What Not to Read in High School
August 28, 2018 9:52 AM Subscribe
The current literary canon for high school is wrong and should be fixed. The whole concept of the “canon” is less essential to our culture, especially as we see how many people were kept out of this canon, and how many were prematurely thrust into it. There are more good writers publishing more good books now, and they’re being disrespected by our obsession with a narrow set of “timeless” stories that are in fact showing their age.
The argument to remove Brave New World but keep 1984 seems odd, given that Huxley was more on the mark than Orwell.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:59 AM on August 28, 2018 [51 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:59 AM on August 28, 2018 [51 favorites]
Yeah, I agree with this in principle. There ought to be a way to avoid kids having to read 'consensus' books but still having a class that reads and discovers together. Too many people seem to reach adulthood with the idea that reading fiction is a chore.
The 'timeless' books in particular are frozen in a bubble from the last time we had a consensus American culture and we need to get beyond that. Embrace the fruitful wilderness of perspective that is modernity.
posted by selfnoise at 9:59 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
The 'timeless' books in particular are frozen in a bubble from the last time we had a consensus American culture and we need to get beyond that. Embrace the fruitful wilderness of perspective that is modernity.
posted by selfnoise at 9:59 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
I took IB English, so we got to read The House of the Spirits and The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 11th grade. Both mind-blowing.
I have many quibbles with the particular replacements this list proposes, though. First off, I have never in my life heard The Scarlet Letter described as a "banger." When we were taught it, our teacher straight-up told us "we are doing this one early in the year because it has extremely obvious symbolism for us to practice analysis on, and then we'll move on to books that are actually enjoyable to read."
Secondly... you're trying to decolonize your reading list and you ADD Foundation by Isaac Asimov? Have you read that book? Because it is the most pro-imperialism work of fiction I have ever read. WTF.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:02 AM on August 28, 2018 [31 favorites]
I have many quibbles with the particular replacements this list proposes, though. First off, I have never in my life heard The Scarlet Letter described as a "banger." When we were taught it, our teacher straight-up told us "we are doing this one early in the year because it has extremely obvious symbolism for us to practice analysis on, and then we'll move on to books that are actually enjoyable to read."
Secondly... you're trying to decolonize your reading list and you ADD Foundation by Isaac Asimov? Have you read that book? Because it is the most pro-imperialism work of fiction I have ever read. WTF.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:02 AM on August 28, 2018 [31 favorites]
He suggests replacing The Iliad with War Music, and his add list includes Station Eleven, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Kindred, A Wizard of Earthsea, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, No One Belongs Here More Than You, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia, Angels in America, Understanding Comics, Persepolis, Fun Home, Saga Vol. 1, and Maus.
I kind of agree with his basic point, but DAMN am I in accord with his taste.
posted by kyrademon at 10:05 AM on August 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
I kind of agree with his basic point, but DAMN am I in accord with his taste.
posted by kyrademon at 10:05 AM on August 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
This is a valid point, but the examples he uses are laughable.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 10:11 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by whimsicalnymph at 10:11 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
High school teachers assign Brett Easton Ellis?
The choice of Wizard of Earthsea is strange to me since that's really aimed at like 12 year olds. It would be much more meaningful to have them read The Dispossesed.
It's weird to have this conversation about the canon anymore because part of the idea of educating people in a canon is so that everyone who came up in the same era will have the same set of texts forming their intellectual background, as a kind of common cord and shared cultural foundation. It's problematic becuase the texts are problematic and the canon should be critically rethought. But then once we throw it out we no longer have a canon, just a selection of texts that are up to each teacher/school and so the greatest benefit of the canon disappears (the shared background). So, I dunno.
I lean towards keeping a traditional canon but augmenting it with critical appraisals and distance, as well as including additional texts on *top* of the tradition. But there's only so much time, and only weirdos like me want to read that many books.
But maybe the benefit of a canon at all is grandly overstated. The only thing my book learning did for me was make me entertaining at cocktail parties with college professors and annoying to anyone else
posted by dis_integration at 10:12 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
The choice of Wizard of Earthsea is strange to me since that's really aimed at like 12 year olds. It would be much more meaningful to have them read The Dispossesed.
It's weird to have this conversation about the canon anymore because part of the idea of educating people in a canon is so that everyone who came up in the same era will have the same set of texts forming their intellectual background, as a kind of common cord and shared cultural foundation. It's problematic becuase the texts are problematic and the canon should be critically rethought. But then once we throw it out we no longer have a canon, just a selection of texts that are up to each teacher/school and so the greatest benefit of the canon disappears (the shared background). So, I dunno.
I lean towards keeping a traditional canon but augmenting it with critical appraisals and distance, as well as including additional texts on *top* of the tradition. But there's only so much time, and only weirdos like me want to read that many books.
But maybe the benefit of a canon at all is grandly overstated. The only thing my book learning did for me was make me entertaining at cocktail parties with college professors and annoying to anyone else
posted by dis_integration at 10:12 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
So my (non-US) state has a very different relationship to reading lists. Specifically, they're not all books I think the way it works is that the school's allowed to pick a general theme, and there's a few texts within that list the school is able to pick from. There's some episodes of a classic bit of 90s satire of tabloid television which is, insanely, still completely relevant today. I read a book that I've never heard of and frankly can't recall much of that's about a man who's moved to a house close to sand dunes. The intention is that students get some practice at media literacy and by tackling the same general themes from multiple angles you get to compare and contrast a bit better.
I find the idea that if you get everyone to read the same books in school then everyone will have a shared cultural understanding... troubling, somehow. I mean, it sounds like a delightful idea, but I wonder whether it works as well as it seems to.
posted by Merus at 10:13 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
I find the idea that if you get everyone to read the same books in school then everyone will have a shared cultural understanding... troubling, somehow. I mean, it sounds like a delightful idea, but I wonder whether it works as well as it seems to.
posted by Merus at 10:13 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Was on board until he proposed throwing out Sherlock Holmes. Nope. You can pry the terrible melodrama of Study in Scarlet from my cold, dead hands.
posted by basalganglia at 10:13 AM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by basalganglia at 10:13 AM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
Cosign the notion of adding comics to the curriculum. My high school had a two-week "mini semester" where teachers could run fun little experiments. One of the English teachers did one on graphic novels. We read Understanding Comics, Maus, and Watchmen, along with some of the shorter classics. It was one of the best and most memorable classes I had, not only because the material was so unlike the comics I was used to, but because every kid in the class actually did the reading and was eager to talk about it. I didn't experience anything like that again until college.
posted by theodolite at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2018 [19 favorites]
Naturally, as an English Lit major and a bookseller, I have opinions on this subject. Herewith some random views. I do think many of these so-called classics are boring/aged badly (Gatsby, Of Mice and Men; On the Road; Pilgrim's Progress; Heart of Darkness; and many more), but I think Dante's Inferno (not the whole Comedy) should be kept—I loved the Durer illustration and the punishments. Keep the Twain essay on Fenimore Cooper and keep one of F-C's books so you know what Twain's talking about, and it's a good introduction to how to read critically (and it's funny). Keep Poe but less of his poetry and more of his stories. I agreed with the author's Keep list.
