over the book "The Crucible". I disagreed w/ the teacher and dropped a grade as well. Actually, me and him didn't see eye to eye throughout the whole schoolyear and I ended up dropping AP and went into a regular English class just cuz I didn't wanna deal with him.

Oh. My. GOSH.

...

I am speechless. This is outrageously unjust.

Please please PLEASE tell me you will take this chance to write a thoughtful and intelligent piece about why Twilight is a terrible influence on teenage girls, and write only about what the book explicitly talks about without sugarcoating it. Even if schools don't want us talking about sex, that's ALL those books are about. SHOW THEM PLEASE!

I've personally been dying for an excuse to write an essay about all those things that are wrong with Twilight, especially the dangerous ideas that the stalker outside your window is actually just madly in love with you, and that begging your boyfriend for sex is somehow okay and justified. PLEASE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR CHANCE, EVEN IF THE CRAZY TEENAGE GIRLS IN YOUR CLASS REFUSE TO LISTEN. Who knows, maybe you'll get brownie points from your teacher for writing a well-thought-out reaction and/or essay and/or project as opposed to "OMG, EDWARD IS SO HAWT U CANT HAVE HIM b***h HES MINE. SO ROMANTIC heart heart heart "