Bitchin' Blog Posts
Oh Noes: Teens Reading?
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | April 10, 2010 | Saturday at 11:48 am | 90 CommentsFrom the department of “Again already?” there’s hyperventilation about whether or not kids are reading and growing more stupider by the minute because they don’t read.
Truly, take a breath people. Remember that annoying song in 1997 about how everyone has to wear sunscreen but not credit the correct source of all that wisdom? (It wasn’t Vonnegut, fyi). In the middle is this bit of perspective:
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old. And when you do you’ll fantasise that when you were younger prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected elders.
Add to that: you’ll also insist that children should read great and sometimes cumbersome works written by those whom someone has deemed among the great minds and because children are not doing so, they are now growing more stupider by the minute.
No, I don’t think that’s true at all. I don’t think kids are stupid, judging by the ones I meet. I don’t always understand the things they worry about - but I bet the things I worry about are as baffling to them.
When I see histrionic articles like this one about what kids are reading and how they’re growing more stupider by the minute, I think to myself:
1. Take a breath.
2. How are you defining “reading?” Can we agree that the definition of “reading” is increasingly nebulous in its boundaries?
Are they reading text in ways you can identify? Are they interacting with stories in forms you have quantified in your estimation of Here Comes Teh Stupids Oh Noes? There are more ways to consume narrative on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
According to a Daily Beast article on the subject of teens reading,
...children should read newspapers and magazines, texts about nature and technology, and biographies—genres that increase real-world knowledge. This is especially important for poor children, who may not be exposed to as much “background” information at home: the random vocabulary, facts, and associations that make it easier to do well on tests like the NAEP and SAT, and to succeed in the workplace.
But for the most part, kids aren’t reading this kind of material. “One of my big gripes is the imperialism of literature, of trivial fictions and poetry,” says E.D. Hirsch, a literature professor and advocate of “cultural literacy.” Hirsch rejects the idea that storybooks are the only books that appeal to children. “Fiction doesn’t have a monopoly on narrative,” he says. “Take, for example, biographies. They have the form of fiction. It isn’t whether kids can read it or not, it’s whether it is taught or not.
In other words, there is value in imagination, whether the intricate narrative is coming from text on a page or screen, or a interactive dynamic world projected on a screen. The narratives and issues dealt with in video games or in comics are not at all worth less than the narratives of classical literature, (just as romances are not of less value than other works of fiction). Alas, the bulk of the article is not so innovative, and rehashes a lot of the Oh Noes Here Comes Teh Stupids hand-wringing while recommending nonfiction in addition to fiction. Why not… let kids choose what they want to enjoy?
Peter M. Dickinson wrote about this back in 2002 in “A Defence of Rubbish” and said,
Nobody who has not spent a whole sunny afternoon under his bed rereading a pile of comics left over from the previous holidays has any real idea of the meaning of intellectual freedom.
Nobody who has not written comic strips can really understand the phrase, economy of words. It’s like trying to write Paradise Lost in haiku.
While I immediately bristle at the use of the word “rubbish,” as it’s so often applied to that which I hold most dear (and to my bosoms, of course) I agree with Mr. Dickinson like damn howdy. Especially this part: “Third I am convinced of the importance of children discovering things for themselves.” And this other part, which addresses my rubbishy fears: “it may not be rubbish after all. The adult eye is not necessarily a perfect instrument for discerning certain sorts of values.”
Sing it, Brother P. I shall hold up a lighter. (Thank you to Christine D. for the links.) We’ve discussed the idea of youth reading and required reading before, and the discussion follows a similar route each time.
but I want to stop short of the shrill and earnest whining that at least kids are reeeeaaaaaaading when seen toting Harry Potter or Twilight or whatever mammoth hardback is capturing attention and making hands wring in agitation. I want to stop well short of that crap, to be sure, because it’s just as patronizing to say so, as if kids should be reading because doing so is good for them and they’ll all arrive at the same level of intellectual joy and wonderpants so long as they consume pages of text.
I disagree with that, and the idea that there’s only one way to learn, and the idea that identifying, quantifying and assigning to value to what a child is reading is more important than asking that child what he or she thinks. I drew a whole set of conclusions about Twilight, but some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had about the first book were with individuals between the ages of 10 and 15. (Note: I used to work in overnight camping so I’m often around children of camp age. Also, summer camp freaking rules).
It seems that as technology changes the way we consume and access information, articles about the state of reading among young people emerge that have all the calm and reasoned tone of a Weather Channel meterologist in the middle of a snowstorm in July. Calm down already.
Filed: General Bitching, Ranty McRant
Tagged: wtfery, twilight, literature, comics, books
Miranda said on 04.10.10 at 12:09 PM • [link]
Since the deep, intellectual reading I was doing as a teen included Stephen King’s Carrie and the works of VC Andrews, I don’t have a rightous leg to stand on in the ‘back in my day’ discussions. I still read fiction, mostly, unless I see something that particularly interests me like “The Darkened Room” which was about women and Spiritualism in Victorian times. Cool stuff.
KarenP said on 04.10.10 at 01:10 PM • [link]
I read incessantly as a child (still do!). I read everything : fairy tales, Lord of the Rings, Heinlen, Mary Stewart, Harlequin romances… You name it, I read it.
That being said, what my children read is very different(both from each other and from me). My girls read a lot of paranormal stuff (I can’t stand the stuff), my boy reads a lot of fantasy (I do too, just not the same kinds).
Is this bad? I don’t think so. They are reading. It might not be books that I like, (my son, at 14, is reading Robert Jordan’s epic 12 volumes) but a lot of the fantasy/sf. etc.that I read he doesn’t like. So What!!! All it means is that my DH and I have turned out three people that love to read. Not a bad legacy to leave.
nlowery71 said on 04.10.10 at 02:10 PM • [link]
When I worked at the public library, adults mostly checked out thrillers and romances—fun books. Why would anyone expect kids (who are expected to read for fun) to want books with greater “literary” value than the books most adults want. I have always found this strange.
Cara McKenna / Meg Maguire said on 04.10.10 at 02:30 PM • [link]
I’ve got a couple years to go before I’m likely to pop one out, so I don’t have any firsthand parenting or general babyhandling experience to speak from…but as Sarah suggests, calm down, everybody!
I read a lot when I was a kid, from A Wrinkle in Time to Uncle Scrooge comics and Roald Dahl, to the Babysitters Club books to The Annotated Alice to every book about the Rosetta Stone I could find, to one very ambitious junior high summer when I read King’s It. I also read classics under duress for school, and hated most of them, excepting Golding, Orwell, and Shakespeare’s comedies. I think it’s preferable for a child to be engrossed by total schlock than to slog through Joseph Conrad so glazed over they aren’t absorbing anything (which I did for the second time in my life this very summer).
Storytelling is magical, and we should be encouraged to enjoy what we simply enjoy, not what some vague intelligencia thinks we should. Even as an adult, I want to like Steinbeck, but I just don’t quite get it. So I read Palahniuk. I wish I could make it through a Tolstoy and set it down, nodding sagely. But I don’t, so I pick up Jacqueline Suzanne. On the flip side, I have no interest in Twilight but I’ve read every Naguib Mahfouz book I can find in English. What good is reading if it’s not pleasurable? What’s so great about staring at words if they aren’t lighting crap up in your brain? We’re all going to be just fine, people. Read what and how you like and believe it or not, you’ll still be reading.
Janoda said on 04.10.10 at 02:38 PM • [link]
In my experience, people often don’t make sense when it comes to the youth and reading.
The biggest fights (and I mean glass breaking, tears-flowing, door banging catasthrophies) I had with my father was about what I read. He hated my passion for Romance Novels, even though those were only half of what I read (Like KarenP posted above, I basically read everything I could get my hands on), but he insisted I should read Literature with the big L instead.
What made me most furious is that my brothers never read, not even comics, and he never fought with them about it. It always felt as if he’d rather have that I didn’t read at all, instead of read what I liked to read.
Short Case Study: When I was 18 I requested the complete works of Tolkien for Saint Nicolas (a dutch almost equivalent to Santa Claus), because I had read my paperback version of LOTR until it fell apart. A huge discussion followed, because would I still read these books in a couple of years? They weren’t literature after all, not timeless. I countered with the argument that they got me pants the year before, which didn’t fit me anymore. Presents shouldn’t be timeless, presents should give joy. And the same goes with books, games, or any other hobby somebody likes to do.
The neverending Literature fights/discussions have put a strain on my relationship with my father, because I am an avid reader, and I identify with what I love. I still get angry at his refusal to respect that.
I wouldn’t call it a trauma, but it is very much a touchy subject for me, and whenever I read articles that claim the youth doesn’t read, or doesn’t read the right stuff, I get very, very itchy.
This whole history also made me itchy about the term Literature, and even more so about the term Literary Fiction. Because it’s judgemental, and implies everything that isn’t Literary Fiction is deemed less worthy. It physically makes me cringe.
There’s nothing wrong with offering people a wide variety of reading choices, but judging what people like to read, or if they like to read is a very, very wrong thing to do. And it’s respectless.
Sorry for the ramble, as I said, touchy subject :)
macbethslady said on 04.10.10 at 02:57 PM • [link]
The article’s main weakness is that it ignores the obvious: Children have always been taught, and preferred, fiction over non-fiction. What fine generation of science journal and biography readers is this author - who looks pretty young - hearkening back to?
Sarah L said on 04.10.10 at 03:41 PM • [link]
As someone who is currently in the education system as a school librarian, I find this panic over whether or not children are reading to be very hypocritical, especially on the part of the government. “Oh no! Our children aren’t reading! How can this be? Don’t we load them down with the finest test preparation materials and requirements known to man? Don’t we agonize over reading scores and withdraw funding from schools with poor reading scores? Why isn’t this helping?!?!?!”
