The "Twilight" of Serious Teen Reading?
Published March 13, 2009 @ 03:00PM PT
[Guest-blogger Tom Panarese is currently in his fourth year as an English and journalism teacher and yearbook adviser in Virginia. Prior to a career in education, Tom worked in marketing as a proposal writer for a a variety of companies in technology, telecommunications, and law. Tom's essays have been published in print and on Education Week. He blogs at the often gut-bustingly funny The Uninspired Teacher.]
In the Washington Post, Ron Charles wonders aloud what has become of the radical youth because college students of today, instead of reading seminal counterculture works by Jack Kerouac, Abbie Hoffman, and Anais Nin, are reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Apparently, the idea that the younger generation rebel against the older generation, rise up and challenge the status quo was smothered to death in a cul-de-sac somewhere in the last 30 years ("On Campus, Vampires are Besting the Beats"):
Here we have a generation of young adults away from home for the first time, free to enjoy the most experimental period of their lives, yet they're choosing books like 13-year-old girls -- or their parents. The only specter haunting the groves of American academe seems to be suburban contentment.
Where are the Germaine Greers, the Jerry Rubins, the Hunter Thompsons, the Richard Brautigans -- those challenging, annoying, offensive, sometimes silly, always polemic authors whom young people used to adore to their parents' dismay?
He goes on to lament that college campuses don't seem to be what they were 40 years ago when his generation was stirring up trouble in protest for equal rights or against the Vietnam War (in fact, he mentions that a tour guide at Kent State University doesn't mention the infamously fatal 1970 riot on his tour), and that the average college student has become more conservative in some ways, but simply less active in others. Even though he does admit that they way today's youth participates in politics isn't the same way their parents or grandparents did, he doesn't seem to approve:
"As young people shift toward the Internet and away from exploring their political activism in books, the blood drains from their shelves. For the Twitter generation, the new slogan seems to be 'Don't trust anyone over 140 characters.' What you see at the next revolution is far more likely to be a well-designed Web site than a radical novel or a poem. Not to be a drag, but that's so uncool. For those of us who care about literature and think it still has a lot to offer, it's time to start chanting, 'Hell, no! We won't go!'"
I've read this article three times now, plus what people have written in the Post's comments sections (well, except for those beating the "liberals are destroying learning ... all college is radical ... teachers are communists ... and what do we do with witches? BURN THEM!" drum, which ... *yawn*. Wake me up when you come off it) and I'm still vascillating between two thoughts: yes, we're all doomed, because sometimes I'm amazed that my students read at all; and no, you're just another whining boomer that I had to hear from when I was in high school in the '90s and you people were calling everyone between 15-30 a "slacker." While I honestly admit that I've never read On the Road, I took enough writing classes in college to be around people who had read both Kerouac and Plath -- and discontent coming from a kid at a private Catholic college whose biggest problem is telling mom and dad that he ran up the Visa buying clothes from J. Crew doesn't exactly come off as genuine. (And most of the Plath lovers seemed to have already preheated the ovens in their dorms.)
(click "Read more" below....)
Cynical jokes aside, Charles is raising an important issue, even if about 75% of his complaint misses the point. First, he doesn't seem to realize that his generation didn't all spend their youth protesting things. My father, for instance, was actually in Vietnam when Charles and his contemporaries were protesting the war and the idolization of the "hippie" or the college student protester seems to be more a result of pop culture's being able to sell that image more than it could the image of the kid who graduated high school and was drafted or simply went to work for his dad.
He also seems to ignore 40 years of the history of the teenager. In the 1960s, adolescence was still a relatively new concept and the idea that teenagers and "tweens" (the term for the 8-13 year-old demo that put Miley Cyrus on the map) were a multi-million-dollar demographic wasn't even there. In the nearly 55 years since Rebel Without a Cause, teenagers have gone from having nothing for them to watching their peers get hacked to death by hockey mask-wearing psychopaths, spend Saturdays in detention finding themselves, simulating sex with pastry, and losing their virginities to prom queens and cheerleaders over and over and over and over. It's kind of hard to rebel against your parents in a unique way when everything you are--from caffiene-laden energy drinks to "vintage" punk T-shirts--has been sold to you in a very calculated manner. Hell, in a few years, the tattoo that freaks out your parents won't freak them out because they already have the same incomprehensible Chinese characters or barb-wire/tribal armband ink.
