Ewww, fantasy is bad! Won't you think of the Children?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Why does it have to be either/or?
If a teacher scares the students away from a topic, how can he teach it to them?
(Most?) people aren't automatons where you simply insert another punchcard and they follow the instructions inscribed. You have to get them to want to do what you want them to do.

Because it seems to me that relatively few people leave school with a love of mathematics, and carry on studying the subject for pleasure, and yet it's rare to see remarks that this indicates that maths teaching is failing. For some reason, though, many more people seem to believe that a goal of English Lit teaching should be to instil a love of reading, rather than simply a knowledge of English literature. I find it a slightly curious dichotomy.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because it seems to me that relatively few people leave school with a love of mathematics, and carry on studying the subject for pleasure, and yet it's rare to see remarks that this indicates that maths teaching is failing. For some reason, though, many more people seem to believe that a goal of English Lit teaching should be to instil a love of reading, rather than simply a knowledge of English literature. I find it a slightly curious dichotomy.

I think the point is not that English Literature should be taught so as to install a love of reading and further "study" for pleasure. The point is that the subject should not result in killing such love or any possibility of it, which in my experience it does seem to do to some.

Having said this, instilling such a love is a worthy goal for many school subjects, even maths and science, which some people also love. It should be one goal, whilst also recognising that we are all different and that not every student is capable of loving all of them. Some students will not love any!

But schools should at least make an attempt to foster a lifetime love of learning.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by darryl

I think the point is not that English Literature should be taught so as to install a love of reading and further "study" for pleasure. The point is that the subject should not result in killing such love or any possibility of it, which in my experience it does seem to do to some.

Having said this, instilling such a love is a worthy goal for many school subjects, even maths and science, which some people also love. It should be one goal, whilst also recognising that we are all different and that not every student is capable of loving all of them. Some students will not love any!

But schools should at least make an attempt to foster a lifetime love of learning.

But by schools teaching these moldy oldies, they are telling kids that newer books aren't good enough. I do think there should be some modern books taught in school so kids can get exposed to more than just the old books. A love of reading is not going to happen to some if they are just taught books that they cannot or do not relate to.

[Terisa de morgan]

Two friends of mine are Literature teachers in Spain, and their pupils go from 12 to 18 years. They teach classic literature, of course, but usually the readings are modern novels for that age or extracted reads of classic books. They think that, in other way, it's complicated to instill reading love in them.

Keep in mind, classic literature is taught but they aren't the forced readings.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But by schools teaching these moldy oldies, they are telling kids that newer books aren't good enough.

Not at all. The purpose of teaching literature is to instil in children at least a portion of our cultural heritage. Modern novels have not been around long enough for time to decide whether or not they will become a part of that heritage.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not at all. The purpose of teaching literature is to instil in children at least a portion of our cultural heritage. Modern novels have not been around long enough for time to decide whether or not they will become a part of that heritage.

You miss the point entirely. The idea is not to wait until modern books become old books. The idea is to teach modern books while they are still modern. A modern book does not have to stand some test of time. The idea is to teach some modern books while they are still modern.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You miss the point entirely. The idea is not to wait until modern books become old books. The idea is to teach modern books while they are still modern. A modern book does not have to stand some test of time. The idea is to teach some modern books while they are still modern.

We clearly have different views on the fundamental purpose of English Literature teaching.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not at all. The purpose of teaching literature is to instil in children at least a portion of our cultural heritage. Modern novels have not been around long enough for time to decide whether or not they will become a part of that heritage.

I never thought of teaching literature to be about cultural heritage...that's what the history, civics, etc classes are for. The literature classes I took in high school were more about how to deconstruct the books to find themes and symbolism. I wish the classes HAD included some sort of discussion of history and cultural heritage...I probably would have enjoyed them more. As it was, if I hadn't already been a diehard reader it would have been enough to make me not ever want to read another book.

Stories are magic. Just like magic loses a lot of it's appeal once you figure out the trick, once you deconstruct stories, they are no longer enjoyable--just words on a page. (at least in my opinion--I know that there are lots of people who enjoy the deconstructing more than the show/story...that's just not for me. I live for and look for the magic in everything.)

Shari

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by shalym

I never thought of teaching literature to be about cultural heritage...that's what the history, civics, etc classes are for. The literature classes I took in high school were more about how to deconstruct the books to find themes and symbolism.

I wish the classes HAD included some sort of discussion of history and cultural heritage...I probably would have enjoyed them more. As it was, if I hadn't already been a diehard reader it would have been enough to make me not ever want to read another book.

Ditto. Double ditto. Triple ditto.