As to the Adds: my first reaction was "add The Foundation by Asimov??? Really??" But he's got a good list going of current choices so I'll approve. My thought is that the "canon" should change frequently, maybe every 20 years. Most of the current lists rely heavily on literature of the early 20th century (the Russians etc) and were heavily male. The whole idea of teaching lit in high school is to expose teenagers to the wide wide world and ways of existing in it, and many books no longer fulfill that function as well as newer ones do. And exposure to lit from other cultures and genres is never a bad idea.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
As to the Adds: my first reaction was "add The Foundation by Asimov??? Really??" But he's got a good list going of current choices so I'll approve. My thought is that the "canon" should change frequently, maybe every 20 years. Most of the current lists rely heavily on literature of the early 20th century (the Russians etc) and were heavily male. The whole idea of teaching lit in high school is to expose teenagers to the wide wide world and ways of existing in it, and many books no longer fulfill that function as well as newer ones do. And exposure to lit from other cultures and genres is never a bad idea.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
ADD Foundation??
Look, it's a seminal work in the genre, but it's just not that great a book. It's unbelievably cliched. Yes, it wasn't cliched at the time I suppose. But unless you're teaching a course on scifi cliches I don't think it has a lot going for it.
posted by GuyZero at 10:15 AM on August 28, 2018 [17 favorites]
Look, it's a seminal work in the genre, but it's just not that great a book. It's unbelievably cliched. Yes, it wasn't cliched at the time I suppose. But unless you're teaching a course on scifi cliches I don't think it has a lot going for it.
posted by GuyZero at 10:15 AM on August 28, 2018 [17 favorites]
My AP English teacher had a lot of issues, but one thing she did do well was supplementing the "canon" pieces with read with a reaction piece.
So Hamlet was paired with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Jane Eyre with Wide Sargasso Sea; Heart of Darkness with Things Fall Apart, etc. It was a good way to both get some diversity in the authors we were reading, and then to undercut some of the problematic things in, say, Heart of Darkness.
posted by damayanti at 10:16 AM on August 28, 2018 [34 favorites]
So Hamlet was paired with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Jane Eyre with Wide Sargasso Sea; Heart of Darkness with Things Fall Apart, etc. It was a good way to both get some diversity in the authors we were reading, and then to undercut some of the problematic things in, say, Heart of Darkness.
posted by damayanti at 10:16 AM on August 28, 2018 [34 favorites]
We were assigned astonishingly little of the established canon to read in schools, and what bits we did get were broken down into baby chunks or a textbook or worksheets that the book was basically never read, just ransacked to pass material. I had to read 1984/Brave New World on my own out of an interest in dystopias. I made a "Lord of the Flies" joke/reference the other day around some people less than 10 years younger than me and most of them didn't get it because they'd never actually read it. And hell, again, the only reason I ever read it was on my own volition -- I found a copy of the book being used to prop up the corner on a table or washing machine or something and picked it up to read randomly one day.
I'm just saying, before we start making a new canon, maybe check to make sure kids in school are even still being taught how to read.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:18 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm just saying, before we start making a new canon, maybe check to make sure kids in school are even still being taught how to read.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:18 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm actually kind of shocked by how much of my high school curriculum is on the "stay" list: Achebe, Atwood, Silas Marner, Beloved, Austen, the Brontes, Invisible Man. Of the "drop" list, I was only assigned Animal Farm, although I read some others on my own. Most of the "add" list was published too late to be included in a high school curriculum, although I did get "Angels in America" and Maus freshman year of college.
Other times, though, I'm amazed by how many of the "Great Books" we were assigned. Homer, multiple Sophocles, multiple Shakespeare, multiple Dickens, Greek myths, Moliere, Swift. Other classes I know got Chaucer and Cervantes.
I was also assigned Noam Chomsky in high school.
The fact that I can be amazed by both sides indicates that my school may have done an OK job. And yet, my district was the lowest-performing district on standardized tests in a state that's not known for excellence in public education. So maybe merely forming a good canon isn't enough...
posted by kevinbelt at 10:19 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Other times, though, I'm amazed by how many of the "Great Books" we were assigned. Homer, multiple Sophocles, multiple Shakespeare, multiple Dickens, Greek myths, Moliere, Swift. Other classes I know got Chaucer and Cervantes.
I was also assigned Noam Chomsky in high school.
The fact that I can be amazed by both sides indicates that my school may have done an OK job. And yet, my district was the lowest-performing district on standardized tests in a state that's not known for excellence in public education. So maybe merely forming a good canon isn't enough...
posted by kevinbelt at 10:19 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
--Agree with addition of graphic novels
--Pause at the idea of a conservative parent finding the sex scenes in Saga or Fun Home and being a-ok with them
--Also Saga is fun but kinda super-violent
--Begone Great Gatsby, yes please
--Animal Farm had far more influence on me than 1984 because it revealed how you should never trust people who tell you that working harder leads to rewards instead of the glue factory. Because it's dressed up as a children's story, it's easier for the grim endings of Boxer and the others to hit you in the gut. Good stuff.
--I am not sure that pop culture references to the Simpsons or Seinfeld are Relevant to Today's Youth any more than the old stuff is. To their parents, sure.
--Shakespeare plays should be watched first, then read. They don't make any sense on the page till you see them performed! Macbeth is great because ghosts, witches, blood. Forget Romeo and Juliet, though, how about Midsummer Night's Dream, or any comedy at all? Otherwise kids think Shakespeare=everybody dies.
--I hated Lord of the Flies then and hate it still. Begone.
--Priority for all additions should be for diversity in both authors and subject matter; people of color, queer people, women, people with disabilities.
--I would like to explore the prejudice against YA a little more. So many "great" adult novels deal with fear of death, growing older, a marriage that's not working, money, etc. which are not things a teenager has context for yet. I remember reading books like that and feeling like it was in another language. It's asking a lot for a 15 year old girl to put herself in the mindset of a 45 year old academic dude with self-esteem issues. Representation matters. More teen protagonists!
posted by emjaybee at 10:21 AM on August 28, 2018 [14 favorites]
--Pause at the idea of a conservative parent finding the sex scenes in Saga or Fun Home and being a-ok with them
--Also Saga is fun but kinda super-violent
--Begone Great Gatsby, yes please
--Animal Farm had far more influence on me than 1984 because it revealed how you should never trust people who tell you that working harder leads to rewards instead of the glue factory. Because it's dressed up as a children's story, it's easier for the grim endings of Boxer and the others to hit you in the gut. Good stuff.
--I am not sure that pop culture references to the Simpsons or Seinfeld are Relevant to Today's Youth any more than the old stuff is. To their parents, sure.