*insert my head thumping repeatedly on my circulation desk*
I’m a firm believer that kids who say “I don’t like reading” just haven’t discovered the things they like to read yet. Even kids who tell me, slightly defiantly, that they don’t really like to read, came to my book fair a few weeks ago and bought schlocky paperbacks (“Killer Pizza” was one of my bestsellers)
Let the kids read what they want! Can we stop ignoring the studies that say the best way to create intrinsic motivation to read is by letting them choose what to read? Can we stop telling them “Read whatever you want: as long as it’s over 100 pages, and a novel, and not a graphic novel, etc., etc., ad infinitum”? Can we actually just take a chill pill and acknowledge that maybe, if we stop panicking and LET THEM READ, they might actually read?
*pant, pant* okay, stepping down off soapbox now.
dick said on 04.10.10 at 04:03 PM • [link]
Those that do read…and can read…may read whatever they choose. I couldn’t care less about what they read. However, over the last five years I taught freshmen in college, I was appalled to discover that quite a few of them could not read with any kind of understanding and thus avoided reading if at all possible. They could learn things, but only through other means than the written word, often because they had no internalized information—a store of common knowledge, those very things that Hirsch pontificates about—to garner the meaning a writer was trying to convey. At the same time, their reactions suggested that they had an almost mystical belief that anything written was therefore correct and to be believed. In my opinion, some concern is necessary.
JamiSings said on 04.10.10 at 04:43 PM • [link]
Frankly, if the classics we are expected to read were actually good then there’d be no problem getting kids and teens to read them.
I always hated the required reading in school. The “classic” books were so boring. Not good ones like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and The Phantom Of The Opera, but boring, poorly written tripe that made no sense like The Great Gatsby, Catcher In The Rye, etc. (I did, however, enjoy and get a lot out of Animal Farm and Brave New World.)
My mom loves the movie Gone With The Wind, so she made me read the book. Boring, stupid. All I wanted to do was slap Scarlett and tell her she was a stupid racist whore.
I long ago came to the conclusion that most classics were never read by the people calling them classics. One high up person decided they were good so everyone praised them without ever reading them. And somehow a trend became a permanent thing. Thrust upon an increasingly uncaring generation, taught by teachers who don’t know how to teach the material.
If the books were interesting, kids would read them. But let’s face it, they aren’t!
Lori said on 04.10.10 at 04:53 PM • [link]
If kids weren’t reading then Twilight and Harry Potter would never have entered the cultural lexicon as they have.
If kids aren’t reading classics, well… they will if they’re interested. I didn’t start to read many of them until my 20s when I was interested. And I never would have been interested if I hadn’t started reading Nancy Drews when I was younger.
As long as they read, it’s good.
Karenna Colcroft said on 04.10.10 at 04:59 PM • [link]
I’m a certified special education teacher. I’ve seen kids who couldn’t even spell their own names correctly because they didn’t have the phonics and letter-recognition skills for it. (And I’m talking about an 8-year-old here.)
In 2000, I wrote a phonics program with stories that were actually interesting and apropos to what my students told me happened in their own lives. Lo and behold, when presented with stories that they liked, my students learned to read. After a year and a half, the aforementioned 8-year-old was reading at grade level.
Point not being to toot my own horn, but to say that kids want to read what interests them, not necessarily what adults say is “good” for them. There are books that to this day I haven’t read, classics like “The Wind in the Willows”, because a well-meaning adult told me I *should* read it. I learned to read at age 3 because I wanted to, and from that time on, I pretty much chose my own reading material. As someone else said, everything from comic books to classics.
As a teacher, I’ve worked with kids in all grades from kindergarten through high school. Kids who despised reading, or found it so difficult they just didn’t bother. I helped them find material that interested *them*, not the curriculum committee, and they read.
I write YA novels under a different name, and have shared manuscript versions of some of them with students in the past (with administrative permission). Because I write with an eye toward appealing to the kids who don’t like to read, those kids have enjoyed my stuff. Of course, that may have just been because they knew me.
Kids will read what interests them. If it’s age-appropriate and decently-written, in my opinion, it’s all good. (Decently written only because I don’t like the thought of kids reading things rife with typos and grammatical errors.) That’s one of the many reasons I no longer work in public schools, because it did become all about the tests and how to analyze books and so on, instead of just plain instilling an enjoyment of reading.
Captcha is “students57”, which strikes me as particularly appropriate…
Sarah L said on 04.10.10 at 05:11 PM • [link]
@Karenna
AMEN! When they’re actually allowed to read things they like and are interested in, the studies show the same thing as your experience: they will read! and get better at reading!
Shocking, no?
Cynara said on 04.10.10 at 05:13 PM • [link]
I’ve just finished a year of teacher education, so all this is at the top of my mind.
It drives me bananas whenever I hear “well, graphic novels are great for engaging reluctant readers.” “Well, at least they’re reading.” “If they just start reading anything, it can lead them to other [read better] books.”
Well, dammit, I can tell you (and I know I’m preaching to the choir) that there’s no dividing line between the real nutritional matter which “smart people” read and the mindless sugared fluff that the rest of the zombified population wolfs down, to the detriment of their mental waistlines. I wonder how many of these people know that Shakespeare’s plays were “fluff”, watched as a light alternative to the scholarly drama of the universities? Under this heading also see: all early or “women’s” novels.
Graphic novels aren’t necessarily dumber than works in any other medium, and I bet people will be surprised at how few of our cherished literary favourites (Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, Khaled Hosseini, et cet.) will still be read in a hundred years. We are notoriously terrible at knowing what will stand the test of time. Look at the early 20th century Pulitzer Prize winners for novels, and tell me how many you’ve read.
Basically, I want my students to leave my class liking reading more than when they came in, and to feel a sense of competency when reading. I want them to have strong analytical skills, but you don’t need to read Emile Zola to get those.
I hope they go on to the literary canon, because I think there’s some great reading there and some important cultural capital, but I don’t presume to tell them what they ‘should’ be reading. My only exception is that university or college-bound students need to get the ‘big novel’ experience so they’re ready for it when it hits.
Andrea said on 04.10.10 at 05:29 PM • [link]
Hmm, it seems this discussion is everywhere (education and reading) - I am from Germany. My mother had the policy that we couldn’t watch a lot of TV and it was carefully monitored what we could watch but I could read whatever I wanted. Her reasoning was - and I am going to follow the same when I have children - that since reading is “work” (in contrast to watching TV which is very passive), the child will put a book down that s/he can’t understand/is too young for, etc . And even if they do read “trash” a lot, it doesn’t mean that they won’t enjoy literature later on. And let’s not forget the fun factor: if reading is fun, they will continue to do so. If you force them to read books they can’t understand/dislike/don’t interest them, etc, they will stop reading.
I believe that classics should be read in school - but at an appropiate age because otherwise there will be no joy in reading them. Because then even students who are not avid readers will remember at least one book they had to read in school that they actually liked. There is also the age, or maybe better, the maturity factor. I only started to appreciate books that I had to read but didn’t necessarily like when I was close to finishing school.
It also doesn’t have to be the same old, same old all the time. (It sometimes seems to me that there is a very finite number of classics that are read in school.) There are so many good books out there, why not pick something a bit more unconventional?
Laurel said on 04.10.10 at 05:41 PM • [link]
Real readers all have one thing in common: a love of reading. Most adult readers remember “THE BOOK” they discovered in their childhood, the story that sucked them in and made them sad when the book was over. That book was the springboard, the book that made them keep seeking another book just as good, just as satisfying. They slogged through lesser books, some they liked, some they didn’t, and once in a while found another jewel that kept them searching. Some of them grew into lovers of classics, others not so much. But by the time they were exposed to the classics, they were capable of reading and understanding them.
Whatever THE BOOK was, it fostered a love of reading. Once you’ve given that to a child, you have a reader. Who cares which book it was? Biography of Amelia Earhart or Amelia Bedelia, if the child wants to read it, let him.
No one would dream of telling a fourth grader that they shouldn’t be running because they can’t break a six minute mile. At that age, the objective is to cultivate a sense of pleasure in physical exercise in the hope that the habit will stick.
darlynne said on 04.10.10 at 05:53 PM • [link]
My parents let me read anything that interested me. A love of things magical taught me how to use the public library card catalog (man, I still love those little drawers) to search by subject for magic, fairies, time travel, flying carpets, and so on.
I checked out every biography our grade school library had and learned about people such as Lotta Crabtree, Jenny Lind, Harriet Tubman. I had all the Nancy Drew mysteries, all the Walter Farley books on my shelves, along with The Twenty One Balloons, The Secret Garden and DC and Marvel comics.
All it took to make me a voracious reader was exposure to books: seeing my father read, being read to before I could do so myself. An amazing world—and so many of them—opened to me through reading. That is what I wish we could give to all children. If their love of books can survive “required reading” in high school, there is hope for a lifetime.
Lady T said on 04.10.10 at 06:02 PM • [link]
That part about the “poor” children really annoys me,with it’s condescending tone. Newsflash,writer girl-kids in the so-called “better off” areas can be just as ill informed as their counterparts on the other side of the tracks
. Back when I worked in an indie bookstore,we had a couple of well touted private schools in the area and many of the students were local residents. The only time most of those kids had any interest in the classics or nonfiction was for class assignments;their preferred reading was series titles like Gossip Girls or bios about celebs(pro wrestlers like Mankind and once I got a request for a book about an actress who starred in Doritos commercials). I recall one time when a bunch of them hung out in the children’s sections and were reading board books to each other(I kid you out,especially since I had to shoo a pair of them off of one of our staff stools-a girl was sitting on a boy’s lap there).