But I digress ... it's the point about reading itself that is valid. Charles should not be concerned with his beloved favorites being ignored; he should be concerned with just about everyone being ignored. Because of the way some English curricula is constructed, there are a significant number of college students who enter having studied less than ten novels over the course of high school and of the novels they do read those may or may not include texts that I've always thought were high school standards. The idea that someone can enter college without having opened To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, or The Great Gatsby is a reality.
Not to commit my own act of clique maintenance (a term, btw, courtesy of Douglas Coupland, a "subversive" author from my reckless youth) but I remember reading four novels plus Julius Caesar in 10th grade English; my 10th grade students will read one novel, A Doll's House, and some haphazardly arranged short stories. It's partially my own fault, I know, but it's also a product of the "they're overworked and overscheduled" mantra that's been beaten into our culture about our students. Fifteen years ago, I would be given a novel, told to read it by a certain day and that there would be a test on the day it was due; if I were to do that today I'd probably get at least one phone call from an exasperated parent.
I think activism will live even if today's students aren't staging sit-ins with Grace Slick (insert "We Built This City" joke here)--you could see that in the protests of the Iraq War and even the most recent presidential election--but the idea that something can be found in what you read beyond a crush on a fictional vampire might not. But hope is not totally lost. I have one sophomore who's obsessed with Twilight, but she's also read Dracula and recently borrowed a department copy of Frankenstein.
I also have one student who thinks that A Doll's House should have ended with Nora marrying Dr. Rank because he was truly in love with her.
Ah well, like The Boss says, one step up and two steps back.
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Comments (28)
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Tom Panarese is currently in his fourth year as an English and journalism teacher and yearbook adviser in Virginia.
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I teach college students and I notice that many of them have no interest in reading per se. It used to bother me a lot, but this is a post-literate generation, raised on the image more than the word. Many read books like Twilight to escape from reality; they also can relate to the teenager with divorced parents who feels she has to raise herself. They crave that love that the girl finds with the vampire--a love and family that doesn't seem to exist in the "human" world for her. A generation raised in broken families, lots of material goods and even more alienation from community is wounded, but they will find their own mark--maybe they see the hypocrisy of the baby boomers that raised them and want out.
Posted by S B on 03/13/2009 @ 05:53PM PT
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Good points. To add from my perspective, it's also a generation that has seen most of the fun of reading literature sucked out due to what is required by standardized testing.
I was just talking about the "I read to escape" thing the other day and saying that even things that are "escapist" still are affected by or affect the world around them. It's probably a flawed point but most high school sophomores aren't going to nitpick my "literature doesn't happen in a vacuum" argument.
And I agree with your last sentence there. Boomer hypocrisy's been evident since The Big Chill.
Posted by Tom Panarese on 03/13/2009 @ 06:57PM PT
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Tom, these are exactly the points I wanted to make. Reading for fun still holds a lot of weight with me - I have made it my life's purpose to read fantasy novels as my escape from reality. Who wants to read heavy classics when real life is so burdoned right now.
I took a class in college that focussed on Vietnam era novels and the books written after to analyze those books.... It left me wanting to protest any kind of reading that left me feeling depressed.
Posted by Lisa Smolen on 03/14/2009 @ 07:42AM PT
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@Susan, in light of the current state of the world given us by the Boomers, maybe we should change their name to "Bust-ers"?
Not as funny in print as it was in thought....
Posted by Clay Burell on 03/15/2009 @ 06:24PM PT
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I was there at Kent State on May 4 when the big event happened. I saw the soldiers bring in the live ammo boxes.
Kent State started covering up this episode immediately. They worked on creating a sports like image. The first basket ball team was a joke.
Posted by carol gibson on 03/14/2009 @ 01:25AM PT
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Your comment about the boomer's is shallow. Do you think the people in this generation are klones or what?