--Shakespeare plays should be watched first, then read. They don't make any sense on the page till you see them performed! Macbeth is great because ghosts, witches, blood. Forget Romeo and Juliet, though, how about Midsummer Night's Dream, or any comedy at all? Otherwise kids think Shakespeare=everybody dies.
--I hated Lord of the Flies then and hate it still. Begone.
--Priority for all additions should be for diversity in both authors and subject matter; people of color, queer people, women, people with disabilities.
--I would like to explore the prejudice against YA a little more. So many "great" adult novels deal with fear of death, growing older, a marriage that's not working, money, etc. which are not things a teenager has context for yet. I remember reading books like that and feeling like it was in another language. It's asking a lot for a 15 year old girl to put herself in the mindset of a 45 year old academic dude with self-esteem issues. Representation matters. More teen protagonists!
posted by emjaybee at 10:21 AM on August 28, 2018 [14 favorites]
My memory of high school English classes was that we would read one novel or two and do a Shakespeare play each year. This would be barely scratching the surface of any canon so to a degree it didn't matter what was selected. Our school had a decent library to get my own reading material from (almost entirely sci-fi, fantasy and Stephen King)
and the public library wasn't too far away either. It wasn't until university that I started reading literature in any volume and that was entirely something I did for pleasure.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:23 AM on August 28, 2018
and the public library wasn't too far away either. It wasn't until university that I started reading literature in any volume and that was entirely something I did for pleasure.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:23 AM on August 28, 2018
I loved Lord of the Flies! (I also remember that the consensus among my 8th grade female classmates was, if there had been girls on that island this all could have been avoided, since one of them would have just pretended to seduce Jack and then slit his throat in the night. We were some pretty metal kids huh)
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:24 AM on August 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:24 AM on August 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
Yessss, he added “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU” to the list. I think that's a great pick for short fiction: it uses something most teenagers are familiar with as its main reference point instead of works that are far less relevant/accessible to modern life, and it's creepy and compelling and thought-provoking.
As for the "Greek stuff," mostly I wish our district's go-to of the Greek tragedies hadn't been Antigone. I've come to appreciate it as an adult, but even us kids in AP English found it kind of tough going in terms of actually connecting to its themes and Antigone herself. Maybe it was just the translation. Couldn't we have tried Anne Carson's? Or gone with something by Euripides instead of Sophocles?
posted by yasaman at 10:25 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
As for the "Greek stuff," mostly I wish our district's go-to of the Greek tragedies hadn't been Antigone. I've come to appreciate it as an adult, but even us kids in AP English found it kind of tough going in terms of actually connecting to its themes and Antigone herself. Maybe it was just the translation. Couldn't we have tried Anne Carson's? Or gone with something by Euripides instead of Sophocles?
posted by yasaman at 10:25 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The Great Gatsby is overrated.I agree. This sounds great.
What would we keep from the current canon? . . .The Scarlet Letter is frankly a banger.Nevermind. Or, rather, how is it possible that someone I mostly agree with would say such a thing?
But, perhaps, we can agree on diverse, locally curated literature. Even if some teachers make the absurd claim that Hawthorne is worth reading. That's okay. Learning to ignore the opinions of authority figures is an important part of growing up.
posted by eotvos at 10:26 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
What always irks me about these "You shouldn't have to read these books in high school" lists—and you can count on them with the regularity of the Beloit College list—is that, at least when I was in high school in the early 80s, I largely didn't—and I took AP lit classes. Of his "Ditch" list, I recally only "The Heart of Darkness," some of the Poe and possibly Death Of A Salesman being actually assigned reading. I chose to read Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, and 1984 as supplementary reading at some point, and the rest I either read on my own, later in college, or in some cases never.
I mean, ultimately, editorials like these—especially ones as glib as this one—are basically "What I'd like to teach my ideal class" which is fine, but which don't have a lot of value except as a professional exercise or a dinner game.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:31 AM on August 28, 2018 [17 favorites]
I mean, ultimately, editorials like these—especially ones as glib as this one—are basically "What I'd like to teach my ideal class" which is fine, but which don't have a lot of value except as a professional exercise or a dinner game.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:31 AM on August 28, 2018 [17 favorites]
Adding the Foundation Trilogy sounds like trolling. It might be a seminal work, but it's not well-written and hasn't aged well and that seems contrary to the essayist's intention of replacing the literature that hasn't aged well.
If he wants seminal and trenchant sci-fi of the mid-20th century on the curriculum, it's hard to think of hard-SF that's both commendable and suitable for an audience of high schoolers. I would suggest punting entirely and adding Gibson, Disch, Ballard or Dick, although that is probably just my prejudices showing.
posted by ardgedee at 10:34 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
If he wants seminal and trenchant sci-fi of the mid-20th century on the curriculum, it's hard to think of hard-SF that's both commendable and suitable for an audience of high schoolers. I would suggest punting entirely and adding Gibson, Disch, Ballard or Dick, although that is probably just my prejudices showing.
posted by ardgedee at 10:34 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
I clicked on this article expecting a hate-read, but it's good! Some of the "ditch" books I encountered in history classes, not English -- I would suggest that that's a better place for Candide, Heart of Darkness, etc. I wouldn't ditch Shakespeare's comedies, but I might re-arrange the order. Much Ado About Nothing is fun as hell, has a great Keanu movie to go with it, and is well-suited to 8th and 9th graders. Romeo and Juliet is taught to 14-year-olds with baffling insistence (even though, as with Catcher in the Rye, most of us couldn't move past our judgment of Romeo and Juliet long enough to get the rest of the play). I might even suggest replacing the later-taught Hamlet with Romeo and Juliet, because a lot of high school teachers aren't comfortable explaining the sex stuff and Hamlet doesn't work well without it.
From what I can tell, Hitchhiker's Guide and Persepolis already have made it onto the students' choice summer reading list. I like the other adds. (Hunger for optional summer reading though, teens being forced into a class discussion about body insecurity is a complete nightmare.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:35 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
From what I can tell, Hitchhiker's Guide and Persepolis already have made it onto the students' choice summer reading list. I like the other adds. (Hunger for optional summer reading though, teens being forced into a class discussion about body insecurity is a complete nightmare.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:35 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I actually like the idea that everyone reads the same books, even if they aren't that good. That's exactly how Tv and pop music works, and it's nice to be able to cross the entire world and be able to strike up a conversation with a stranger about A Divine Comedy or Heart of Darkness (both real examples) and not about football (soccer) or (at the time) The Spice Girls and Blur.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:41 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:41 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
That's exactly how Tv and pop music works,
It was 10 years ago. I really don't think it is now.
posted by howfar at 10:44 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
It was 10 years ago. I really don't think it is now.
posted by howfar at 10:44 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Did I miss the part where we skip Dickens? Because I will award one (1) Metafilter favorite to anyone who joins me in complaining about having to slog through Dickens. Especially Great Expectations.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to reward 19th-century serial novel writers for length committed crimes against all subsequent readers.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:45 AM on August 28, 2018 [14 favorites]
Whoever thought it was a good idea to reward 19th-century serial novel writers for length committed crimes against all subsequent readers.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:45 AM on August 28, 2018 [14 favorites]
It was 10 years ago. I really don't think it is now.