Assuming that children from a lower economic background either wouldn’t have access or be inclined to seek out “real world knowledge” is incredibly elitist and treating someone’s choice of reading as if it’s a poorly planned out grocery list is ridiculous. And,with respect to Mr. Hirsch,all biographies are not written as “forms of fiction”-some of them have prose that’s drier than Melba toast served during a sandstorm.
JamiSings said on 04.10.10 at 06:20 PM • [link]
@Laurel - For me it wasn’t a book, it was a person.
Namely, LeVar Burton.
In first grade I was put in remedial reading. The teacher thought I was slower then the other kids. So my parents strictly monitored my tv time and read to me every night, but I wasn’t really interested until I developed a crush on LeVar Burton, host of Reading Rainbow.
See, because of the tv show Romper Room I thought the people on tv could see me. So I thought if I read a lot, LeVar Burton would fall in love with me.
The crush faded, but the love for books never did.
Doesn’t change the fact I think many so-called classics are just dry, pretenious crap. Give me Sherlock Holmes over The Old Man And The Sea any day.
Tikaanidog said on 04.10.10 at 06:52 PM • [link]
THIS! YES! So much of ‘literature’ I find to be just pretentious, boring crap (not all of it, of course - I found Animal Farm very educational, for example). I personally could never understand the appeal of Romeo & Juliette - I put both of them in the ‘too stupid to live’ category. She realy did need a Sassy Gay Friend - THAT I would have enjoyed reading!
I just let my boys (now both legal adults at 18 & 19) read whatever struck their fancy. Both are avid readers of (mostly) fantasy/scifi, and whatever else they’re in the mood for.
briony said on 04.10.10 at 07:18 PM • [link]
I believe that most teachers (and I am a teacher with teacher friends so I am using my own personal experiences to draw this conclusion) would tell you that they are not specifically teaching “fiction” vs. “non-fiction”, or “literature” vs. “fluff”, but rather that they are drawing from a wide range of genres to teach children strategies for comprehension. No one - children and adults - wants to read something they don’t find interesting or understand.
Do I give a rat’s-rear if my Kindergarteners want to read Eric Carle instead of National Geographic? Nope. My kids know that they can choose either one and that I will still laugh with them about that silly hungry caterpillar or find that picture spread of the Hebrides to be the most amazing thing ever. Either way, my kids are engaged in the story and develop that magical “background knowledge” as they develop their comprehension skills.
Articles like these are such crap. But I’m sure they help sell advertisements for tutoring programs.
Suze said on 04.10.10 at 07:32 PM • [link]
What got my nephew interested in reading was video games. When he was in kindergarten, he was getting to be more proficient at his video games, but needed help reading the instructions, and the little navigational tidbits that would pop up. In grade 1, when they started teaching reading, it twigged with him that if he mastered this reading stuff, he wouldn’t need to nag his auntie to help him play his games. This led eventually to Despereaux in Grade 4, his favourite book in the whole wide world.
As I recall, I started reading at around age 4 from a combination of my older sister using my younger brother and me as her students, playing school, and me losing all patience waiting for my mom to come read to me. Damn, she was slow. I learned to tie my shoes and make my bed by myself because I couldn’t wait for her.
ghn said on 04.10.10 at 07:36 PM • [link]
My middle niece (just turned 13) has never been much of a reader. I have over the years gently tried to tried to interest her in books, mostly by lending or giving her books that might encourage her to perhaps decide books are not boooooring.
So I was rather pleased to find her totally captured by the _Twilight_ books! My opinion of the series is that it’s crap, and goes downhill from there. But I am happy that she is reading, so I have only teased her a _very_ small bit about it – like suggesting that she would undoubtedly want
this t-shirt for Christmas ;-)
And I recently lent a book to my youngest niece that she liked. Hopefully she will like others in my collection, and develop a fondness for reading.
Personally, I don’t read books in Norwegian (my native language) these days. The reason for this is over-exposure to really dull examples of Norwegian Literaure in school, and then being required to analyze the things to death (as if the stories weren’t dead enough already…)
Fortunately this didn’t kill my fondness for books – I was a bookaholic already – but it definitely shifted my interest away from Proper Norwegian Literature to what I read today (not that my interest wasn’t edging in that direction anyway – and there was hardly any SF or Fantasy published in Norwegian those days, and scarcely more today, and that is what I read most – it is not booooooring!).
AgTigress said on 04.10.10 at 07:42 PM • [link]
I echo Dick’s point: the thing that matters is that children can read, and can do so fluently, comfortably, with true understanding, and without having to struggle. Judgements about what they read, or even how much time they spend reading compared with other activities, are relatively frivolous, because as long as reading, which is, after all, a highly complex skill, holds no terrors for them, all is well.
JBHunt said on 04.10.10 at 07:51 PM • [link]
Here’s my dream syllabus:
First 1/4 of the semester—We research what other people have claimed should be in the literary canon. Create an annotated list. Ta da, we’re what E.D. Hirsch calls “culturally literate.”
Next 1/4 of the semester—We read a few examples of what the teacher thinks are great books. Decide if we agree and explain why/why not. Learn to mine a text for personal/social/cultural truths.
Second 1/2 of the semester—Students explore what they enjoy, what they think are great books and authors. They choose authors they like and read several of their books. Write a detailed analysis of the chosen author/texts. Their choices could run the gamut—from classics to graphic novels—but they would still ask challenging questions about the text and their reaction to it.
Final event—They share their personal annotated lists with each other.
Phyllis said on 04.10.10 at 08:10 PM • [link]
Ditto on the slapping Scarlett bit. I also want to bitch-slap Jane Austen’s Emma - I had enough trouble with snotty know-it-all adolescent girls back when I was an adolescent. It’s probably the Austen book that I like the least (Lady Susan is short).
When I was, oh about 8 or so, my teacher gave our class a thing to read about how young people these days don’t do XYZ and how they’re all baaaad, and then she told us it was by some ancient Greek, I think. I wish I could remember who. The point being that everyone has always been bleating on about kids these days.
I read a lot of cr** as a kid, but I also read from my mom’s old Complete Works of Shakespeare. I read just about anything I could. I checked out 8 books from the library every week (still do, though the whole college and grad school period killed my love of reading for quite a while).
So go ahead and read Twilight and Harry Potter and the whatsis twins where one’s a hoooor and the other’s a goody-goody. When you’re done, maybe pick up something sci-fi and then maybe Jane Eyre (one of my adolescent favorites) or Shakespeare or Moliere in translation or whatever.
I read a lot of romance, but I also read other stuff. Still can’t stand Scarlett, but then I also find Cormac McCarthy pointless.
Lyssa said on 04.10.10 at 08:16 PM • [link]
True story: My godson whose video game addiction had always been the annoying splinter under the skin of his mother (a reading fool) got into TROUBLE with the parental units. As a Consequence, his video games were taken away, his movie/television time was cut to 2 hrs a week.
To keep him from murdering his entire family from “BOREDOM” his mom tossed books at him. He read the entire Harry Potter series, and Narnia. Then his mom picked some series that may have been more his level. Dune (all of the series) was read over one week, The Ender series by Card was next. I personally suggested the Vorkosigian series by Bujold. Currently he is reading Temeraire series by Novik. He enjoys the stories, and discussing the character development. Something that his mom did not expect was this embracing of reading.
NOTE: reading was not a punishment. Reading was one of the allowed things, like doing housework, yard work, homework, crossword puzzles, and learning how to cook. What was taken away? Unlimited TV, Unlimited phone time, Unlimited Video Game time and Running off to friends houses at all times of the day. Yup, he had to live the way we did when we grew up…and he did not die, or go crazy. And he is learning that Consquences can teach you how to survive without the latest ‘nifty’ game.
Perryw said on 04.10.10 at 08:33 PM • [link]
Ah, the benefits of age. The lack of memory, the nostaglgia. Hee Hee
Let’s remember that a lot of the young people today will be saying the same about their younsters when their time comes.
I’m on the band wagon of the - hey they are reading.
Kids today (ugh I’m old) don’t read Nancy Drew the same way a kid did in my parent’s generation. Some of these classics have a very whitebread world and not a lot of the grittiness of the world.
As long as reading is interesting, paper, electronic or audio - or whatever form comes next. People will read, kids are people.
Thanks for the post
Tamara Hogan said on 04.10.10 at 08:42 PM • [link]
I’m very depressed because my niece not only doesn’t read for pleasure, but her school screens movie versions of the classics instead of expecting the students to read the book. This, ironicaly enough, is in her LITERATURE CLASS.
It’s not like I expect her and her classmates to plow through Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” in the original middle English - but “The Hot Zone?” COME ON. Allow me to quote the bumper sticker I have affixed to my computer monitor: “Read a fucking book.”
Glynis said on 04.10.10 at 08:51 PM • [link]
My father took me to the library every week when I was a kid. In our system, the kids’ cards and the adults’ cards were different. Kids could only check out books from the children’s section. Somehow, Dad found out that I could, with his permission, check out anything I wanted from anywhere in the library. So I got the coveted blue star on my children’s library card. Free rein in the library! w00t. And that’s just it, I could wallow around anywhere and look for things that interested me. Which I did.
As an adult, I read Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series (ah, pron). A friend at work asked to borrow the first novel. When she handed it back to me she said that it was the first full novel that she’d ever read. She was ashamed that it was pron, but I told to get that foolishness out of her head, and handed her the next two novels. By the time I left that job, she was a voracious reader of just about anything.
We have to stop assigning value to what we read like it’s some huge shopping list. Intellectual curiosity isn’t a form to be filled out, it’s the active search for what is interesting.
Christy said on 04.10.10 at 08:52 PM • [link]
Many of the comments here seem to be geared towards what children should be allowed to read for recreation, and what will inspire a love of reading; and in that respect I agree that children should be allowed to read what they enjoy.
