Sounds like St Trinians!

People here don't STUDY Twilight in school, lol. If they do, that's really pathetic. :-P

Even studying Twilight is better than studying NOTHING! ;D

lol!
You're right about American students though, we have to read a lot. We take all core subjects every year, an in high school typically there is a required reading list with several novels to read throughout the year for a particular year in English. Actually, I had a reading list in middle school grades too.

We do in Scotland too. How ironic that England is the place where English as a subject gets neglected!

YES, YO - THIS IS TRUE ABOUT YOUR AND YOU'RE. WE WERE NEVER TAUGHT SUCH THINGS AT SCHOOL. I LEARNT THEM INSTINCTIVELY FROM READING BOOKS, YO - TOTALLY UNRELATED TO SCHOOL. BUT THEN, BACK IN THE DAY, ENGLAND WAS GOING THROUGH THIS 'GOSH, WE MUST NOT FOCUS ON SPELLING AND GRAMMAR AND THUS STIFLE THE POOR STUDENTS' CREATIVITY, YO!' MOVEMENT. IT'S MOVED OUT OF THAT NOW AND IS REALISING THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING SUCH THINGS.

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, RYAN, BUT MY ENGLISH SYLLABUS FOR BOTH GCSE AND A LEVEL WAS TOTALLY FOCUSED ON THE THEME OF 'TOLERANCE' - TEACHING US TO BE NON-SEXIST AND NON-RACIST AND STUFF, AND LOOKING AT BOOKS THAT DEALT WITH SUCH THINGS. VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH ACTUAL LITERARY DEVICES AND GRAMMAR AND SUCHLIKE! SUCH A RELIEF TO GO TO UNI AND STUDY ENGLISH PROPERLY, YO!

Yes, yo!!! English at GCSE and A-Level seemed to be less about getting your english right and more about themes and motifs, and analysing human nature and coming up with ambiguous ideas about whether Iago was to blame for Othello's downfall, or if Heathcliff's emotional traumas excused the beating of his wife! hahaha. I spent four years of my life discussing hypothetical situations about non-existant characters! Is that a good thing about our system, or rubbish one?

OH GOSH, YES, YO - WAS KING LEAR A MAN 'MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING'? I TOTALLY WROTE AN ESSAY VINDICATING THIS FICTIONAL CHARACTER, YO! I'M SURE HE SLEPT EASY KNOWING THAT 16-YEAR-OLD PUCK HAD DECLARED HIS SINNED-AGAINSTNESS TO BE GREATER THAN HIS SINS!

It depends whether you take literature or language, it literature was just about correct grammar, I think it would be a bit pointless, I did lit and wouldn't of bothered if the course wasn't about discussion and picking apart literature and instead, learning about grammar, which I can already do perfectly fine when I can be bothered.

I took lang/lit, yo!

Oh sorry didn't read down this far! Were they separate or together?

GCSEs were separate, so I have one in English Lit, and one in English Lang, A-level was combined, so it was pretty much just one big crossover!

I had to do Lit at AS level, it was compulsory at my college if you did Drama. I was meant to do a full A Level in it but since I got a D through not reading the books, they let me drop it ;D

Ooh ooh we did the same A-Level!
I have to say, I loved the module on Shakespeare and language. We did A Winter's Tale, it was really interesting to analyse the speech so closely.

The introduction to critical theory also helped me in my second year at uni.

But aren't you getting mixed up with English language and English literature?
I got an A in language and was taught all the boring grammar stuff which I knew already.
I got a C in literature because I honestly COULD NOT CARE about Lenny and his bloody mouse ;D

Gosh, in Scotland it was just 'English' and we learned about both. There was no division into language and literature. But we had to take it as a compulosry subject up until the age of 16 or 17.

English Language is compulsory up to 16, and at my school Literature was compulsory if you were in the top 3 sets. I'd rather have taken music for all the good analysing Of Mice And Men has done me! ;D

GOSH, YO! I LOVED LENNY AND HIS MOUSE, YO! ALTHOUGH WE NEVER DID HIM FOR ENGLISH LIT - I READ ABOUT HIM TOTALLY FOR MY PLEASURE ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON!