It mostly still does. I mean, we had a post last week about Rhianna selling 250million albums.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:47 AM on August 28, 2018
It mostly still does. I mean, we had a post last week about Rhianna selling 250million albums.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:47 AM on August 28, 2018
The argument to remove Brave New World but keep 1984 seems odd, given that Huxley was more on the mark than Orwell.
I was coming in to say exactly this.
I had an interesting conversation about this type of thing with my roommate recently; with film more so than literature, but kind of generally the same point. (He went to film school; I am undergoing a self-imposed exploration of the film canon.) He said something like this about how intro-to-film classes always assign the classics, but "they should ignore everything that happened before 1995, seriously." I reacted strongly, but then he made a good argument - that this is introductory stuff. You are introducing tools to readers for the first time, which they can then apply to the classics once they're familiar with how the tools themselves work.
"So that's why you go with something like The Avengers," he said. Everyone's seen it, everyone already is on board with it and gets it. Which is why it's the perfect way to introduce people to things like plot and pacing and such, because they're already on familiar ground. Use the popular stuff to teach the tools, he said, then go back and apply those tools of evaluation to the classics.
Literature is the same thing, he said. He even went so far as to say that no one should read Shakespeare in high school; "nobody likes it." I took umbrage at that ("hey, I liked it!"), but then admitted that I was probably an exception. However, in reviewing this list I'm not so sure I am - i remember there was a study hall I was stuck in Senior Year where I befriended a girl with a dramatically different background from me; we ended up sitting next to each other, and we were both shy and quiet kids who were looking for an in-class friend so we sort of bonded. And that's how I ended up telling her the plot of this obscure Poe short story one day in study hall and she was blown away by it, eagerly listening to the story unfold as if I were narrating a telenovella. Poe may get wordy, but man, do people dig the histrionic over-the-top gothic plots if you focus on that bit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:47 AM on August 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
I was coming in to say exactly this.
I had an interesting conversation about this type of thing with my roommate recently; with film more so than literature, but kind of generally the same point. (He went to film school; I am undergoing a self-imposed exploration of the film canon.) He said something like this about how intro-to-film classes always assign the classics, but "they should ignore everything that happened before 1995, seriously." I reacted strongly, but then he made a good argument - that this is introductory stuff. You are introducing tools to readers for the first time, which they can then apply to the classics once they're familiar with how the tools themselves work.
"So that's why you go with something like The Avengers," he said. Everyone's seen it, everyone already is on board with it and gets it. Which is why it's the perfect way to introduce people to things like plot and pacing and such, because they're already on familiar ground. Use the popular stuff to teach the tools, he said, then go back and apply those tools of evaluation to the classics.
Literature is the same thing, he said. He even went so far as to say that no one should read Shakespeare in high school; "nobody likes it." I took umbrage at that ("hey, I liked it!"), but then admitted that I was probably an exception. However, in reviewing this list I'm not so sure I am - i remember there was a study hall I was stuck in Senior Year where I befriended a girl with a dramatically different background from me; we ended up sitting next to each other, and we were both shy and quiet kids who were looking for an in-class friend so we sort of bonded. And that's how I ended up telling her the plot of this obscure Poe short story one day in study hall and she was blown away by it, eagerly listening to the story unfold as if I were narrating a telenovella. Poe may get wordy, but man, do people dig the histrionic over-the-top gothic plots if you focus on that bit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:47 AM on August 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
Haha my well-meaning, extremely Christian public school teachers assigned so much Dickens. The trauma caused me to block it out.
Honestly, I think there's something to be said for shorter books when it comes to English classes. If teachers really want to assign the wordiest Victorian writers, they can go with a short story. It's downright cruel to expect anyone to read 500 pages of Great Expectations (when they know they hate it after the first 100 pages).
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:50 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Honestly, I think there's something to be said for shorter books when it comes to English classes. If teachers really want to assign the wordiest Victorian writers, they can go with a short story. It's downright cruel to expect anyone to read 500 pages of Great Expectations (when they know they hate it after the first 100 pages).
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:50 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Re: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Remind me, is this the one where he hangs out in bars, "doing math," and will only buy a woman a drink if she agrees to sleep with him first? Maaaaybe not the best role model for high school STEM students.
The list needs at least one Stephen King, perhaps Carrie. Something for the guys to think about before the prom.
posted by SPrintF at 10:52 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
The list needs at least one Stephen King, perhaps Carrie. Something for the guys to think about before the prom.
posted by SPrintF at 10:52 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
I actually like the idea that everyone reads the same books, even if they aren't that good
I don't. Why not pick something that nobody has ever heard of? We have 500 years of modern English writing to choose from. I'm in favor of injecting a little randomness into the whole concept of English class. We have archive.org and gutenberg.org- the internet means there's absolutely no reason to be limited to whatever catalog schools order print books from.
posted by dilaudid at 10:54 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't. Why not pick something that nobody has ever heard of? We have 500 years of modern English writing to choose from. I'm in favor of injecting a little randomness into the whole concept of English class. We have archive.org and gutenberg.org- the internet means there's absolutely no reason to be limited to whatever catalog schools order print books from.
posted by dilaudid at 10:54 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Animal Farm if you’re not ready to add a few chapters of Das Kapital
If you're using Animal Farm to teach economics, which you probably shouldn't be doing. The book is mainly about revolutions, power, revisionism, and hypocrisy, and I would say Das Kapital doesn't do much to help Animal Farm function. There are other works that could be paired with it.
Any Shakespeare except the comedies
The comedies are the best part! So many people walk away from high school think that Shakespeare is really depressing because all they read are tragedies, and let's face it, those can be downers in isolation. Try teaching King Lear to teenagers.
However, Shakespearean comedies are light and delightful with the same amount of peril. Much Ado About Nothing is not only relevant to a lot of high school dynamics, it also has the action and wordplay that makes Shakespeare fun. And if you go on the histories side, plays like Henry IV, Part 1 are about the self-knowledge that high school juniors and seniors are starting to feel, and how they relate to their families and the world (also, a lot of comedy and wordplay). Why does Shakespeare have to be so depressing for HS students?
posted by Lord Chancellor at 10:56 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
If you're using Animal Farm to teach economics, which you probably shouldn't be doing. The book is mainly about revolutions, power, revisionism, and hypocrisy, and I would say Das Kapital doesn't do much to help Animal Farm function. There are other works that could be paired with it.
Any Shakespeare except the comedies
The comedies are the best part! So many people walk away from high school think that Shakespeare is really depressing because all they read are tragedies, and let's face it, those can be downers in isolation. Try teaching King Lear to teenagers.