But as Dick and AgTigress point out, and what the linked article is addressing, is the inability of many children (and adults) to read for anything other than pleasure. While it is wonderful for children to love reading, it is not essential from an educational standpoint. What is essential—or should be—is that they are able to do it well. Being able to recognize a string of words is necessary of course, but it is only the starting point of true literacy. Children need to be taught to read for content, for ideas. I don’t think perpetuating the idea that one should only read what one loves does children any favors. Reading isn’t merely for entertainment! It is a vehicle for education and edification. Not everything important or good or interesting is entertaining in the consumption sense that children are accustomed to.
This isn’t simply a Classic Cannon vs. Fun Lit issue, it’s about our children learning to read for information and comprehension, regardless of the content, writing style or narrative format.
Lady T, I agree that wealthy children can be as ignorant as anyone, but I don’t think the author’s point was meant to be elitist. It has been well-established that poorer children are at an educational disadvantage for myriad reasons.
And finally, boring is in the mind of the beholder! To read The Great Gatsby referred to as “boring, poorly written tripe” made me cringe. I understand and respect that people may not enjoy it, but it is certainly well-written. I didn’t like it myself in high school (I dismissed it as “stupid people making a bunch of stupid decisions”), but have fallen completely in love with it as an adult.
JamiSings said on 04.10.10 at 09:32 PM • [link]
Well, I’m sorry, Christy, but I will always hate TGG. It just sucks. The scene with the dog made me want to throw it across the room and then burn it.
I also disagree with the whole “reading for pleasure doesn’t teach comprehension.” That’s just nonsense. A child who reads for pleasure grows up to be an adult who can comprehend what they’re reading.
I, for instance, used to hate reading non-fiction with a passion. Boring, dry, useless. Now as an adult I find myself reading a lot more non-fiction to help me better understand the books I love. And I comprehend everything just fine.
On the subject of Shakespeare - I had a really bad english teacher the year we did Shakespeare for the first time. I ended up hating him for a long time until I found out actor Patrick Stewart was a Shakespearian actor and Captian Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation) was a Shakespeare fan. So I gave William a second chance. Ended up loving him for the most part. Though I still hate Romeo & Juliet and not just because of my lousy teacher, but also because I saw it not as a love story, but two bratty teens in lust, killing themselves over sex. I knew in my heart if they lived, they’d grow up to be bitter, cheating on each other all the time, and one would eventually kill the other.
Pussreboots said on 04.10.10 at 10:27 PM • [link]
Looking at the explosion of tween books and YA books compared to when I was that age, I’d say teens are reading more than when my generation was in its teens.
ocelott said on 04.10.10 at 11:05 PM • [link]
What the hell kind of kids does she know? From the rest of the quote, I get the impression he’s not talking about reading these things in school, he thinks these are things kids should be reading in their spare time. I can’t think of a better way to ensure kids hate to read and will try to avoid it at all costs than by forcing them to read dry texts about things they don’t care about, and I wonder how much of this “real-world knowledge” is being read by the adults who are running the world these kids live in.
I understand some of the point they’re trying to make, that broader knowledge increases the understanding of what you’re reading, but this is not the way to go about it. Twilight could absolutely be used as a teaching tool, if people were less inclined to be snobbish about it. There are references to classic novels and Shakespeare in there, there are exotic locations, even a rather, err, interesting medical procedure in the fourth book. It’s not so hard to tie these in in an interesting way.
CeeCee said on 04.10.10 at 11:24 PM • [link]
Few young readers look at the copyright date on books, and most judge the classics by modern PC standards, which is a bit unfair to the authors who weren’t gifted with clairvoyance. With this in mind, perhaps, the classics should be moved from literature classes to history where the time frame could be discussed. It might make history ’more real’ to students, actual people living in those times, not just fighting wars. Something beyond a list of dates. Or the books could be part of sociology.
Of course it won’t happen since apparently there is no time to teach details history, no time, drop another war from the discussion. It’s over a hundred years old, no one will miss it. Maybe they won’t, maybe Churchill was wrong and those who don’t learn history won’t have to repeat it. But that’s another rant.
K. Colcroft probably has the right idea to appeal to the kids. It wasn’t what I wanted as a kid, I wanted escape. I admit it would have been nice to have stronger heroines, but I got used to identifying with the hero. Captain Blood, hey, he was easy, he did wear lace collars and cuffs when he dressed up, and so did I.
Any book that I was forced to read with dead animals in it, pushed me away from enjoying reading. Those books gave me nightmares, depressed me and turned me off from the classics. I avoided all American classics that I could for that reason. I’m looking at you Steinbeck. I still won’t read them. I did enjoy most of the Russian classics.
Marianne McA said on 04.10.10 at 11:53 PM • [link]
One of the things that really surprised me when my daughter was tested by an educational psychologist was that her general knowledge score was very low. He said it was more or less a given with dyslexia, that you don’t realise how much of the stuff you know comes from what you read.
If I read the article right, no-one’s saying that reading fiction is bad, just that there’s a concern that children aren’t reading a wide enough range of material, and that it might therefore be appropriate to put more non-fiction on the curriculum. Seems a reasonably harmless suggestion.
Alpha Lyra said on 04.11.10 at 12:53 AM • [link]
I think teenagers aren’t ready for some of the classics at the time they’re presented. I hated The Grapes of Wrath, but a friend of mine loved it. I read it in high school; she read it in college. No way am I going to go back and read it—yuck!—but maybe I’d have liked it better if I’d read it when I was a little older.
Cath Bilson said on 04.11.10 at 01:11 AM • [link]
I’m currently in the process of teaching my almost 4-year-old to read. Because he wants to - every other second I hear “What’s that word, Mummy?”
The way to teach a child to read, is to offer the books they are interested in. We’ve worked through Kieran’s own bookshelf several times and every week I go to the library and leave him alone in the kids section for 10 minutes or so, telling him he can choose 7 books - one per bedtime story! Generally by the time I come back he has made a big pile, and only occasionally do i see a repeat read. He’s loving it and will, I have no doubt, be a competent reader by the time he starts school next January. And while his school may require him to read all sorts of ghastly crap (I will burn To Kill A Mockingbird if they dare to send it home with him) while I have some control over his reading choices I will choose not to exercise it. I’d rather he read what he wanted and enjoyed it than read what I wanted him to and glazed over. I might make recommendations based on my own personal reading experiences (I’ve got crates full of Walter Farley and Enid Blyton, David Eddings and many others saved up) but it will be entirely his choice if he wishes to follow those recommendations.
Deb said on 04.11.10 at 01:34 AM • [link]
In light of the fact that the article indicates the reading test scores of our nation’s 4th and 8th grades “were dismal”, I would have to say, there is a problem.
Reading isn’t confined to Lit courses, but in science, math, et.al. If comprehension is bad, how do we expect our kids to make to and through Med school or Law school? Reading isn’t just for fun, it’s necessary.
It might help if the tvs were turned off, computers shut down and cell phones put away and actually spend time with our kids going through their school work.
There’s a place for pleasurable reading as well as that boring classic crap. At least Dickens knew how to put a decent sentence together.
Scrin said on 04.11.10 at 01:48 AM • [link]
http://www.concatenation.org/articles/pratchett.html
One of my favorites discussions of similar areas of literary criticism.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.—G.K. Chesterton
Spamword: Progress 98. I’d like to think we could make progress as a society on this stuff…
Jane Holland said on 04.11.10 at 01:51 AM • [link]
Who cares what anyone else thinks? If your kids are reading, they’re reading. End of. If they’re illiterate or semi-illiterate, then you can worry.
I used to worry that my kids weren’t reading the ‘right’ sort of books. But you can’t make people like things. They either do, or they don’t. And taste is such a subjective thing. So chill, people.
Now where did I leave my porn?
cories said on 04.11.10 at 02:12 AM • [link]
The only issue I have with kids books it that I expect them to be better written than adult fiction. As someone who learned proper sentence structure by reading (instead of through the school or by conversing with my equally limited peers), I am appalled by the iffy writing out there for kids. I’m not the only one either; a friend of mine is annoyed over exactly that for her daughter (neither could stand to finish “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” but think of the Lemony Snicket series as the best out there right now). I don’t know how kids and teens nowadays learn proper English if not for the “classics” (although I do include Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle in that category). I do read quite a lot of YA books so I’d like to think that I know what I’m complaining about. :) Personally, I can’t wait until my niece is old enough for P. G. Wodehouse.
On the upside, the sheer number of books available to YA readers is incredible compared to what I had back in the day (which is probably why I ended up reading so many books written by dead authors). All I had to read for my teen angst were “Catcher in the Rye”, “The Glass Menagerie”, “Death of a Salesman” and “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (most of which were not assigned by class but I read on my own). Kids now have all that covered with Twilight, Harry Potter (especially the fifth or so book in which Harry was a really annoying teen boy), and too many other books to mention.
Molybdenite said on 04.11.10 at 02:51 AM • [link]
Wonderful post! While it is true that a lot of teens I meet do not read Dickens or Poe or Shakespeare they obtain knowledge in other ways. Knoweldge comes in many forms and while being “well-read” is a practicality and even a necessity for some circles of academia, they are not the only form of intellect. My grandfather will get onto my baby cousin’s about not picking up a book, but if I am at work they are the ones he will call to fix the computer. Yet another example, my high school english teacher refused to acknowledge my dog-eard copies of Julia Garwood novels as reading until time for the final debate for the class where I could eaisly compare Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the Rose series. This same teacher who thought my mind was trashed found out later that I knowledge she did not: how to change a tire.
And as I recall some comic books did pose ethical situations albiet with a supernatural twist (X-Men, need I say more?).
My only gripe is the use of texting language in essays, but then again I was caught using shorthand symbols in essays before I had a cell phone (made a C because of b/c).