Posted by carol gibson on 03/14/2009 @ 01:29AM PT
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I'd rather people read period than be forced to read classics and come to despise reading. Just for reference, I graduated in 2000. I'm stuck inbetween the X-ers and Ys/milenials, an odd place to be
I am an avid reader. I've read a lot of the so called classics. I couldn't stand On The Road. I'm gonna take a lot of flak for this, but I found it drawn out and pointless. Quit rambling already!
Other classics I've enjoyed and read multiple times. I always come back to what Stephen King has called "fast food" literature. General fiction *GASP* or genre novels *DOUBLE GASP*. I read often and I love it.
My point is, art is relative. The most important novel of the century to some is a 400 page door stop to others, while a simple airport thriller can be a wild adventure to many. Keep kids interested in reading. Their minds will stay sharp and they will find their own path in the world of fiction.
Posted by Derek Viger on 03/14/2009 @ 05:26AM PT
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@Derek, I want to push back on the relativism.
You don't have to agree that every classic work (like _On the Road_) is your cup of tea. I'm no big OTR fan either. But that doesn't justify putting Shakespeare and Grisham on the same nutritional plane, does it?
But I do agree that reading anything, staying in reading, is better than stopping, and that that path leads to unpredictable destinations as long as it's not abandoned.
I also want to say that On the Road - and almost any other work of literature - gains in significance when it's read as a reflection of the evolution of culture in history. Kerouac is much more interesting as an example of a generational response to 1940s and '50s America, and a harbinger of the '60s, than he is as an individual writer.
And that's where educators can help students learn that books are more than isolated stories. They're mirrors of their historical contexts and all the problems of those contexts, and at their best, lamps trying to illuminate alternative visions to whatever is normal in their times. Kerouac rejected the corporate "man in the grey flannel suit" and Henry Miller's "air-conditioned nightmare," and sought something closer to the Romantics and the world of Zen. He's much more interesting seen in that light - but you have to widen your scope to include not just fiction, but also non-fiction - especially history....
Posted by Clay Burell on 03/15/2009 @ 06:35PM PT
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I do have to concede to you Clay that reading works from a certain time period can be a great tool at delving into the thoughts and feelings of that time.
You could spend months on Dracula and Victorian England alone. And I have actualy!
So if done properly, literature can be made into an interesting cultural window. Now if I can only convince everyone about the power of music to do that as well!
Posted by Derek Viger on 03/17/2009 @ 01:51PM PT
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Hey, just because I struggled through Oliver Twist and took the test on it as a freshman in 1973 does not mean that my students have to do the same. I've taught 7th grade and juniors and seniors, and this is just to say, we read. We read a lot. And the thing that pains me about teaching high school is that my students have no time for books that they pick. I can not be the reading evangelist as a high school teacher, and that is not right.
So, sure we read The Grapes of Wrath and Gatsby and huge sections of Democracy in America BUT we also read Neverwhere, Watchmen and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and if I thought I could sneak it past the boys in my American Lit class, John Greene's An Abundance of Katherines. You know, when I read Julius Caesar my English teacher made us sketch the troop formations on the a battlefield for the test and told me I was "wrong" when I suggested that Brutus was the tragic hero of the play. Ah, the good old days.
Far from being the end of reading, I believe that books like Twilight (by the way, imao the first two are the good ones in the series) show us that students are hungry for the big book, the one they can lose themselves in. Isn't that why we all fell in love with books?
In the end I tip my hat to Stephen King who defended YA lit when he said: "But reading was never dead with the kids. Au contraire, right now it's probably healthier than the adult version, which has to cope with what seems like at least 400 boring and pretentious ''literary novels'' each year. While the bigheads have been predicting (and bemoaning) the postliterate society, the kids have been supplementing their Potter with the narratives of Lemony Snicket, the adventures of teenage mastermind Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's challenging His Dark Materials trilogy, the Alex Rider adventures, Peter Abrahams' superb Ingrid Levin-Hill mysteries, the stories of those amazing traveling blue jeans. And of course we must not forget the unsinkable (if sometimes smelly) Captain Underpants. Also, how about a tip of the old tiara to R.L. Stine, Jo Rowling's jovial John the Baptist?"