WE DID BOTH ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH LIT FOR GCSE, BUT WE NEVER DID GRAMMAR FOR EITHER. ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONSISTED OF VARIOUS TYPES OF CREATIVE WRITING - USING DIFFERENT WRITING STYLES, YO. LIKE STORIES, AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES, AND POETRY - WE HAD TO WRITE ALL THAT SORT OF STUFF. SUCH FUN - I ALWAYS WROTE BRILLIANT STORIES, YO! ENGLISH LITERATURE CONSISTED OF ANALYSING LITERATURE. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, LORD OF THE FLIES, ROMEO AND JULIET, ETC. NO LENNY, ALAS!

Yeah ours was more about the writing too but they did stress the importance of spelling and grammar to us, which I think is always good! Personally, I think there needs to be more of an onus on that side of it.

Hmm we did Of Mice and Men and Romeo and Juliet for the exam, and I remember Tess of the d'Urbervilles and An Inspector Calls were our coursework books.
At AS Level it was The Tempest and Death of a Salesman. GOD I hated both, though somehow managed to pull off an A on The Tempest paper, despite never reading the play the entire way through! A 'No Fear Shakespeare' book, ordered from America, got me through that ;D

OOH - YES, YO! INSPECTOR CALLS. WE HAD TO WRITE THE DIARY OF EVA SMITH. (GOSH, YO, I TOTALLY JUST GOOGLED 'EVA SMITH' BECAUSE I WAS SURE I MUST BE REMEMBERING HER NAME WRONG AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, BUT IT IS INDEED EVE SMITH! HAHA!).

GOSH, YO - DO YOU ONLY DO TWO BOOKS FOR ENGLISH AS LEVEL? I DID A LEVEL, BECAUSE I AM OLD, AND FROM BEFORE THE DAYS OF AS LEVELS! WE DID ABOUT 8 BOOKS, I THINK. WHICH ISN'T VERY MUCH NOW I THINK ABOUT IT - JUST FOUR BOOKS A YEAR. OH, AND THE BOOKS I CHOSE TO DO FOR MY EXTENDED ESSAY TOO. SO THAT MAKES TEN BOOKS ALTOGETHER. BUT GOSH - NO WONDER A LEVEL ENGLISH WASN'T VERY HARD WORK, YO. AT DEGREE LEVEL, IT WAS LIKE A BOOK A WEEK!

I know it was more, we had like 4 plays each year for Drama so I guess Eng Lit was the same, but I just had such little interest in it that I have erased it from my memory!

My English teachers NEVER would have let us get away with mixing up you're and your! Yup, Scottish education is the best, clearly. ;D

Ours wouldn't either, if you couldn't be bothered to write properly you were asked to leave the classroom until you wanted to be educated.

I THINK IN THEORY TEACHERS ARE LIKE THAT, IF THEY ARE GOOD TEACHERS, BUT, LIKE, AS I SAID ON RY'S RC ENTRY, MY GEOG TEACHER WAS SHIT, YO! WE ASKED HER WHY SHE WASN'T TEACHING US ABOUT WHERE COUNTRIES ARE ON THE MAP AND STUFF, AND SHE WAS ALL 'THAT'S NOT GEOGRAPHY - THAT'S CARTOGRAPHY'. SO WE HAD TO LEARN BORING STUFF LIKE THE PRICES OF BREAD INSTEAD. LIKE, WE REALLY DID - WE HAD TO DO FIELDWORK GOING TO THE LOCAL SHOPS AND FINDING OUT THE PRICES OF THEIR BREAD. GOSH, IT WAS SO CRAP, YO!

I FOUND MUCH MORE TEACHING US HOW TO THINK AND QUESTION AT UNI THAN SCHOOL. LIKE UNI TEACHING WAS BRILLIANT. EVERY ASSUMPTION WE MADE WAS QUESTIONED, EVERY OPINION, EVERY STATEMENT - WE WERE TOTALLY QUESTIONED AND IT TAUGHT US HOW TO THINK AND HAVE REAL LOGICAL REASONS FOR OUR OPINIONS AND THOUGHTS.

I stopped studying Geography in year 9 (thank God) and all I remember learning about were volcanoes and rivers. Very dull!