My final idea on the subject: if you want your child to read, let them read what they want. Just be a parent that will sit and talk with them about what they are reading, becasue discussing what they are interested in is much better than shoving a copy of Don Quixote, Ivanhoe or even sometihing more modern like Wicked or Catcher in the Rye into thier hands and making them read it.
SB Sarah said on 04.11.10 at 03:25 AM • [link]
@karenna
That’s so cool. Go on with your bad self. Reminds me of teaching grammar in college composition courses using the National Enquirer and other tabloids about celebrities.
And I agree, @Christy et al:
It is absolutely important to be able to read and synthesize and process that information. I do think articles like the ones I linked to tend to point to Canon Lit as the easiest point from which to develop comprehension skills. If you read Carlisle or Ellison and write essays about them, you’ll develop those reading skills for information and comprehension. My point is, those same skills can be taught outside of the expected canon, and not even necessarily with text.
I however fully recognize that I am probably waaaaaay over-sympathetic to alternate methods of communicating narrative aside from text because I taught students with severe dysgraphia for a few years - and watched them come up with ways around the text that they could not write, even though they could read and understand. My almost-master’s-thesis, let me show you… well, not it but a really old outline.
@dick: “At the same time, their reactions suggested that they had an almost mystical belief that anything written was therefore correct and to be believed. In my opinion, some concern is necessary. “
First of all, if it’s written on the internet, it is SO true. (heh- kidding!) I taught freshman comp for a number of years, and I don’t think that the “absolute belief in the truth of what is written down” is exclusive to those who stumble when reading unfamiliar texts and formats for comprehension. I think I thought the same until I learned better - that belief in the unquestionable truth of text as written (or on screen) might be somewhat universal if not extremely common.
Janoda said on 04.11.10 at 03:29 AM • [link]
In reply to Christy:
I agree that reading fiction isn’t enough, though you do learn more through books than you realize. However, I’d expect my children to read those non-fiction texts in school. As far as I remember every class I had in highschool (which isn’t that long ago) had some sort of texts that we needed to read, comprehend and analyze, and the higher we got, the more texts and articles we had to understand.
But I almost never read non-fiction at home, for leisure.
So if there’s alarmbells ringing because the general knowledge isn’t good enough, I believe this might have more to do with the schooling system than with the fact that children read less non-fiction.
Because I honestly doubt that in the days of yarn kids read plenty non-fiction for pleasure. Occasionally maybe, but not plenty.
Rebecca said on 04.11.10 at 06:06 AM • [link]
I’d just like to throw out there that in fact popular non-fiction (history, current events, etc.) sells very well indeed among the adult population, and in my decade of experience teaching high school students who mostly arrived seriously below grade level, the weakest readers generally PREFERRED non-fiction books. (We were using the National Council for English Education model of “ramp-up” for students below grade level, where a portion of each day was spent reading books the students SELECTED THEMSELVES from the classroom library.) I could never keep up with the demand for non-fiction. So the “oh noes, we are taking the pleasure out of reading by making kids read non-fiction” may reflect the specific bias of this site, which is after all by and for people who love to read fiction for pleasure. There ARE lots of people out there who won’t pick up a novel but will read non-fiction.
Side note in terms of lack of general information - of course general information comes from both fiction and non-fiction sources. But saying that poor children aren’t severely deprived in this area is just naive. One of my great heartbreak moments as a new teacher was when I was reading a story called “Zoo” with my students, and asked them to talk about what they had seen when going to the zoo. “I’ve never been to a zoo,” said one fifteen year old. “I’ve been to a museum though. I liked it.” NB: This boy grew up in New York, where there are three zoos and an aquarium, and more than one museum. (And admission is free to more than one of these.) No matter how ignorant and uninformed students from fancy private schools are, they tend to know by osmosis (NOT necessarily from reading) that Vienna is not in Italy, that Paris IS in France, that cloth is woven on looms, and that when an English person wishes for 200 pounds he is not talking about starting a course of free weights at the local gym. (All of the above are examples of things that I have had to explain to students. And the list could go on.) Sorry if this sounds ranty, but my students are bright kids, and they struggle with basic comprehension because their EXPERIENCE is SO limited. Pretending that they are starting from a level playing field makes me see red.
Emily said on 04.11.10 at 06:18 AM • [link]
As an eighteen-year-old, I can pretty much guarantee that whenever an adult says “this book/novel/play is a CLASSIC and has incredibly meaningful THEMES and uses SATIRE and METAPHORS and IMAGERY” it makes me want to throw the book in their face and read something that actually interests me. My AP English teacher literally told us the other day that there was a board of old people (professors at “prestigious” schools that I will never even go to) who decide which novels and plays have enough “literary merit” to teach seniors in high school. They completely disregard any books that I find meaning in, because they aren’t looking for meaning, just symbolism that we can spew back at them. I cannot find the words to fully express my hatred for standardized tests, like the SATs and AP tests. There is no way for me to talk about the books, classic or otherwise, that have left an impression on me and that, more than anything, is what I want to do after I finish them. I don’t want to write about theme and character development. I want to sit in a Socratic circle and talk about what a douchebag St.John from Jane Eyre is and how Steinbeck NEVER ENDS effing East of Eden (which, I don’t care if it’s supposed to be epic, is the most unappealing brick of shit I’ve ever had to lug to and from English class).
And also, some people really honestly just aren’t into books. WHY THE MOTHEREFFING EFFER IS THAT SO BAD?! Let the poor kids be, reading is not the be-all, end-all of intelligence. Maybe if teachers and parents and librarians stop pushing books on us, we’ll actually be able to stop worrying, for once, about college and jobs and the future and just figure out what the eff we’re doing.
Sorry. It just gets old after a while. End rant.
Lurkella said on 04.11.10 at 07:53 AM • [link]
“Our civilization is doomed if the unheard-of actions of our younger generations are allowed to continue.” —Inscription on a 4,000-year-old tablet found in the Biblical city of Ur.
I loved Gone With the Wind—it was THE BOOK for me at age 13. I find that way too many people judge it by the movie, which layered on a lot of sentimental antebellum glop to appease the feelings of 1939. I can barely watch the film because of the Stepin Fetchit casting of the roles of Sam and Pork.
The novel is extremely subversive regarding the Old South, the Lost Cause, romantic love, Victorian womanhood (and early-twentieth century womanhood), because it is told entirely from Scarlett’s point of view. Scarlett had no use for any person, place, or thing that did not directly contribute to her personal welfare, and no patience with restrictions that prevented her having her own way. She is unlikeable, true, but she is daring, determined, and energetic. When I was in junior high, heroines like that were pretty thin on the ground.
cories said on 04.11.10 at 08:33 AM • [link]
The one assigned book I couldn’t finish in high school was “Madame Bovary”; I relied on Cliff Notes instead (for the youngsters among us, that’s sort of like wikipedia entries in booklet form). If Gustave Flaubert thought it was tedious to write, then why should I have read it? (I also blamed Emma Bovary’s unrealistic outlook on life on her reading of romance novels - hey, I was young!)
Perhaps I had good English teachers, but I didn’t mind all the classics they foisted on us for discussions on imagery, themes, metaphor, etc. since I figured that a) at some point someone was going to ask me to write about those things for or in college, b) I’d read the required reading before the class discussions so I got a chance to see if I liked the book before it was dissected to death and c) whatever book it was, it had to be more interesting than my history textbooks (yes, even those obligatory Dickens novels and depressing Russian tomes).
Cheap Evening Dresses said on 04.11.10 at 08:45 AM • [link]
figured that a) at some point someone was going to ask me to write about those things for or in college, b) I’d read the required reading before the class discussions so
Julie T said on 04.11.10 at 10:07 AM • [link]
My favorite class in high school was a “Classic and Modern Novels” class I took my senior year. There were three requirements 1)read 30 pages a night 2)at some point during the quarter read a classic 3)when you finished a book, you wrote a short essay. That was all. I adored it. 40 minutes a day set aside for reading.
I could chose any book under the sun and each person did. I remember reading a romance novel for the class, my friend slogging through Don Quixote, someone else reading some Hitch-hiker’s. It was a great class that spoke to us as individuals.
My teacher in the class died that year and her replacement changed it to “Read this book, then we’ll discuss it” I was sad to see such a gem go (the class and the teacher).
LG said on 04.11.10 at 10:36 AM • [link]
I’m of the opinion that kids can and will want to become readers if they’re actually *gasp* allowed to read something they will enjoy. I’m very grateful that my parents basically said “read whatever you want” when I was a child - my mom was a wee bit horrified when she later read some of the stuff I’d been reading as early as age 14, and there was one book I remember she told me I couldn’t read until I was 30 (which gave me a powerful urge to secretly get my hands on it anyway), but mostly I read what I wanted, when I wanted. And so I read a lot, although probably not what some would consider “good literature.” When I had a class in middle school on “the classics,” our teacher decided that the best way to go about it was to give us all a monumental list of works she defined as classics and let each individual choose what he or she wanted to read from the list - the only requirements were that we read 3 from the list. Two of my three were Pride and Prejudice and Dracula. :)
So I get a little peeved when people say kids should be reading such-and-such. When you’re first learning how to read and further developing those skills, reading takes a lot of effort - if kids find something that makes them want to take that effort, why should we get all bent out of shape over what it is they’ve found? Do we really want to teach them that reading is a boring and/or painful chore, not worth attempting because it’s not like there’s anything on those pages that is even worth the effort?
I remember when I was cleaning up the adult learner reading room at a library branch I volunteered at. I took a look at some of the books that adults in the literacy program were given to read - short romance novels and dramatic fiction, written with reading level appropriate vocabulary. Why is this ok for adults learning to read, but kids are expected to read classics and Newbery Award winners?
