Literature and Males

I got to speak to a group of esteemed old boys from a NZ school today.

My starting point was a comment made by a Head of English at a boys school I was teaching at when she stated that the comparatively poor English results, compared to Science and Math were because; ” … they were boys”.

This was a part of my counter evidence:

Top 30 Books of BBC Readers

  1. The LOTR, JRR Tolkien
  2. Pride and Prejudice, J Austen
  3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
  4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
  5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
  6. To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee
  7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
  8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
  9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
  10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
  11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
  12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
  13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
  14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
  15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
  16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
  17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
  18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
  19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Louisa de Bernieres
  20.  War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
  21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
  22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
  23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling
  24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
  25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
  26. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
  27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
  28.  A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
  29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
  30.  Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

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