The rest of his essay can be found here: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20044270_20044274_20050689,00.html
Posted by Kate Tabor on 03/14/2009 @ 06:31AM PT
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I actually remember my 10th grade English teacher saying that the play should be called "The Tragedy of Marcus Brutus," but it wouldn't sell ... and Julius Caesar's a name everyone recognizes. Troop formations? Really? I got a quick lesson in a republic vs. an empire and I got to simulate the assassination but never had to play Imperial Roman Stratego.
I'd never discourage anyone from reading "popcorn" fiction (or "fast food" literature or what have you) because if I did I'd be the world's biggest hypocrite because I've been reading comic books for 20 years. But ... and this is just a personal thing, I guess ... I like it when I've got students like the one who saw "Twilight" as a gateway drug and went and read "Dracula." She had a hard time with it, but so did I when I read it in 10th grade (my gateway to that was that terrible Keanu Reeves movie).
My frustrations really do lie with SOLs and how little the students I teach actually read when I see so much engaging literature that I could teach but don't have the time to (and I don't touch Dickens at all. Maybe as a punishment?).
For the record, I read Meyer's novel "The Host" and found it disappointing. The concept was cool but it dragged and draaaaaaaaagged to an ending that wasn't that satisfying.
Posted by Tom Panarese on 03/14/2009 @ 07:21PM PT
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I do agree that I like to see the "popcorn" novels as the gateway tool to more complex reading. One of my former seventh grade students (who HATED reading in 7th grade) discovered Patrick O'Brien in my room in seventh grade. Last year he spent the summer at Oxford studying Shakespeare (between his junior and senior years in HS). It's the real deal moment for me as a teacher.
I haven't read The Host. And my sophomore English teacher really did make us sketch out who faced whom on the battlefield in JC. I give her credit though. She's the teacher that anchors the loathsome spectrum for me. It's good to know where that is. Here's to reading and sharing good books. Later this year my students will read Hayden's Port Huron Statement and begin to craft their own manifesto for their generation. In the words of Gil Scott-Heron - "The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will be live."
Posted by Kate Tabor on 03/14/2009 @ 08:59PM PT
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No vascillating here for me -- Charles is simply "just another whining boomer that I had to hear from when I was in high school in the '90s... " Only I was in high school in the '80s. Seriously, boomers have trotted out this tired mantra every decade for each and every subsequent generation. So political activism has moved from "serious literature" to the internet? The internet has proven to be a powerful agent for change. People read/see, then act.
Posted by Jennifer Parker on 03/14/2009 @ 02:24PM PT
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Exactly. He's moaning about how his methods of activism aren't around anymore, like NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN 40 YEARS? Seriously ...
Posted by Tom Panarese on 03/14/2009 @ 07:23PM PT
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I am so very very sick and tired of all the negative talk about Twilight and the people who read it. I am a university student. I am an activist. I protest, make petitions, etc. I write articles for the school newspaper that invite angry letters to the editor. I am not a slacker! I also love to read. I read every day. I love Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prejudice, and a whole bunch of other classics. I also love Twilight! I got the first book for Christmas, and within a week had read all four. They're excellent books! And you don't have to be some dumb teenager or pre-teen to like them! *sigh* OK, I think the rant is out of my system. Anyway, my point is, you can't judge a book based on the group of people that mostly read it. To all you people out there who think Twilight is silly: have any of you read the book?
Have a nice day! :-)
Posted by Lianne Lavoie on 03/14/2009 @ 05:48PM PT
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@Lianne,
Tom already tried to clarify that attacking Twilight is not his point, but I'll just add that I hear you on the different types of reading we all do, and that it's okay. I'm a huge fan of children's literature, for example.
But it's the reading that people _don't_ do that can get mildly worrisome for us English teachers....
Posted by Clay Burell on 03/15/2009 @ 06:37PM PT
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The nice thing about the Twilight books (for me) was that it provided an escape from reality. It doesn't matter what the "target demographic" was, it's struck a chord with people of all ages. It's also been a really cool way to bond with my students - talking about books that we have each enjoyed. I can pontificate all I want about Heart of Darkness, but that book isn't creating a connection between us.