AgTigress said on 04.11.10 at 12:36 PM • [link]
The belief that something that is written and in published form must be true is very widespread, and quite possibly goes back to folk-memories of the belief in the supernatural, magical power of written symbols in societies that were mainly non-literate.
The best treatment for this particular error is simply to read a LOT, as early as possible, because then the reader will soon encounter, in printed form, something that he/she knows, from first-hand knowledge, to be totally untrue, and that particular magic spell is broken forever.
As others have said, personal taste is so variable that sweeping judgements about any book, classic or ‘popular’, are bound to infuriate somebody. The only thing that really matters is the ability to read, and read properly. Arguments about types of fiction are based on the observation that most children like to read ‘stories’, and so fiction is the medium used to encourage reading. Actually, it doesn’t matter in the least whether the material read is fact or fiction, or whether, if fiction, it is good or bad. I am sure I was not the only child and teenager in the world who much preferred to read factual books about animals, history and exotic places than novels.
Nobody has said anything about register, about formal and colloquial language. Everyone needs, by the time they reach adolescence, to be able to vary spoken and written language in ways appropriate to the context. Familiarity with formal written language, with older forms of one’s native language, and indeed, other languages, all help immensely with this.
In a society that is based on widespread literacy, language skills, including reading/writing skills, are essential. Arguments about whether a given novel is interesting or uninteresting to the average teenager are a side-issue.
Miranda said on 04.11.10 at 01:21 PM • [link]
How many adults use their FREE time (not for work or for a class) to read material that they don’t like or find interesting for some reason? Anyone? If not, then why are kids supposed to?
Yes, the ability to read critically and judge text or any media message should be taught and reinforced where possible. However, this can also be reinforced through fiction. “Meyer treats Edward watching Bella sleep is romantic. However, I find it pretty creepy, myself.”
Some books do improve with time and when you get to read them without writing reports. I went back and re-read the Scarlet Letter, which was assigned to us in high school and low and behold it was pretty good.
And to be on the other side of the GWTW war, I always wished that Rhett had taken a bullet when he ran off to join the war. He’s a 30-something jerk stalkng a teenaged girl. Scarlett wasn’t obligated to love him.
Deb said on 04.11.10 at 02:23 PM • [link]
The answer to the question is “Yes, our kids is reading.” I work in a junior high school library and we try to provide a broad variety of books. Naturally, the TWILIGHT and HARRY POTTER series are popular, and so are VAMPIRE KISSES and PERCY JACKSON and THE CLIQUE books and sports fiction by Matt Christopher and Jake Maddox, and HOW TO DRAW books and sports/entertainment biographies, and manga/anime books…the list goes on. Yes, students are reading, but not necessarily what some adults believe they “should” read. So what? They ARE reading…and even back when I was in school (in the 1970s), very few students read “the classics” voluntarily.
Lee said on 04.11.10 at 03:16 PM • [link]
I had a really cool lit teacher in 7th grade who while she made us read The Odyessy, also let us pick at least one book that we wanted to read - It was the first time I read Clan of the *cough* Cave Bear. The other day I was with my mom at a large chain store in the book store and my 9 year old daughter was flipping through a copy of New Moon. My mom was all “Oh noes she is reading a romance!” I reassured my mom there was nothing but Teen angst and my daughter would be fine. (Not a big Twilight fan, but hey)
My daughter loves the Walter Farley books - actually any book with a horse on the cover. And as for reading with facts - HAS ANYONE HEARD OF MARY HOPE OSBORN OMG! Come on people there are a lot of Junior and Young Adult authors who use factual info from sciences and other arts as part of there books.
Let them read.
ev said on 04.11.10 at 04:48 PM • [link]
To this day I still collect Comic Books and Graphic Novels, at the age of 50. I really don’t care.
yesterday, we had the first Empire State Book Festival. The panel with the comic book/graphic artist novels was well attended by Librarians. (the entire thing was sponsered by The NY State Library Association). They are very happy that kids are coming in and reading Graphic Novels- and they aren’t of the SuperHero Variety. But things like Moby Dick (a book I hate and could never finish), The Three Musketeers and many more classics.
I have never been a believer of what you read as being the most important that but just that they read at all.
Susan Blexrud said on 04.11.10 at 04:49 PM • [link]
My son, who was just accepted in the graduate program in Classics at Columbia University in NYC, began reading the series of Goosebumps books when he was in second grade. These books were poo-pooed as rubbish by the folks who touted Mark Twain and Charles Dickens among “must reads” for youth. Hey, Goosebumps made a reader out of my son. He started there and never stopped. From Goosebumps, he went on to C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling, and then J.R. Tolkien. He threw in a slew of Anne Rice, too. Now, he reads the classics in Latin and Greek. Tell me Goosebumps wasn’t a good foundation…I dare you!
dick said on 04.11.10 at 05:01 PM • [link]
Wasn’t it Bacon who wrote that some writing is to be tasted, some is to be chewed, and some is to be digested? I think all readers can taste, but to chew and digest requires more than recognition of words and their meanings in relation to one another. If one reads that the treachery of 9/ll is equal to that of Dec. 7, 1941, won’t he miss something if he doesn’t know what happened on Dec. 7, 1941? Or if he reads that the Supreme Court upheld the 2d amendment in the case of Sam vs The City of Nowhere, will he understand what the headline imparts? Reading well requires more than being literate, in my thinking, and that, I think, is Hirsch’s point.
nlowery71 said on 04.11.10 at 05:08 PM • [link]
About the fiction/nonfiction divide: most grade school nonfiction books are set up like magazines: lots of boxes, inserts, pictures etc. Nothing wrong with that, and my K-6th graders check out a lot of it (more than fiction.)
However, this format doesn’t lend itself as well to sustained reading. Getting swept up in a narrative (fiction or non) is a different reading experience than reading bits and pieces, or reading strictly for information. And one of the best ways to improve reading skills is sustained reading, where you sort of forget the work involved and become immersed. I don’t think its some magical thing, I just think kids (and adults) are inclined to read more when the text becomes absorbing.
Sometimes I think we should actually separate the skills a bit more. Instead of requiring texts that are really meant for entertainment, thus killing the “fun” quality for a lot of kids, we should teach more “reading for information” skills, all the while reading great stories to them and dangling really fun-looking books in classroom and school libraries as bait.
(I work in a school, and sometimes I feel like our constant emphasis on “read for fun and read it NOW” is killing some of the interest kids might have in actually reading for fun.)
Chelsea said on 04.11.10 at 05:30 PM • [link]
I will forever resent those who think that my reading is a waste of time because I choose romance and fantasy over classic literature. I understand that it’s fiction but I’ve still learned so much from them. In high school there was one particular European History test that I passed almost entirely based on knowledge gained frome Shannon Drake’s historical romance. Not only that, but quite often reading sparks curiousity—a word I didn’t know, some fact or phenomenon, a historical event I never new happened. That leads me to search out knowlegde from text books, or the internet.
JoAnn Chartier said on 04.11.10 at 05:37 PM • [link]
I read like a fiend back in the day, and my library card was my passport to places I never would have imagined. I look back now and realize what my 8th grade teacher’s expression revealed when I turned in my first book report: The Greek Passion, by Nikos Kazantzakis.
For those whose eyebrows just met the hairline, as hers did, the book is not about THAT kind of Greek love.
I love reading, and all kinds of books, but I’m also inclined to believe that adding images (a la movies and video games) might be a good thing, because reading is essentially a left-brain, analytical, male dominated system, while pictures, emotions, and imagination are associated with the female right-brain learning mode. I say, bring on the girlbrain and let er rip!
JennKnight said on 04.11.10 at 05:48 PM • [link]
This just offends me. I grew up poor, but had a few friends who were from fairly well-off families. You’d have been lucky to find ten books in their homes. Mine on the other hand…you couldn’t walk without hitting a bookcase, or a stack of books because we never had enough shelf space for them.
The most important thing is letting children read whatever interests them. When my oldest was in 5th grade, I got into a tiff with his teacher about his Sustained Silent Reading material. She wanted children to read “upstanding literature for young persons” but, as I explained to her, “This is a kid who took my radio apart at age 4 to see how it worked, and then put it back together again perfectly. Who just wired his dad’s old blue light (volunteer firefighter) to his bike and created a pedal-driven power source. Do you really think he’s interested in ‘Jack and the Lazy Dog’?” From then on, she let him read what he wanted - which was DIY books about electrical wiring, auto repair, home improvements and remodeling, etc.
He’s 23 now, an electrician’s apprentice, and just finished re-wiring the house he inherited from his granddad. And an avid reader.
ev said on 04.11.10 at 06:11 PM • [link]
Jenn- I am right with you on that. We never had much, but we did have one entire 20+ foot wall, ceiling to floor, of bookshelves. The other families in the neighborhood mostly had squat when it came to reading material. I even had a sort of library system, because the kids would come and borrow books to do reports and such. We were out in the country and the library wasn’t a quick drive down the road. We had an entire set of encyclopedias that got a lot of use. And in my house, I don’t think there is a room that doesn’t have shelves and stacks of books in it, including the hallways. Pretentious statements like that one just bug the crap out of me no end.
During the summer btwn 7th and 8th grade we had to do a book report. I chose to do it on War and Peace and was told it was too much for me. I proved the wrong. But I also had some wonderful teachers who knew I could sit in the back of the room, read a book and know what was going on in class, so they left me alone.
ocelott said on 04.11.10 at 07:41 PM • [link]
Sure, but as a fully grown adult with children of my own, I don’t always know the details of every reference I come across while reading. I am, however, able to look it up. I can plug “Dec 7 1941” into google search and discover “oh, that’s Pearl Harbour.” I can then read any number of online articles about it if I so choose, or I can go back to what I was reading before. The younger generation is even more comfortable with the wonders of the internet and google search than I am. If they already know everything presented in the article or book or whatever it is, why read it in the first place?