However, Shakespearean comedies are light and delightful with the same amount of peril. Much Ado About Nothing is not only relevant to a lot of high school dynamics, it also has the action and wordplay that makes Shakespeare fun. And if you go on the histories side, plays like Henry IV, Part 1 are about the self-knowledge that high school juniors and seniors are starting to feel, and how they relate to their families and the world (also, a lot of comedy and wordplay). Why does Shakespeare have to be so depressing for HS students?
posted by Lord Chancellor at 10:56 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
In addition to being wrong about Sherlock Holmes, he doesn't seem to know anything about high school reading lists beyond his own experience years ago. Oh, to be a mediocre dude with some hot takes.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:58 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 10:58 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
Anyone who is getting rid of the Divine Comedy and keeping the Scarlet Letter 🤢 is someone I cannot trust.
posted by dame at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by dame at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Like ... how do you think The Scarlet Letter is a "banger," but call Sherlock Holmes "neither literary nor fun?" Are we even on the same planet? Did we read the same words?
Teachers: assign whatever you want! Kids mostly don't read it anyway.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
Teachers: assign whatever you want! Kids mostly don't read it anyway.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
Keep The Inferno. Just make sure it's the Ciardi translation.
posted by Splunge at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018
posted by Splunge at 11:00 AM on August 28, 2018
Agreed. The Inferno is great and teaches you a lot about revenge on people who piss you off and Catholicism, which is at least as foundational as Shakespeare in knowing what Old Farts are on about.
posted by dame at 11:02 AM on August 28, 2018
posted by dame at 11:02 AM on August 28, 2018
Has A Separate Peace disappeared entirely from the reading lists? Perhaps that's for the best, but we still need a way to educate rising generations about the danger of tragic bone marrow embolisms.
posted by Iridic at 11:03 AM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Iridic at 11:03 AM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
Yeah, _Foundation_ is a bizarre choice for "add". It already stank of age when I read it in the 80s, and sexist white dudes from the mid 20th century don't need any more representation.
posted by tavella at 11:04 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by tavella at 11:04 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
I don't. Why not pick something that nobody has ever heard of? We have 500 years of modern English writing to choose from.
We do, but having the same list makes it shared across generations and again, across continents. Determining which are the current 'best' crosses generations and continents, and would most likely be fragmented.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:16 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
We do, but having the same list makes it shared across generations and again, across continents. Determining which are the current 'best' crosses generations and continents, and would most likely be fragmented.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:16 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you don’t like the word “defenestration,” you have given up on life. Or, possibly, you are a town counselor in Prague.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:16 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:16 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
I don't like how all of these "new canon" articles are so heavily biased in favor of works from the last 300 years.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:17 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:17 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Keep Brave New World. I feel it was worth reading just to witness Mustapha Mond ask John the Savage what philosophy was, only to receive John's worthless, meaningless, completely canonical Shakespearean answer-quote. That exchange drove home the truth that, as a high school sophomore, I was still parroting cant from kindergarten uncritically and had far more to learn and do in service to eventual adulthood. What better time than high school sophomore year to realize that?
posted by infinitewindow at 11:17 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 11:17 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Keep The Inferno. Just make sure it's the Ciardi translation.
Is Inferno actually taught in high schools? I'm amazed. It seems more like a first year university book rather than something we need every teenager to try to wade into.
he doesn't seem to know anything about high school reading lists beyond his own experience years ago.
Yeah, this is where I have to admit that I can't regurgitate the reading list my wife is using in her high school english classes. Sorry sweetie, I remember a few of them though:
She'd done Bless Me Ultima, she does Romeo and Juliet every other year and usually shows the Lurhman movie as well. She does... ugh, I have to go ask her.
posted by GuyZero at 11:18 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Is Inferno actually taught in high schools? I'm amazed. It seems more like a first year university book rather than something we need every teenager to try to wade into.
he doesn't seem to know anything about high school reading lists beyond his own experience years ago.
Yeah, this is where I have to admit that I can't regurgitate the reading list my wife is using in her high school english classes. Sorry sweetie, I remember a few of them though:
She'd done Bless Me Ultima, she does Romeo and Juliet every other year and usually shows the Lurhman movie as well. She does... ugh, I have to go ask her.
posted by GuyZero at 11:18 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
As is kinda always the case with this sort of article, the good idea gets lost in the details of which specific books should or shouldn't be taught. I'd love it if more educators decided that there shouldn't be literature that is classified as 'canon' that must be taught, and instead thought critically about objectives and students' needs, but I don't see this article making any headway into that. That said, I do wonder how many HS English teachers have the freedom to decide which books go into the curriculum; at the very least, it takes a lot of time and effort to develop new lesson plans, which is probably the biggest issue.
posted by Aleyn at 11:22 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Aleyn at 11:22 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you don’t like the word “defenestration,” you have given up on life. Or, possibly, you are a town counselor in Prague.
The French word for "window" is "fenêtre" and my adult-learning French teacher wondered aloud why it never made it to English (like a lot of other French words) and I got to tell her all about "defenestration". (technically it comes from Latin but whatever.)
posted by Automocar at 11:23 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The French word for "window" is "fenêtre" and my adult-learning French teacher wondered aloud why it never made it to English (like a lot of other French words) and I got to tell her all about "defenestration". (technically it comes from Latin but whatever.)
posted by Automocar at 11:23 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The argument to remove Brave New World but keep 1984 seems odd, given that Huxley was more on the mark than Orwell.
Interesting idea... hmmm the AP Lang and Comp exam had an excerpt from Neil Postman's essay on that in 1997. Here's a link to download a teacher's copy of the prompt. Discuss.
posted by Snowishberlin at 11:23 AM on August 28, 2018
Interesting idea... hmmm the AP Lang and Comp exam had an excerpt from Neil Postman's essay on that in 1997. Here's a link to download a teacher's copy of the prompt. Discuss.
posted by Snowishberlin at 11:23 AM on August 28, 2018
> Re: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Remind me, is this the one where he hangs out in bars, "doing math," and will only buy a woman a drink if she agrees to sleep with him first? Maaaaybe not the best role model for high school STEM students.
Oh yeah, that book. It's a hell of a fun time (if you can set aside the sexism of the era, which a lot of people understandably can't or won't), but Ralph Leighton is the one who conducted the interviews that were transcribed into prose form, so at best it's got to be called ghostwritten.
posted by ardgedee at 11:26 AM on August 28, 2018
Oh yeah, that book. It's a hell of a fun time (if you can set aside the sexism of the era, which a lot of people understandably can't or won't), but Ralph Leighton is the one who conducted the interviews that were transcribed into prose form, so at best it's got to be called ghostwritten.
posted by ardgedee at 11:26 AM on August 28, 2018
Is Inferno actually taught in high schools?