Posted by Lisa Smolen on 03/14/2009 @ 05:59PM PT
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I see that the article or maybe my post struck a chord with "Twilight" fans. Honestly, you could have substituted whatever book was big at the moment and Charles's rant would have been the same. It could have been a "Sweet Valley High" revival and he would have still been complaining.
And like I said somewhere upthread, I get it. I've been a comic book geek for more than 20 years and up until I started hawking them on eBay to clear up storage space, I had 1500 comics, including a complete run of "Teen Titans" comics from 1980 to the present. I know what it's like to be a huge fan of something and have it transcend the "target demographic" (see also: Star Wars).
But shouldn't there be that ONE book from a high school English class that you DO bond with? I know it's cliche to say that "The Catcher in the Rye" changed my life but I made a serious connection to the book because of its perspective. Sure, I didn't have the best time in that English class but I don't know if I would have picked it up on my own.
Here's the thing that I have a problem with, and the thing that maybe many of my colleagues do as well: that student, who always has his nose buried in a book like "Twilight" or a Harry Potter book or (insert next craze here) ... but when it comes to paying attention in a class where reading is the centerpiece, he's got his head on the desk or is trying to read said book instead of joining our discussion of what we're doing. Just yesterday I walked up to a student who was reading "Watchmen" in the middle of my class and said flat out, "I've read it six times and it's amazing but I think you need to join in on our discussion." That's really frustrating. In theory, this should be one of the better students in my class ... the kid out of 25 who actually WANTS to read SOMETHING. But no.
I'm just saying ... "fast food" is great, but sooner or later, if you don't eat something nutritious, you're going to end up obese.
Posted by Tom Panarese on 03/14/2009 @ 07:34PM PT
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In that analogy, are Twilight and Harry Potter fast food? I really wonder who decides which books get to be "important" and which ones are "just for fun." I've gotten more out of the Harry Potter series than I have out of any classic novel, whether I read them on my own or in English class. It's just like the question of art: who decides that some abstract painting that a 5 year old could have done is worth millions, while my grandma paints beautiful landscapes and they're only "worth" a couple hundred? Surely there is some way they measure this? What is the measurement for the worth of a book? What gives Catcher in the Rye a higher score than Harry Potter?
Posted by Lianne Lavoie on 03/15/2009 @ 03:35PM PT
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I couldn't agree more. Who gets to decide which books are those all must read and those which are fluff, nice to take your mind off things for a while but without literary merit? If I spent all of my time reading what someone else says I'm supposed to, I would have missed Walter Dean Myers' Dope Sick, a poignant message for my poverty-stricken students and us teachers who seek every day to engage them in our content. I would have missed Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance To, a fantastic lesson about the lasting effects of World War II and the injustices we place on each other. I wouldn't have had a chance to enjoy the beautiful imagery of Ben Mikaelsen's Touching Spirit Bear (as well as the valuable lessons it teaches). I would have missed a number of modern novels by Jodi Picoult that have made me think deeply about issues facing individuals today and the choices we are faced with. I would have never been inspired by the beauty of the story shared in Tuesdays by Morrie by Mitch Albom. I would have missed.... As the teacher of more than 1500 young people during my 19-year career, as the mother of two young adults and a current middle-schooler, as the coordinator of secondary communication arts in my school district responsible for leading more than 60 other CA teachers, I would have missed a wealth of good reading if I had stuck my nose in the tried-and-true must-reads and not looked up. But because I haven't, and because I've listened with an open mind to what my students have told me, suggested to me, asked me, as well as the same from my colleagues, I have encountered some tremendously good authors, like Stephenie Meyer, Chris Bohjalian, Joyce Carol Oates and Jordan Sonnenblick (I could go on and on), as well as some more obscure books by some highly-touted writers, such as the Cormier book. And many of my students who have been turned on--or turned back on--to reading by books such as those would still be butting their heads with teachers trying to pigeon-hole them into reading those books the teachers had decided were the ones they needed to read, whether they spoke to the students' lives or not.
Posted by Tori Grable on 03/17/2009 @ 03:51AM PT
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Well said, indeed, Tori!