Suze said on 04.11.10 at 07:43 PM • [link]
AgTigress, you nailed it. There is a shockingly large number of people who come to my town looking for work (we’re booming, when the rest of the continent is still facing huge unemployment—go, Dirty Oil!) who are functionally illiterate. They can’t get jobs if they can’t pass basic safety tests.
There’s now an underground industry of safety test fraud, in which you pay somebody to pretend to be you, take the test, and get the card, so that you can get onto one of the plant sites. Where you will mis-read or fail entirely to read important signs and instructions, and kill somebody.
I read an article several years ago which reported that Toyota chose to build a factory in Ontario rather than one of the southern states, in spite of better tax breaks in that state, in large part because the state’s population was insufficiently literate to be trained by their established methods, and it would cost too much to re-create the training program for them.
What you read matters not in the least. What matters is that you can read, and understand what you’ve read.
JamiSings said on 04.11.10 at 07:52 PM • [link]
In regards to non-fiction - I work as a library clerk and I do see kids check out a lot of non-fiction. The ones that are for reports, IE: California missions, ancient Egypt, various wars, etc they hate. A lot of the kids whine to their parents when checking them out. Their parents respond that they have to do it and can’t read their pleasure books until it’s done. (Pleasure being the Geronimo Stilton, Time Warp Trio, Magic Treehouse, etc.)
Then there’s the pleasure non-fiction, which there is a lot of. Not to stereotype but boys do tend to stick with sports figures, cars, dinosaurs, bugs, germs, and people like Dr. Dre and Ludacris. Girls tend for books about animals especially dogs and horses, (one little girl kept checking out every book we had on dogs until her parents gave in and adopted one), various history books like about the 40s and 50s, artists long gone like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, and rarely is that one little girl who wants a book about bugs and other “gross” stuff.
I once told my history teacher the reason I hated learning history is because it never taught what I cared about - like the personalities of the people. He just dismissed me but it hit me again years later when I read these huge books that covered the history of England all the way up to the year 2000. The author kept saying that the personalities and quirks of the various kings and queens (like rumors that King James was a homosexual or that King Richard The Lionheart was a pedophile who liked 5 year old boys) “didn’t matter.” That it was only dates and events that mattered. And I thought “YES IT DOES TOO MATTER! It makes history more interesting to know if a queen had OCD or something! More alive!” I didn’t retain anything for his books. However I did retain a lot from Michael Farquhar’s A Treasury of Royal Scandals.
Non-fiction has got to actually matter to the reader before they actually care. That’s why I like true crime or religious books over most history books or books about math.
SusannaG said on 04.11.10 at 08:15 PM • [link]
I don’t think I was ever told there was anything I couldn’t read. My mother says the only thing she was ever told she couldn’t read was “Forever Amber,” at 14. (Her daddy wasn’t having his little girl read famous smut!) We both passed history exams in high school based on our addictions to historical fiction and/or historical romance. She ended up getting a Ph.D in English, so I guess Forever Amber (which she read anyway on the sly) wasn’t such a bad foundation!
Suze said on 04.11.10 at 08:50 PM • [link]
Did he mean rumours of of a king’s homosexuality would have had no impact on the events of his reign? The courtiers and politicians of the time were just dandy with that? WTF? Personalities have preferences, which bias decisions, which lead to actions, which spark events. Personality IS history.
Harumph.
JamiSings said on 04.11.10 at 09:48 PM • [link]
Suze - Yep. He pretty much stated that their personalties had nothing to do with events caused by them. That only dry dates and facts were important. It’s attitudes like that from people like this author and my teachers that kept me from ever becoming a history buff.
Lady T said on 04.11.10 at 09:50 PM • [link]
To Christy,
The author may not have meant to sound elitist,but that statement certainly comes across that way. I do agree that children in poorer areas where the amount of funding given to the schools in their area(both public and private)is nowhere near equal to the more upscale districts within the community do have disadvantages but what is being overlooked is student motivation and inclination.
Some people ,even with a wealth of resources at their disposal just won’t be bothered to increase their store of knowledge while others regardless of limited means to learn and do much more than anyone expects of them. A lot of that begins at home and can be either helped or hindered by the education system.
As for the rest of the article,I’m not crazy about the whole “blame the novel” approach to the lack of high reading scores. Reading comprehension covers all form of writing and if you can understand the mechanics of a murder mystery,you can also figure out any basic instruction manual for a household appliance or description of a major battle in history. The real problem is with the methodology,not the material. As the old saying goes,“It’s a poor musician who blames his instrument.”
SusannaG said on 04.11.10 at 10:23 PM • [link]
JamiSings - what a jerk. I got really lucky in my high school history teachers, I realize now, looking back. Their emphasis was rather old-fashioned at the time - it was on narrative history. That, you know, tells a story about people. I liked it so much I majored in history in college.
SusannaG said on 04.11.10 at 10:25 PM • [link]
And we didn’t even have to memorize more than a handful of dates. Though misspelling “Mediterranean” could get you in a world of trouble!
Polly said on 04.11.10 at 11:32 PM • [link]
@Suze:
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that James was a homosexual (since homosexuality as an identity is not something that’s applicable for the early modern period. The closest period description you’d get would be a sodomite, and I don’t think anyone called James that), but he did have male favorites, and there were lots of anonymous libels that would mention the “king’s ganymede,” etc. Of course the courtiers knew about the king’s predilections—no real secrets in a monarchy where the monarch lives under public scrutiny most of the time. They might not have thought that James’ overwhelming favor towards his favorites was a great thing, but it was the way it was, and they worked within the system they had. For example, after the fall of one of the favorites, George Carr, there’s a letter from one courtier at court to his family in the country describing the fall from favor and telling them to send one of their attractive male relatives, in the hopes that he might catch the king’s eye next. They might not have loved the system, but it’s not like they could do anything about it (just one of those things about a monarch—you’re stuck with the one you have).
Molybdenite said on 04.12.10 at 03:36 AM • [link]
Neat! My mom is a pack-rat when it comes to books and instilled this characterisitic in me: textbooks, encyclopedias, romance novels, non-fiction it did not matter. I’ve actually thought about putting everything we’ve got through the L.O.C. (Library of Congress) calssification system to get them organized and see what was there- then I realized I’d spend most of my time re-reading old favorites so it would never get done.
Suze said on 04.12.10 at 05:30 AM • [link]
@Polly:
I don’t know much about James, but according to a documentary I watched, Edward II had some serious political problems because of his very flamboyant male lover, and eventually was deposed in no small part because of that relationship.
My point was that you can’t separate the personal from the historical. History is just current events from the past. Pretending that people and their foibles have nothing to do with the events of history just makes no sense to me.
century34! How does it know?
Merry said on 04.12.10 at 06:38 AM • [link]
My reading skills tested at a ninth-grade level when I was in first grade. I firmly believe I owe that entirely to my mother, who made sure I was never without a book or two during long car rides and who let me read at the dinner table from age seven onwards. If today’s adults want kids to read more (or read Teh Important Literature, debatable as the merits of that may be), they had better make sure they get them reading early. Parents, it’s on you.
And as a teenager who enjoys J. K. Rowling and Shakespeare equally, I am frankly depressed that I seem to be the exception rather the rule. I didn’t always like Shakespeare, though, and I certainly despised listening to a bunch of disinterested kids stumble through Othello in English class. I learned to love Shakespeare through acting. Approaching Measure for Measure as a play to act rather than Teh Important Literature to BS an essay on was a major turning point for me. Somehow making a text relevant to a student’s interests (see what I did thar?) can often make a ton of difference.
Ivana said on 04.12.10 at 09:37 AM • [link]
IMO, the main problem in all these discussions about what young people should be reading (and they are always the same discussion) lies in the assumptions that are not stated. One of them appears to be that the world of reading and the time you spent immersed in it are both basically finite. So you would either be reading “good books”, or “bad books”, and you better stick to good books, whatever they are, because otherwise the train is gone. Therefore, the reason why people make such a big deal of kids reading the old-long-musty-classic “good book”, is that the kids are a captive audience while in school or parental home, and this is seen as the only time window to cram those books down their throat (never mind the kids’ interest, maturity level and emotional readiness). Again, the unspoken assumption here is that a free grown-up wouldn’t touch those classics with a ten-foot pole, which is quite a vote of non-confidence for those same classics that the “cultural literacy” people are supposedly promoting. If a person’s reading life was viewed as endless and boundless, the either/or framework would have absolutely no place in public discourse regarding reading. May be that is what all who argue about should instead think of.
Kirsten said on 04.12.10 at 01:06 PM • [link]
I’m pleasantly surprised to find that E.D. Hirsch is promoting nonfiction reading. Those of you who are upset about the comment that children in a lower socioeconomic class lack background knowledge, it is unfortunately generally true. Often there is generational poverty and lack of education or interest in it, and the parents in that situation are not quizzing their kids at Sunday dinner on the contents of the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy or leaving Toni Morrison hidden in a box in the closet.
Something you might not realize is that teachers often define reading as “reading chapter books”. In the library I ran, I had very frustrated kids because their teachers wouldn’t let them do their book reports on nonfiction books. These kids were STARVED for nonfiction. Animals, machines, and sports were particularly popular. But in schools, nonfiction reading often “doesn’t count”. Newspapers, comic books, and magazines aren’t “really reading”.
I was just having a discussion with a friend of mine who is a high school science teacher. She is supposed to be teaching with an anchor text chosen by the English teacher- Fahrenheit 451. What the heck does that have in common with high school chemistry? Fahrenheit 451 is a great book, but come on.