We read it in 10th grade, in a class that focused on European history. Literature, art, and music were commingled with history and team-taught, which was actually really helpful in understanding things. In a middling public high school, the "humanities" track where honors "English" and "Social Studies" were co-taught for the first three years was a genuine highlight.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:27 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
We read it in 10th grade, in a class that focused on European history. Literature, art, and music were commingled with history and team-taught, which was actually really helpful in understanding things. In a middling public high school, the "humanities" track where honors "English" and "Social Studies" were co-taught for the first three years was a genuine highlight.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:27 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Has A Separate Peace disappeared entirely from the reading lists? Perhaps that's for the best ...
And surely there are now more effective ways to inculcate the youths with a vague homoromanticism.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:28 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
And surely there are now more effective ways to inculcate the youths with a vague homoromanticism.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:28 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
I would probably remember which books were were assigned in high-school if I had actually read them. At best I'd usually read the first and last chapter and the first and last paragraphs of the chapters in between. I remember Gatsby and Catcher but not much else. I was too busy sitting the back row reading science fiction novels.
posted by octothorpe at 11:34 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 11:34 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
*snerk* The train of thought that lead to this memory was a general realization that teachers should know their audience. And that shook loose a memory:
My drama coach was also an English teacher in my high school, who taught at an AP level below the one I was at. So he couldn't get all that high-concept with the literature in his classes, and instead stuck to "attract the students' attention" and a little "define some of the terms."
And that is how one day, while I was in my own English class, we all suddenly heard my drama coach in his own class two doors down the hall start to loudly proclaim, at length and in very gory detail, about exactly what the process was when someone was drawn and quartered, to the chorus of several gasps and "ewwwwwww!"s from his class.
It was a hell of a thing to hear when you were in your own class struggling over Canterbury Tales.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:42 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
My drama coach was also an English teacher in my high school, who taught at an AP level below the one I was at. So he couldn't get all that high-concept with the literature in his classes, and instead stuck to "attract the students' attention" and a little "define some of the terms."
And that is how one day, while I was in my own English class, we all suddenly heard my drama coach in his own class two doors down the hall start to loudly proclaim, at length and in very gory detail, about exactly what the process was when someone was drawn and quartered, to the chorus of several gasps and "ewwwwwww!"s from his class.
It was a hell of a thing to hear when you were in your own class struggling over Canterbury Tales.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:42 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Ditch: On The Road
Have high schools seriously ever assigned that? Mine for sure didn't (mid/late 80s). Never known anyone to have read it for class in high school. It's more notable as a moment in history than as an actual book. And not even Kerouac's best. Hell, I suspect he'd be rolling in his grave at the thought of being taught in high schools. If you're gonna teach the Beats to high schoolers, I'd say stick to poetry like Ginsberg, O'Hara, Ferlinghetti - but be damn sure to include Diane Di Prima.
posted by dnash at 11:49 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Have high schools seriously ever assigned that? Mine for sure didn't (mid/late 80s). Never known anyone to have read it for class in high school. It's more notable as a moment in history than as an actual book. And not even Kerouac's best. Hell, I suspect he'd be rolling in his grave at the thought of being taught in high schools. If you're gonna teach the Beats to high schoolers, I'd say stick to poetry like Ginsberg, O'Hara, Ferlinghetti - but be damn sure to include Diane Di Prima.
posted by dnash at 11:49 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The choice of Wizard of Earthsea is strange to me since that's really aimed at like 12 year olds.
This was an assigned book at my college prep school freshman year (so, 14-15 year olds), 30+ years ago. Senior year we had a choice of English electives; I took "speculative fiction" (what we might call genre fiction today, but loosely: mythology, fantasy, science fiction, and horror, with maybe a dollop of surrealism thrown in), and one of the assigned books in that class was The Lathe of Heaven, which made a nice set of LeGuin bookends to my high school reading experience.
Because I will award one (1) Metafilter favorite to anyone who joins me in complaining about having to slog through Dickens. Especially Great Expectations.
Well, I will take an anti-favorite as I liked Great Expectations more than much of my other required high school reading. But if it's the length that bothers you, substitute Hard Times (although I did not like Hard Times as much as Great Expectations).
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:04 PM on August 28, 2018
This was an assigned book at my college prep school freshman year (so, 14-15 year olds), 30+ years ago. Senior year we had a choice of English electives; I took "speculative fiction" (what we might call genre fiction today, but loosely: mythology, fantasy, science fiction, and horror, with maybe a dollop of surrealism thrown in), and one of the assigned books in that class was The Lathe of Heaven, which made a nice set of LeGuin bookends to my high school reading experience.
Because I will award one (1) Metafilter favorite to anyone who joins me in complaining about having to slog through Dickens. Especially Great Expectations.
Well, I will take an anti-favorite as I liked Great Expectations more than much of my other required high school reading. But if it's the length that bothers you, substitute Hard Times (although I did not like Hard Times as much as Great Expectations).
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:04 PM on August 28, 2018
GuyZero: Not only did we read the Inferno in 10th grade, we made movie adaptations about it! We had to come up with at least one new sin and punishment.... As I recall my group tackled the oh-so-high-school sin of PDA, by having the "sinners" tied back to back in the gym while other people played basketball around them. (Was the basketball supposed to symbolize something? Or did we just crash JV practice because we couldn't find another time to film the scene?)
We also updated the she-wolf confrontation of the opening lines by filming a steaming manhole cover for like five minutes. Because he was about to descend to Hell! We were deep, man.
Anyway, props to Mr. Richardson for assigning the only cool group project of my entire education.
posted by basalganglia at 12:06 PM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
We also updated the she-wolf confrontation of the opening lines by filming a steaming manhole cover for like five minutes. Because he was about to descend to Hell! We were deep, man.
Anyway, props to Mr. Richardson for assigning the only cool group project of my entire education.
posted by basalganglia at 12:06 PM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
I went to a private school and we didn’t do a lot of those books. I still kinda love Gatsby though. It was my favorite book in the 8th Grade and when we got around to doing it in HS, we did the thing where we paired it with Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and I remember being transfixed. On the other hand, all of the corniest tattoos I ever saw in undergraduate writing workshops were Gatsby related so maybe the author has a point.
posted by thivaia at 12:08 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by thivaia at 12:08 PM on August 28, 2018
What kind of high school routinely assigns Pilgrim's Progress, Dante, Paradise Lost, or Gulliver's Travels? I went to an extremely good, expensive, and ambitious high school for the last two years, and none of these were on the menu. The first three in particular are not texts that any high schooler should be tackling except spontaneously--because of language difficulties if nothing else, they're not at a modern 16-year-old's level. Probably you should know what's actually being taught before you start proposing revisions?
Also, there's a weird sort of pandering in his "inclusive" additions; it's pretty obvious he's not actually familiar with what most people would regard as the great works of African-American literature (unless I missed one, Roxane Gay is it for his additions; he's going to kindly let Morrison stay).