Posted by Lianne Lavoie on 03/17/2009 @ 08:34AM PT
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I think you're kind of missing the point with this "don't discount pleasure reading"/"the classics aren't as classic as you think"/"I like what speaks to me" thread you've got going here, especially since it's veered the discussion way off from the original point of the post.
And not to beat a dead horse, but I see no problem with reading what you like to read. Books are like anything in our popular culture--there's enough variety that anyone and everyone can be happy. But when you're talking about a classroom, this changes because of several factors, not the least of which being a set of standards to which I have to teach. Was I really fired up about teaching some of the stories or books I've taught? Not really, but I understood that teaching them would help cover certain aspects of literature that they would be tested on. It makes me sound like a sell-out, like I'm teaching to the test or something, but it's the reality here.
And this is really going to turn people off, but I think that while what's defined as "literature" and "classics" is subjective, there is an undefined standard that exists. Why would I teach "To Kill a Mockingbird" rather than "A Time to Kill"? Because I can get more out of Mockingbird. That doesn't mean the Grisham isn't worth reading. Why would I teach "The Catcher in the Rye" instead of the latest hot YA page-turner? Too many reasons to list. Even after you knock that book off its pedestal, you still have a character and a story that is copied again and again and again and again.
I just think, at least as far as this discussion goes, that the sentiment that certain books "gets kids reading" while good, shouldn't be enough. You want the students you teach to reach outside their box instead of grabbing for the same thing over and over. Heck ... and I hate to use her as an example ... even Oprah Winfrey did that. After the crash and burn she had with Jonathan Franzen and "The Corrections" (a good, but kind of overrated book, btw), she stopped the book club for a while but then was inspired to bring it back by a wonderful book that she just had to share. That book? "East of Eden." A "classic" in a lot of ways.
There's got to be something in at least trying to get a student to be challenged by what he or she reads. I'm not a Scottish lord, and I don't plan on trying to be king of Scotland, and "Macbeth" really never "spoke" to me in anyway, but I still find it excellent on several levels, just like I enjoy "The Canterbury Tales" and "The Prince" and "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Great Gatsby." Personal connections? No. But does everything have to have that or can we not try to get our students to appreciate the written word for what it is?
Posted by Tom Panarese on 03/17/2009 @ 01:09PM PT
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OK, I realize this has gotten a bit off topic, but I really don't think I'm missing any point. I agree that some books are more important to read than others, just not as strictly as you seem to think. You categorise books using terms like "the latest hot YA page-turner." I think that that makes all kinds of assumptions about the quality of books that you haven't even read. Harry Potter is a good example. The latest hot YA page-turner, perhaps? I don't read Harry Potter just because of some personal connection. I feel that the series is an important piece of literature. It has important themes of good and evil, courage, and loyalty. Is there some reason that this doesn't make it to the ranks of the "classics?" All I'm saying is, who gets to make these grand decisions? There's nothing about any English class classic novel that makes it any more important, except that someone "important" decided it should be.
Posted by Lianne Lavoie on 03/20/2009 @ 07:19AM PT
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Two last points on this ...
First, don't get bogged down in the semantics. Yes, I said "Hot YA page-turner." Was I trying to be condescending? Not really. I just happen to have some marketing experience as well as a tiny bit of publishing experience (literally, I was an intern for a summer) and I tend to speak in those terms. Commenting on that is like commenting on me calling *NSync a "Teen Pop" group or a "Boy Band." Again, semantics.
Nobody "defines" classics. I don't think there's like The Illuminati or something that holds up a Jane Austen novel and says "THIS IS A CLASSIC, TEACH IT!" and then tossses "Flowers in the Attic" into a circular file. I think it happens organically. Yes, we do make incorrect assumptions about certain works of literature and we do make personal choices in what we decide to teach. For instance, so many people consider "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" a classic and salivate at the chance to teach it. I consider it three weeks of my life when I was 16 that I will never get back. But I understand its value.
I willingly admit that I don't read a lot of what my students are reading for pleasure. We intersect sometimes--comic books, "The Zombie Survival Guide," for isntance--but I wouldn't stop anyone from reading them.
