4 Ways High School Makes You Hate Reading

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Have you ever actually read untranslated (ie, exactly as it's written in the original manuscripts - no updating the spelling or grammar to modern norms, as you find in many texts, especially those aimed at English class) Shakespeare? Not an easy task, for most people. It's not nearly as bad as untranslated Chaucer, of course, but still bad enough.

I have a facsimile edition of a 1611 King James Bible, contemporaneous with Shakespeare, which preserves the archaic and inconsistent spelling of the period. As examples, the word "loved", was spelled "loued", and the letter "s" looked like "f". I can read it quickly enough but it involves added mental overhead. It would be counterproductive to use a similar Shakespeare edition in most classes.

Oh, and I forgot to add in my previous post that I enjoy reading Shakespeare, when I am in the mood to do so.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Have you ever actually read untranslated (ie, exactly as it's written in the original manuscripts - no updating the spelling or grammar to modern norms, as you find in many texts, especially those aimed at English class) Shakespeare? Not an easy task, for most people. It's not nearly as bad as untranslated Chaucer, of course, but still bad enough.

Yes; I have the Norton facsimile edition of the First Folio (expensive, but worth every penny), and you're right, for a modern reader it is hard to read at first. But let's not confuse Elizabethan printing with Elizabethan language; virtually all modern editions of Shakespeare use modern printing conventions and spellings. Nobody's suggesting that the First Folio should be used in schools.

[morriss003]

Dickens, Shakespeare, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, and James Joyce etc. are interesting about the time you reach adulthood; you think, "Wow! This is grownup literature," but once you've changed the diaper on your first newborn they don't seem quite so interesting or relevant.

[rkomar]

I find the comedies the most difficult to follow, since they are full of word play that requires knowing the culture of the time. If you're familiar with the culture, everything makes sense. If you're not, you miss the point of many lines. I guess I'm not familiar enough, because I often have to pause and piece out what was said and try to guess the meaning. That's possible when reading, but impossible when listening in real time. Even worse, poor actors who don't quite understand the gist of their lines get the stresses wrong, and make the job even harder. In high school, we used textbooks that had the lines on one page, and notes on the facing page. I would groan when I read the meaning of a phrase and realized that I would never have guessed it on my own.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Teenagers are not qualified to make decisions that are going to shape the entire rest of their lives. That's why we don't give them the right to vote, sign contracts, choose their own health care, or pick what classes to attend. Any teacher who tells a student in all seriousness, "well, you're free to decide [x] and ruin your life thereby" is cheating that child out of the guidance they were hired to provide.

At 18, you can be drafted and sent to war to kill people. But you don't have the right to have a beer until you reach 21. That's just ass backwards and so wrong.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

At 18, you can be drafted and sent to war to kill people. But you don't have the right to have a beer until you reach 21. That's just ass backwards and so wrong.

And, of course, depends what country you live in. Eighteen is the legal drinking age here.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Dickens, Shakespeare and Melville are all pretty wordy by modern standards, but what really kills them, to me, is the dissection.

I can get usually get something out of watching a Shakespeare play, if I'm in the right frame of mind, but I still shy away from the two I studied to death at school.

What kills them is...death. Talk about depressing stuff. Who the hell wants to read downers all the time? Every book I was assigned to read in junior and high school were DEPRESSING ones. Wuthering Heights. GADS. I tried 3 times to read it. What a waste. I tried when I was older just to see if I was missing something. WHAT A WASTE. Should have thrown them all over the cliff 1/4 of the way in.

Shakespeare? Yeah, let's go have death. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Ceasar, etc.

Moby Dick? Why did the whale have to die? Only character I liked.

1984? Who says it was fiction? Just got the year wrong.

Hmph.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Any reason why not? All great authors.

Probably because 1) I read these with a gun to my head, 2) I spent way too much time talking about them, and 3) I spent way too much time writing about them.

It may just be that in elementary school we read for pleasure and in high school we read for a grade...except that I did like mythology of all ages, history, and most things greek.

Maybe they are just crap ;-)

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Every book I was assigned to read in junior and high school were DEPRESSING ones. Wuthering Heights. GADS. I tried 3 times to read it. What a waste.

That's awfully long to be assigned reading. And unless I'm forgetting one, this is the least realistic Brontë book. I found it pretty much a page turner, but inferior to other Brontë novels.

As for not liking DEPRESSING books: This is, like every other book preference I read about here, highly individual. Some people read murder mysteries exclusively. Can't get much more depressing than that! Personally, I have read a lot of books with happy endings, but don't find them superior. One of our kids, when small, loved being read Frank Baum, a master of long children's books with loads of happy party scenes and uniformly happy endings. Let's say I had mixed feelings reading these

Obviously there are lots of people around here who are not particularly looking for realism in their novels. When much younger, I read lots of sci fi, so I have not always been a lover of realism. People differ, and people change.