That said, sure, who wouldn't like to knock off a few of these? That's what makes an article like this so lazily easy.
posted by praemunire at 12:13 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Also, there's a weird sort of pandering in his "inclusive" additions; it's pretty obvious he's not actually familiar with what most people would regard as the great works of African-American literature (unless I missed one, Roxane Gay is it for his additions; he's going to kindly let Morrison stay).
That said, sure, who wouldn't like to knock off a few of these? That's what makes an article like this so lazily easy.
posted by praemunire at 12:13 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
I have a soft spot for both Flies and Gatsby, but I'm in favour of ditching them for the time being and expanding the canon. These days it's far too easy to simply google any number of Cliff's notes and AP Study guides that give you a soft, pre-chewed analysis of the symbolism behind Dr. Eckleburg's creepy eyes and what the Jungians and Marxists have to say about it.
At least, it was so a decade ago, and I doubt the industry around US college admissions has gotten any less sleazy since.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 12:22 PM on August 28, 2018
At least, it was so a decade ago, and I doubt the industry around US college admissions has gotten any less sleazy since.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 12:22 PM on August 28, 2018
I just assume all debates about school canon lists are clickbait, and they work, cause BOY do we all HAVE OPINIONS on this topic.
posted by emjaybee at 12:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 12:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
What kind of high school routinely assigns Pilgrim's Progress, Dante, Paradise Lost, or Gulliver's Travels? I went to an extremely good, expensive, and ambitious high school for the last two years, and none of these were on the menu. The first three in particular are not texts that any high schooler should be tackling except spontaneously--because of language difficulties if nothing else, they're not at a modern 16-year-old's level.
One reason these are hard to teach is that for many modern audiences you are simultaneously teaching a new text, archaic vocabulary, history, and layer upon layer of theology.
How do you expect a 16 year old to learn the language required to understand archaic texts if they're not taught them? We don't wait to read Shakespeare until we can understand all the text - we understand all the text because we are taught it.
posted by atrazine at 12:29 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
One reason these are hard to teach is that for many modern audiences you are simultaneously teaching a new text, archaic vocabulary, history, and layer upon layer of theology.
How do you expect a 16 year old to learn the language required to understand archaic texts if they're not taught them? We don't wait to read Shakespeare until we can understand all the text - we understand all the text because we are taught it.
posted by atrazine at 12:29 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
The argument to remove Brave New World but keep 1984 seems odd, given that Huxley was more on the mark than Orwell.
Absolutely - while I agree with many of the other suggestions (Kindred! Understanding Comics!), this one is backwards. Read Brave New Work instead of 1984, or even better, Zamiatin's We.
As for comics - I would actually recommend Wil Eisner's A Contract with God over Maus. Maus deals with a more significant topic, but A Contract with God is a better example of where the medium can go.
posted by jb at 12:34 PM on August 28, 2018
Absolutely - while I agree with many of the other suggestions (Kindred! Understanding Comics!), this one is backwards. Read Brave New Work instead of 1984, or even better, Zamiatin's We.
As for comics - I would actually recommend Wil Eisner's A Contract with God over Maus. Maus deals with a more significant topic, but A Contract with God is a better example of where the medium can go.
posted by jb at 12:34 PM on August 28, 2018
There isn't a "high school curriculum" per se: for public schools, there's the Common Core framework, which is then enacted in the state standards, which is then modified on the ground in each district and/or school. Here, for example, are the NYSED standards and curricular recommendations.
However, I don't think most of those lists are going to contain James Fenimore Cooper. (One of my undergrad professors dryly remarked that he only assigned JFC to graduate students, and only when he was feeling particularly sadistic.)
Even in AP English, most reading lists are so restricted that discussing the canon isn't even particularly relevant; I just looked up an available full year AP syllabus for a nearby HS magnet, for example, and there were five full-length books (three autobiographies, one short-story collection, one not-very-long novel), only one of which came out pre-twentieth century. "Coverage" is a chimera anyway, but if you look at the learning outcomes, HS-level ELA study is mostly skills-based. As an English professor, I would like to have students read more early material so that they aren't immediately flummoxed when faced with, say, eighteenth-century prose (holy paragraph-long sentences, Batman!), but content isn't the key focus.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to reward 19th-century serial novel writers for length committed crimes against all subsequent readers.
*MeFi Victorianist opens mouth, closes it again, refrains from TL;DR lecture on Victorian publishing practices*
To be fair, I actually agree that you should refrain from teaching a lot of 19th-c. novel-length fiction in HS--I mean, I'm a Victorianist, and I didn't like Dickens in HS. (Dickens didn't "click" for me until I read Bleak House in college.)
posted by thomas j wise at 12:37 PM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
However, I don't think most of those lists are going to contain James Fenimore Cooper. (One of my undergrad professors dryly remarked that he only assigned JFC to graduate students, and only when he was feeling particularly sadistic.)
Even in AP English, most reading lists are so restricted that discussing the canon isn't even particularly relevant; I just looked up an available full year AP syllabus for a nearby HS magnet, for example, and there were five full-length books (three autobiographies, one short-story collection, one not-very-long novel), only one of which came out pre-twentieth century. "Coverage" is a chimera anyway, but if you look at the learning outcomes, HS-level ELA study is mostly skills-based. As an English professor, I would like to have students read more early material so that they aren't immediately flummoxed when faced with, say, eighteenth-century prose (holy paragraph-long sentences, Batman!), but content isn't the key focus.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to reward 19th-century serial novel writers for length committed crimes against all subsequent readers.
*MeFi Victorianist opens mouth, closes it again, refrains from TL;DR lecture on Victorian publishing practices*
To be fair, I actually agree that you should refrain from teaching a lot of 19th-c. novel-length fiction in HS--I mean, I'm a Victorianist, and I didn't like Dickens in HS. (Dickens didn't "click" for me until I read Bleak House in college.)
posted by thomas j wise at 12:37 PM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
There ought to be a way to avoid kids having to read 'consensus' books but still having a class that reads and discovers together. Too many people seem to reach adulthood with the idea that reading fiction is a chore.
There is, but it involves a lot more work on behalf of the teacher. I went to an alternative school where on of the big principals was that we would chose the literature we read. We often chose more challenging literature than other schools.
But, unfortunately for the teacher, exactly what works we chose changed every year, with every class. Which meant that our teacher had to re/re-read a lot of new books and plan lessons around them. We had a dedicated teacher who was willing to do that, but she was going well above and beyond what is usually expected. Most teachers teach the same books every year for a reason: they can re-use the lesson plans.
posted by jb at 12:37 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
There is, but it involves a lot more work on behalf of the teacher. I went to an alternative school where on of the big principals was that we would chose the literature we read. We often chose more challenging literature than other schools.