My literature classes were a lot like autopsies.
Or the traditional killing and tear down of frogs in biology.
Equally icky. It's not as if the frogs were doing us harm...

In contrast, I had a physics teacher who started the year with a giant six foot slide rule, taught us the physical side of logarithms and trig tables and moved on to the mathematical and historical sides of physics. No calculators allowed. Nary a sleepy head in his classes.

Context and accessibility matters in education.

[Fbone]

Can anyone provide a few examples of "modern books teens can relate to" that should be taught in English lit?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

I never thought of teaching literature to be about cultural heritage...that's what the history, civics, etc classes are for. The literature classes I took in high school were more about how to deconstruct the books to find themes and symbolism.

I don't disagree with you, but why do we choose authors like Dickens or Shakespeare for this exercise? Is it not because the characters and themes in the works of these authors have become a part of our culture?

[DiapDealer]

I think a lot of us let our own love of reading blind us to the fact that we're special-snowflaking how we believe educational institutions should be teaching literature to youth just a bit.

It's natural to do so, but it's not entirely rational, either.

To say, "Literature is different" is not a sufficient reason to explain why its teaching should have the added onus of needing to inspire a love of reading. Not when math class is not put to the fire to inspire more people to love balancing a checking account. Nor P.E. to inspire more people to love sports.

Teachers inspire young minds (regardless of the curriculum). And there's nothing stopping a literature teacher from suggesting outside reading to children. Which in my opinion, would do far greater good than trying to use more entertaining, modern books (that I enjoy the heck out of, mind you) to teach literature with. They'd still hate the tests they had to take on those newer books anyway.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't disagree with you, but why do we choose authors like Dickens or Shakespeare for this exercise? Is it not because the characters and themes in the works of these authors have become a part of our culture?

I don't know why, to tell you the truth--I guess I never thought of that. I always assumed that some administrator somewhere thought that it would be "good for" the students to be exposed to those authors, and added them to the curriculum. I didn't ever consider *why* they might be "good for" students.

Shari

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't disagree with you, but why do we choose authors like Dickens or Shakespeare for this exercise? Is it not because the characters and themes in the works of these authors have become a part of our culture?

Probably because those were the ones the teachers were taught when they were students.
Lots of things are done, uncritically, simply because that is the way they have been for decades.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw

There are plenty of things that are part of *modern* culture that don't even get consideration.

[Krazykiwi]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Can anyone provide a few examples of "modern books teens can relate to" that should be taught in English lit?

My 17yo daughter is currently studying at an International Baccalaureate school, which is in my experience roughly equivalent to US AP classes. This is an English Language program within a pretty well respected Swedish upper high school with rigorous entrance requirements. Worth noting her class is "Literature in English" not "English Literature" - the "cultural heritage" is pretty much irrelevant when English isn't your first language.

What they're studying right now is a huge hit: Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. It's a graphic novel, about an adolescent girl during the Iraqi revolution. In a class full of kids whose parents fled exactly that revolution or later ones, or the Iran/Iraq war, or Kosovo, or.... well a lot of the kids in her class are second generation immigrants of refugees. And yes, I definitely consider this literature, right up there with Art Speigelmann's Maus - it's just in a different format. And like Maus, it's pretty tough reading.

So far this year she's also studied and liked:
- Animal Farm - they loved that, but were studying it at the same time as their history class was doing the Bolshevik revolution, so they really got a handle on the background, better than I ever did at high school.
- Romeo & Juliet (they went to see the play performed, before reading it in class, and they watched several of the movies too, and while not a giant hit, it's not hated either.) Some other Shakespeare, mostly random sonnets.
- Tristan & Iseult (this was fun, they were allowed to pick their own version of the story to study)
- A lot of short stories, many of them not originally written in English. Things that were big winners were: Rómulo Gallegos (Peace in the Mountains), Chekhov (the story "Sleepy" was a big winner with the kids, who related to being that tired given the amount of homework the IB gives them), "Att döda ett barn" and "En hjältes död" (To kill a child and A heroes death by Stig Dagerman and Per Lagerkvist respectively, Swedish authors). I just noticed all four of these stories are about death, whatever that says about 17yo's these days.

And she's studied and hated:
- To Kill a Mockingbird (great disdain also from the friends she had around here for study group, but some of her class liked it well enough - noticeably the boys, go figure.) This is a book I've always considered, along with The Great Gatsby, to be quintessentially American, so no wonder it didn't work so well here.

Really, only Persepolis out of those is something I wouldn't have studied at school or at least in college, but that's only because it wasn't written yet.