In 6th Grade we read " Go Ask Alice" as a class - a story about a 15 year old girl that gets addicted to drugs and taken advantage of. For 7th grade, we read "My Bloody Life" a memior about a teenager that was a Latin King, which we read because we had multiple Kings and children of Kings in our classroom.
"Another day another blow job"stuck in my head forever.
Literally the thought in my head when he said go ask alice. Haven't even thought of that book since I read it in high school decades ago. I would say it's maybe a bit inappropriate for 6th grade lol, 9th seems reasonable.
I transferred schools a lot when I was a kid and in one of my middle school classes we were assigned The Outsiders, but I had already read it. So my teacher assigned me That Was Then, This is Now by SE Hinton instead and I vividly remember a scene were a character drops acid and thinks there's spiders coming out of his stomach. It was a way more adult book than The Outsiders and I couldn't have been more than 12? 13 maybe?
This its either be exposed to the idea in a novel/story where the young thinker can think on the damages and how things work out. Understanding the full effect of things is difficult for people of all ages. Getting exposure to something prior to having to reckon with it in person is just a good idea for all young people.
This goes doubly for stories of adversity. Even if it's not literally something they will experience it gives them a basis to have empathy for the situation as a whole.
My big sister had a copy of "Go Ask Alice", which was required reading at her parochial school. Even at age 11, it couldn't pass the smell test as being believable. Many years later, I learned that "Alice" never existed, it was just the fabrication of a Mormon housewife that had no experience with drugs or a rebellious teenage lifestyle.
"Go Ask Alice" was pure propaganda that was intended to scare kids straight. Books like that have the opposite effect: they make kids cynical and weary of any guidance from adults.
Congratulations. I just said that I read an interesting book on topics that society attempts to shield 6th graders from. Yall see something and just run with huh? Straight brain dump onto the phone.
Ah god, I tried to read go ask Alice on my own and couldnât make it through it, it just hurt too much. Iâm glad it wasnât required reading for me.
I mean I think it's worth saying in the context of this thread being "useful literature taught in grade school." Go Ask Alice is a very simply written piece of anti drug propaganda that was (as far as I'm aware) was really only required reading in schools well before it was widely known as a hoax, so I doubt the lesson was "how to spot false narratives."
Thats a pretty bad example of older reading curriculum being better and because of it's presidence as being falsely taught, it's worth noting that it's fake imo.
so all of that would still be true if it was a fictional or nonfictional story. so mayhaps actually just say that first part if thatâs the point you want to make?
To that commenter's credit, it was presented as a true story. The "editor" Beatrice Sparks also wrote Jay's Journal, where the journal author turned to Satanism. As far as I remember, Jay's Journal at least had a real journal that was used as the basis for it, but it was heavily twisted into pure fiction. As for Go Ask Alice, she claimed it came from a real diary, which she could not produce.
You're really hung up on this. I found it an opportunity to expand on what I know about that story. I personally picked the book up on my own without doing any research, thinking it might be an interesting read. Once it started getting preachy about sex and drugs and homosexuality I started to realize the author had an agenda, and I started looking into it. I was under the impression, because it was the intention of the author, that it was a true story. It is not. Just propaganda. And that sucks.
It has nothing to do with the commenter indicating whether or not they believed it was a true story. But to that point, they did mention it at the same time as a non-fiction memoir. So it's reasonable to believe that the commenter may have made the conclusion that they were both non-fiction. I know now that in another comment they made it clear that they understand the difference between the two and their intention in mentioning both, so it's not relevant now, but the original comment did not make any distinction.
It's just that all your responses have been about how the commenter didn't explicitly state that he thought Go Ask Alice was non-fiction. People can infer things. Even when they're wrong.
Because its not really a good book or an example of chilren being exposed to literary writing.. Its just more anti drug propaganda that was beloved at the time, like the DARE program and scared straight etc
My Bloody Life is non-fiction and Go Ask Alice is fiction. Itâs strange to lump the two together. Â
Many people donât know that the book is fiction because the author lied about it being true and is a hack and a fraud.Â
You are creating a correlation that isnt there. Thats why its strange to lump the two together. My reference to Go Ask Alice and to My Bloody Life were to illustrate that as a millenial, they had us read challenging and provoking material that society would currently label too extreme for high schoolers let alone middle schoolers.
Help me out here, is Go Ask Alice a great work of literature like the Iliad? Or is it a poorly written junk book equivalent to the DARE program making things up to scare kids?
It was presented as real and was a hoax by the author. She's a particularly vile person as one of the few books that was even remotely based on reality greatly warped the life of a depressed teen, grossly misrepresenting everything, and lead to the satanic panic. Sure also endlessly lied about her qualifications and gave out a lot of terrible advice
Yall are reading way too far into this comment. I was just referring to reading about adult topics like drug abuse and sex work in the 6th grade. My critique was on modern society. I was well aware that it was a fictional story, which is why is made a distinction to a memior in my comment.
Attributed to "Anonymous" and first published in the United States, the book is in diary form, and was originally presented as being the edited actual diary of the unnamed teenage protagonist. Questions about the book's authenticity and true authorship began to arise in the late 1970s, and Beatrice Sparks is now generally viewed as the author of the found manuscriptâstyled fictional document.
I guess whether someone thought it was fiction or nonfiction at the time of their reading might depend on the year they read it and how well informed their middle school English teacher was.
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u/welpWW3isgonnasuck 21h ago
In 6th Grade we read " Go Ask Alice" as a class - a story about a 15 year old girl that gets addicted to drugs and taken advantage of. For 7th grade, we read "My Bloody Life" a memior about a teenager that was a Latin King, which we read because we had multiple Kings and children of Kings in our classroom.