I personally have come to find the “gateway drug” theory of reading patronizing. Goosebumps doesn’t have to lead to Edgar Allan Poe, it can just be enjoyed because it’s enjoyable. And when kids enjoy what they’re reading, they read independently. And when they read things of their own choosing, independently, they will eventually read successfully, most of the time.
To be fair to the “give them what they need” school, I read The Yellow Wallpaper in college, didn’t understand it, and hated it… and now I get it, and I am glad I was exposed to it. If it hadn’t been assigned, I don’t think I would have tracked it down on my own, or even known about it. Dumping everything in the canon because it’s not immediately relevant doesn’t make sense any more than only teaching what kids are already reading. It’s the attitude that kids should only read “appropriate” books that is offensive.
Tiblet said on 04.12.10 at 03:07 PM • [link]
I have a 7 year old daughter and a 5 year old son. Both love to read. We have always taken them to the school book fair and buy them several other books throughout each year. This year’s book fair came as a surprise when we took our daughter (she has attention deficit disorder). She has been reading a chapter a night in the Percy Jackson series, so we were expecting her to say she wanted something like Harry Potter or some other fantasy style fiction. Instead, she picked out Little Women. And yes, she understands what she reads as does our son.
We have always allowed them to read what they want, but when they are done with their most recent book, we ask them what the story was about, what the favorite character was and why, why they thought it was good or bad, what the point of the book was, and a whole lot of other questions. They can answer these questions and often give other information we haven’t asked for. They also come and ask us if they don’t understand something.
They both will pick up the weekly paper we get and read the headlines and stories and ask questions. This is not an every week happening, but if a headline catches either one’s attention, we get questions we often have to look up to let them get more information.
My daughter is already looking at my stack of Richard Tankersley Cusick (yes, I know YA at my age *blushes and giggles*) asking when she can start those and our son wants to know when he can start my husband’s Dragonlance set. They both read one grade level above their current grade and I feel a lot of it is because we let them read for pleasure.
They don’t always like the books they are assigned to read in school, but they go ahead and read them and comprehend what they are reading. If you let them learn with something fun, they will learn to appreciate the written word, whether the story itself interests them or not.
As my favorite high school teacher said “read for pleasure, read for profit…“and I still believe if you begin reading for pleasure you will be able to read for profit.
Tiblet said on 04.12.10 at 03:08 PM • [link]
Sorry… Richie Tankersley Cusick. I misspelled the first name.
Kathleen Dienne said on 04.12.10 at 03:22 PM • [link]
I was a heavy reader from the moment I figured out how. Until adulthood I specialized in thick heavy books that give educators a thrill.
I do not have any wonderpants, and I want some this instant. Where are my wonderpants?!
As an adult, I have gone pleasantly to pieces, and indulge my actual tastes. So I guess this is proof I shouldn’t have read the classics when I was younger, because it prepared me for a life of trashy reading.
Beki said on 04.12.10 at 03:23 PM • [link]
Is Gone With the Wind literature? I always considered it too good to be literature. But then, I’m a history buff and it was the first view I ever had of the Confederacy from the inside. I still love that book. Though Scarlett was definitely in need of the gay best friend to tell her what’s what.
My view of reading and teens is based on my own 16yo boy. He is homeschooled so I have bookshelves filled to bursting with literature and pop fic alike. I have to teach him enough to cover English lit through high school, but I’m always surprised by the choices he makes, the opinions he forms, and the authors he likes. He is different from me as day is from night, but his brain is so fun to watch.
The one thing from the comments I’d point out is that kids aren’t being taught to read with any comprehension, to form an opinion, to analyze what they’re reading. It isn’t hard to teach them, but I have no trouble believing that freshman lit in college is full of wide-eyed high school grads who cannot make a well-documented argument on why the heroine of The Scarlet Letter didn’t just up and move to a new community.
But at that point? They’re in college. They will be taught.
Ulrike said on 04.12.10 at 06:31 PM • [link]
You should snag a copy of The Read-Aloud Handbook. In it, Jim Trelease talks a great deal about the myth that reading the “wrong” books will make kids dumb. There’s a relevant excerpt here: Whatever happened to the classics? When I was a kid, we read Ivanhoe and Kidnapped and . . . (This bit starts near the bottom of the page.)
Also, check out what he wrote about Captain Underpants and Junie B. Jones.
Lynn M said on 04.12.10 at 06:38 PM • [link]
I’m a firm believer that the first priority is to make reading fun for kids. If that means they get to read Captain Underpants books, so be it. No matter what they read - Twilight, Harry Potter, Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies - they are increasing their vocabulary, learning how to spell, witnessing (hopefully) good grammar and sentence structure in action, even to a degree subconsciously absorbing an appreciation for plot, conflict, etc. Reading improves language skills, so it should be encouraged in whatever way necessary to make it a desirable habit.
That said, I do admit to a belief that it is important to introduce, encourage, and yea, maybe even “require” kids to read some classics. I say this not so much because I believe kids can’t be smart if they don’t read classics. For me, it’s more a matter of context. Classics form a sort of glue that binds us to a common frame of reference. They are a part of our history and our culture. I think it’s key for kids to maintain that connection. The themes and history and allegory found in classics are important to preserve if for nothing more than they serve as a snapshot on our culture’s evolutionary timeline. If we don’t pass them on to future generations, they will become lost.
Too, I think classics - on the whole - tend to require more processing than mainstream fiction. It’s like learning algebra - most people don’t need to solve quadratic equations on a daily basis. But knowing how to solve problems when you only have a limited amount of information/resources is a life skill that is crucial. Reading classics - looking for themes, identifying allegory, discussing conflict, character, plot - helps kids stretch their brains in ways that can only help them.
Problem is, who decides what is “classic”?
Kirsten said on 04.12.10 at 09:40 PM • [link]
I really think people get way too invested over “classics”. Shakespeare and Dickens wrote for the masses, and opera and theater were entertainment for everyone, not just the elite.
There are some things people should read or know because it’s difficult to really comprehend or appreciate some things if you are not aware of them.
For instance,
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”
You have to know a little about Shakespeare and who Caesar is in order to understand that(and also know that not everything needs to be taken literally) but you’ll see versions and references to it outside the play.
Or, my personal example of cultural ignorance- never having had any exposure to the New Testament as a child, I was fifteen before I learned that the Narnia books were a Christian allegory. My lack of Biblical knowledge also meant that I missed out on understanding Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. I can’t say that I have read the Bible cover to cover, but I don’t think anyone will argue that the Bible isn’t relevant. Heck, there was a cultural revolution to make it commonly available to people. Or that Romeo and Juliet’s “starcrossed lovers” didn’t have some kind of impact on the formation of Twilight.
The dichotomy of classics vs. “trash” is a false one, really. But there are good reasons to expose kids, and everyone, to a wide variety of books and points of view.
Tricia London said on 04.12.10 at 11:13 PM • [link]
Famous Quote by Mark Twain: “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
As a high school librarian I pulled all of my “classics” off the shelf and created a separate section for them. They were getting in the way and made it harder for kids to wade through and fine “the good stuff” as they put it. I didn’t throw them out, (because they’re “classics”) but I did move them.
Polly said on 04.13.10 at 12:44 AM • [link]
Argh, I just typed up a whole comment and my machine ate it. I’ll retype, but if it ends up posting twice, my apologies. And, of course, the remark that got eaten was so much more eloquent etc than this one.
@Suze,
I totally agree that you can’t separate the personal from the historical, but by the same token, you can’t separate the historical from the personal. The tidbits that we find interesting/noteworthy/scandalous/titillating/whathaveyou don’t always mean the same things in the period they occurred that they mean for us. So, what the personal means is historically determined. That James liked to have attractive men around, and that Edward liked to have attractive men around, while to us might mean that James and Edward were both homosexuals, signified something else to contemporaries, and didn’t signify the same thing to James’ contemporaries, as it did to Edward’s. More a problem was that Edward showed what was seen as excessive favor to his purported lovers, and while James showed lots of favor to his favorites, it never tipped the balance into “let’s raise an army and rebel” territory. So, what looks to us, today, on the surface as similar characteristics of the two monarchs, looked to contemporaries pretty differently, and certainly inspired a very different type of response (can you tell I’m a professional historian? :) ).
Anyway, since the discussion has gone elsewhere, I’ll stop being pointy-headed now unless asked for more.
Rebecca said on 04.13.10 at 05:17 AM • [link]
Further famous quote by Mark Twain (about Huckleberry Finn): “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
It is sometimes rather difficult to tell when Twain is being serious and when he is being ironic. But how nice that no student will accidentally pick up Geoffrey Chaucer when looking for John Connolly, or any of the other wonderful anomalies of alphabetically shelved novels. (For years as a kid I was happy that Hamlet and Black Beauty were next to each other. I finally deformed my alphabetical organization of books so that the prince and the thoroughbred could stay together. It seemed so appropriate.)
Lynn M said on 04.13.10 at 04:30 PM • [link]
@kirsten - thank you because you gave great examples of exactly what I was talking about.
There are aspects of classics that have become a sort of short-hand that, if you have no background or understanding of those classics, end up being lost.
And since Mark Twain has been brought into the discussion, a perfect example is Tom Sawyer. I think the name/character/phrase “Tom Sawyer” serves as a short hand for our culture. If you describe someone as being a Tom Sawyer, I would guess most of us can form a very close idea of what that person is like. If, however, kids are never required to read Tom Sawyer, eventually that ability, that frame of reference will be lost.
Not to mention that Tom Sawyer is just a great book.
Molybdenite said on 04.14.10 at 04:43 AM • [link]
Famous Quote by Mark Twain: “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
Further famous quote by Mark Twain (about Huckleberry Finn): “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
This made me think of one we use on bookmarks for Banned Book Week
Care to comment?
Comments are now closed for this post.
Subscribe to These Comments