High-school SF course -- w00t!
Man! Why couldn't they have offered courses like this when I was in high school? In the 2009-2010 academic year, a teacher named David Rice at North Park Collegiate in Brantford, Ontario, is offering a "Studies in Literature" course on science fiction.
The class will do two core novels -- the Hugo Award-winning Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer and the Hugo Award-winning Neuromancer by William Gibson -- plus short stories by (among others):
* Isaac Asimov
* Greg Bear
* Gregory Benford
* Arthur C. Clarke
* Lester del Rey
* Greg Egan
* Harlan Ellison
* Joe Haldeman
* Harry Harrison
* Ursula K. Le Guin
* Murray Leinster
* Vonda McIntyre
* Larry Niven
* Alastair Reynolds
* Spider Robinson
* Robert Silverberg
* Theodore Sturgeon
* Vernor Vinge
* Kurt Vonnegut
How cool is that! ("Too cool for school!" as my buddy R. Scott Bakker is wont to say ...)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Posted by Rob on Thursday, March 12, 2009
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6 comments
6 Comments:
I had a "Literature of Science Fiction" class when I was in high school, in the 70s'. The school offered several 1/2 classes on various genre, including the "Literature of Love". On day I was in the English departmental office when a student came in and said "I'm in Love and I don't know where to go".
Everybody laughed because they couldn't hear the capital "L" in "love".
One of 15-year-old Caitlin's blog entries from my upcoming novel Wake:
Back in the summer, the school gave me a list of all the books we're doing this year in English class. I got them then either as ebooks or as Talking Books from the CNIB, and have now read them all. Coming attractions include The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- Canadian, yes, but thankfully wheat-free. In fact, I've already had an argument with Mrs. Zed, my English teacher, about that one, because I called it science fiction. She refused to believe it was, finally exclaiming "It can't be science fiction, young lady -- if it were, we wouldn't be studying it!"
High school English wasn't all bad. We did get to do John Wyndham's The Chrysalids and Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon among others. No specializing in SF though so we were forced to plod through a bunch of other books to give us "balance".
I had the great experience of attending H. B. Beal and had not only a science fiction class (which was amazing) but dedicated Shakespeare classes.
Why couldn't they have offered courses like this when I was in high school?
Um, because you hadn't written it yet? ;)
That's an excellent point, Marah! LOL! :D
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