To bring this aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllll the way back from my original point (and then I'll wrap up), what's to say of the reading level of these books? Would you honestly teach Harry Potter in a high school English class? No, you probably want something more challenging, even if it has literary merit. Perhaps, however, you introduce it in middle school because that's the reading level, and you build on the themes of good and evil and courage and loyalty by introducing "The Odyssey" or "Beowulf" or "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Macbeth."
The editorial writer was trying to point out (badly, I might add) that he wishes his students would read outside of their comfort zones. Now, I still think his whining and moaning about losing Kerouac is still just whining and moaning, but wouldn't you want to take it to the next level? Maybe things more complex? Maybe things that make you question more?
It's about the connection, yes; it's about the strength of the writing, yes. But in today's world it's also about having presence. I do have a feeling that the "Harry Potter" books will become required childhood reading, just like "Treasure Island" or "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Rowling is a juggernaut and is already becoming synonymous with good books for young readers (and yes, I say young readers because that is her target audience market). Some other stuff? Not so much.
And my job as a teacher is yes, to encourage and nurture reading those books but also to encourage my students to go even further. That's what the "classics" do.
Posted by Tom Panarese on 03/20/2009 @ 01:13PM PT
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Alright, well, thanks for the discussion. I guess this is one thing we'll just never agree on, possibly because I always hated English class. I've always loved to read, but I've always hated classifying books based on how "challenging" they are, just as I've hated the over-analysing of books that tends to make up most of the class. So yes, if for some reason I of all people became an English teacher, I would teach Harry Potter, because I honestly believe it is better than anything taught in English classes now (and not just for teenagers, but for everyone. I myself am not a teenager). So yeah, I didn't mean to seem uneducated or anti-literature, I just really, really, really hate the English class approach to books. Your whole point about wanting students to go "further" is exactly what I think makes no sense.
Alright, I'll stop arguing now. Have a nice day!
Posted by Lianne Lavoie on 03/23/2009 @ 07:39AM PT
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About a week ago I wrote a peice about literacy rates in this country and reading programs in schools. I probably should have recalled earlier how relevant it would be to this discussion.
Check that out here: http://maineview.blogspot.com/2009/03/let-them-read-letting-students-choose.html
I was prompted to write because of an article I read on Borderlands. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think Clay possibly wrote about this here on Change.org, so I'd like to credit him for turning me on to it if he did. Otherwise, shame on you Clay for writing so many good works that I am starting to link everything I read edwise to you in my mind. If you don't read Borderlands you should. It's great but updated infrequently.
Here's a clip of the peice:
This year, everyone in the class reads what they want to read, and they read without interruption for 30-40 minutes each day. They tell me about their books when I go around the room asking how it’s going. I write down what we talk about. They read short passages quietly to me. They write in journals about their books. They meet with partners or in small groups, and they give oral “book reports” written on sticky notes. They make book recommendations to each other. They read at home and before school without being told to, and they tell me they love to read. I even saw one of my students reading a book walking down the hall the other day. It’s going viral.
Link to the whole thing: http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2009/03/05/free-and-voluntary-reading/comment-page-1/#comment-118143
Posted by Derek Viger on 03/17/2009 @ 01:58PM PT
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@Derek, I agree about Doug at Borderland. Been reading and conversing with him for a couple or more years now.
That's why, if you click "guest bloggers" in the top left sidebar, you'll see Doug is a contributor here.
He's sharp.
Posted by Clay Burell on 03/17/2009 @ 08:50PM PT
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I'm a professional musician. When I was in college, I was expected to practice & perform certain "classics" both in orchestras & solo concerts. Did i like every piece I played? No. Did I practice & learn what those pieces were intended to teach me? Yes. As I was practicing Mahler & Bach, I found time to also play the things I wanted to play, something to decompress, unwind, relax my brain.
Literature is, in my opinion, much the same. There are things to be learned, often from things we wouldn't choose to read if left to our own devices. But that's why we pay the big bucks to go to college or private schools or have tutors. I can see teaching Harry Potter in middle school the same way I can see supplementing the instrumental band concert with a little bit of John Williams.
Posted by Lisa Smolen on 03/20/2009 @ 05:49PM PT
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