Teachers should be teaching skills, especially expository writing. The purpose of assigning books should be to generate discussion and provide the raw material for well-argued papers, not to convince students they like books. The latter is a hopeless task, although I do want students literate enough to be able to read whatever they want.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

That's awfully long to be assigned reading. And unless I'm forgetting one, this is the least realistic Brontë book. I found it pretty much a page turner, but inferior to other Brontë novels.

As for not liking DEPRESSING books: This is, like every other book preference I read about here, highly individual. Some people read murder mysteries exclusively. Can't get much more depressing than that! Personally, I have read a lot of books with happy endings, but don't find them superior. One of our kids, when small, loved being read Frank Baum, a master of long children's books with loads of happy party scenes and uniformly happy endings. Let's say I had mixed feelings reading these

Obviously there are lots of people around here who are not particularly looking for realism in their novels. When much younger, I read lots of sci fi, so I have not always been a lover of realism. People differ, and people change.

Teachers should be teaching skills, especially expository writing. The purpose of assigning books should be to generate discussion and provide the raw material for well-argued papers, not to convince students they like books. The latter is a hopeless task, although I do want students literate enough to be able to read whatever they want.

Maybe so, but SURELY there are some books that can teach whatever point necessary that are NOT depressing. I was an avid reader so the selections weren't going to make or break my reading habits, but the one thing that stands out to this day is that not a ONE was an uplifting read. Not a one. Even the poetry I was exposed to was all depressing.

Yes, I get that there are "great life lessons" in literature, but surely. SURELY, they cannot all be of the variety that includes death and destruction of the human will.

Wuthering Heights is extremely long. Somewhere around 400 pages too long.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

At 18, you can be drafted and sent to war to kill people. But you don't have the right to have a beer until you reach 21. That's just ass backwards and so wrong.

Ask almost any European and they will tell you that Americans have a very peculiar relationship with alcohol. 21 year for a beer that isn't even that high in alcohol content? Just doesn't make any sense. Then when you watch television shows, yes I know this isn't reality, it seems you can't walk into a house or an office without having a glass of whiskey.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

One of our kids, when small, loved being read Frank Baum, a master of long children's books with loads of happy party scenes and uniformly happy endings. Let's say I had mixed feelings reading these

Personally, I rather like 'em, at least the first 6 (up to "The Emerald City of Oz"). After that, the "Please let me stop writing Oz books!" really starts to show. :P (yes, I am an adult and I read them about 6 months ago for the first time ever. Yay Project Gutenberg! )

Teachers should be teaching skills, especially expository writing. The purpose of assigning books should be to generate discussion and provide the raw material for well-argued papers, not to convince students they like books.

Sure, but they should be assigning books for that purpose that will have a better chance of keeping the audience's attention, rather than books that will have half the class (rough estimate, based on my own school days) seeking out the Coles Notes (licensed out to be Cliff's Notes down in the States a decade after they were created in Canada ) for the assigned book.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Sure, but they should be assigning books for that purpose that will have a better chance of keeping the audience's attention, rather than books that will have half the class (rough estimate, based on my own school days) seeking out the Coles Notes (licensed out to be Cliff's Notes down in the States a decade after they were created in Canada ) for the assigned book.

That's my point. Fine, mix in some depressing Poe if you must or one or two ghastly tales of woe, but it's *probably* okay to have something with a lighter tone. I was never assigned Mark Twain, but have read him since high school and I'm pretty sure most of his stuff is better than anything I was forced to read. Granted, he is an option in many schools. I just don't get the leaning toward dark literature in what is considered "great" works that are then taught in school. To be honest I'd have gotten far more out of those books when I was more mature emotionally. Reading about such depressing crap at that age only made me wonder if the teachers were somehow evil.

I've heard that Shakespeare even wrote a couple of comedies. Why not those instead of the tragedies? Pride and Prejudice would be better than Wuthering (ANYTHING is better). That's not to say that I'm enamored of it either, but it was better.

In all honestly it's quite possible to teach lit without having to go all wonky with that type of reading.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I've heard that Shakespeare even wrote a couple of comedies. Why not those instead of the tragedies?

A Shakespearean "comedy" is not, of course, using the word "comedy" as it's used today. Eg, "The Merchant of Venice" is classed as a comedy, but it's not exactly a laugh a minute.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A Shakespearean "comedy" is not, of course, using the word "comedy" as it's used today. Eg, "The Merchant of Venice" is classed as a comedy, but it's not exactly a laugh a minute.

Well, I haven't read them--I was told on another discussion that the comedies were some of the best reading. Thank you, however, for the education. It is good to know. I won't throw that out there so casually again.