But, unfortunately for the teacher, exactly what works we chose changed every year, with every class. Which meant that our teacher had to re/re-read a lot of new books and plan lessons around them. We had a dedicated teacher who was willing to do that, but she was going well above and beyond what is usually expected. Most teachers teach the same books every year for a reason: they can re-use the lesson plans.
posted by jb at 12:37 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
What kind of high school routinely assigns Pilgrim's Progress, Dante, Paradise Lost, or Gulliver's Travels? I went to an extremely good, expensive, and ambitious high school for the last two years, and none of these were on the menu. The first three in particular are not texts that any high schooler should be tackling except spontaneously--because of language difficulties if nothing else, they're not at a modern 16-year-old's level.
I went to what's essentially Jesuit school for girls and we read 3/4 — no Gulliver's Travels, though I was familiar with the story of course because I exist in the world and there are cartoons. Which is a great reason to read it, honestly: you've already seen reference, so now you can wrestle with the language.
And isn't that what teachers are for? Helping you with all the wrestling and learning to enjoy it?
posted by dame at 12:39 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I went to what's essentially Jesuit school for girls and we read 3/4 — no Gulliver's Travels, though I was familiar with the story of course because I exist in the world and there are cartoons. Which is a great reason to read it, honestly: you've already seen reference, so now you can wrestle with the language.
And isn't that what teachers are for? Helping you with all the wrestling and learning to enjoy it?
posted by dame at 12:39 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
theodolite: Cosign the notion of adding comics to the curriculum. My high school had a two-week "mini semester" where teachers could run fun little experiments. One of the English teachers did one on graphic novels. We read Understanding Comics, Maus, and Watchmen, along with some of the shorter classics. It was one of the best and most memorable classes I had, not only because the material was so unlike the comics I was used to, but because every kid in the class actually did the reading and was eager to talk about it. I didn't experience anything like that again until college.
EmpressCallipygos: "So that's why you go with something like The Avengers," he said. Everyone's seen it, everyone already is on board with it and gets it. Which is why it's the perfect way to introduce people to things like plot and pacing and such, because they're already on familiar ground. Use the popular stuff to teach the tools, he said, then go back and apply those tools of evaluation to the classics.
I really appreciate these comments because I work at a place where we use comics/graphic novels/other pop culture precisely because of this -- as a way to encourage literacy and get kids excited about learning just in general, giving them tools gained from pop culture that they can use in other aspects of their education.
As for me, I took AP/IB classes in high school and only remember reading a couple on the article's "ditch" list, and we read a lot (the "keep" list is actually the one with the most familiar names). A lot of what he has on the "add" list weren't perhaps published when I was in school (late 90's/early aughts), but I think we did have some more modern stuff. It's all kind of a blur tbh between what I read then and what I read in college, since by my senior year I'd abandoned the AP/IB route and was taking college courses instead. Plus I had a very involved family who made sure to supplement my required reading with other viewpoints, so I can't remember if a book I read back then was because the school made me read it or my father.
But I suppose it's less about the exact book that should be on the list, as it is questioning what benefit a specific genre/author brings. For example, I've never read Of Mice and Men and have no desire to ever read Steinbeck again, but I did read The Grapes of Wrath when we were studying the Great Depression. In fact, most of the reading we did was somehow used as a way to explain what was going on in that era of history (which is probably why I eventually became a Humanities major since, in my mind, art/literature/music/history are all intrinsically intertwined).
I still haven't met someone who actually liked reading Catcher in the Rye, including myself, even though I could still probably explicate it on command all these years later.
posted by paisley sheep at 12:43 PM on August 28, 2018
EmpressCallipygos: "So that's why you go with something like The Avengers," he said. Everyone's seen it, everyone already is on board with it and gets it. Which is why it's the perfect way to introduce people to things like plot and pacing and such, because they're already on familiar ground. Use the popular stuff to teach the tools, he said, then go back and apply those tools of evaluation to the classics.
I really appreciate these comments because I work at a place where we use comics/graphic novels/other pop culture precisely because of this -- as a way to encourage literacy and get kids excited about learning just in general, giving them tools gained from pop culture that they can use in other aspects of their education.
As for me, I took AP/IB classes in high school and only remember reading a couple on the article's "ditch" list, and we read a lot (the "keep" list is actually the one with the most familiar names). A lot of what he has on the "add" list weren't perhaps published when I was in school (late 90's/early aughts), but I think we did have some more modern stuff. It's all kind of a blur tbh between what I read then and what I read in college, since by my senior year I'd abandoned the AP/IB route and was taking college courses instead. Plus I had a very involved family who made sure to supplement my required reading with other viewpoints, so I can't remember if a book I read back then was because the school made me read it or my father.
But I suppose it's less about the exact book that should be on the list, as it is questioning what benefit a specific genre/author brings. For example, I've never read Of Mice and Men and have no desire to ever read Steinbeck again, but I did read The Grapes of Wrath when we were studying the Great Depression. In fact, most of the reading we did was somehow used as a way to explain what was going on in that era of history (which is probably why I eventually became a Humanities major since, in my mind, art/literature/music/history are all intrinsically intertwined).
I still haven't met someone who actually liked reading Catcher in the Rye, including myself, even though I could still probably explicate it on command all these years later.
posted by paisley sheep at 12:43 PM on August 28, 2018
What kind of high school routinely assigns Pilgrim's Progress, Dante, Paradise Lost, or Gulliver's Travels?
We had to read Dante, Paradise Lost and Gulliver's Travels in 10th grade. Dante was just the Inferno, but Paradise Lost was the whole thing. At some point, I had to draw a comic book of large portions of PL, which meant I couldn't just skim -- and I really had to pour over the text to understand it at all. Once I could understand it well enough, I did really like it, though (and was pretty proud of the storyboard-type comic I drew). I also remember doing a very difficult paper on Beowolf, which apparently stuck with me. That same year we also studied a bunch of Shakespeare's plays, and one of our big projects was to split into groups and stage an abridged version of one of them (my group got King Lear). Although we studied some more modern literature that year (Things Fall Apart was one of my favorites from that class), most of that wasn't until 12th grade. Teenage staples like Maus, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Romeo & Juliet, etc were all in middle school in my school district. A lot of (un)translated lit was also done in language class -- I took French, so French 3 & 4 were where I read the Stranger, Candide, Rimbaud's poetry, etc.
I went to a public high school in the early 00s. Not an especially fancy school at all, in fact I think it's Title I and know it was/is majority minority. Honestly, I knew even at the time that I was getting a wonderful education, but I appreciate it even more in retrospect.
posted by rue72 at 12:46 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
We had to read Dante, Paradise Lost and Gulliver's Travels in 10th grade. Dante was just the Inferno, but Paradise Lost was the whole thing. At some point, I had to draw a comic book of large portions of PL, which meant I couldn't just skim -- and I really had to pour over the text to understand it at all. Once I could understand it well enough, I did really like it, though (and was pretty proud of the storyboard-type comic I drew). I also remember doing a very difficult paper on Beowolf, which apparently stuck with me. That same year we also studied a bunch of Shakespeare's plays, and one of our big projects was to split into groups and stage an abridged version of one of them (my group got King Lear). Although we studied some more modern literature that year (Things Fall Apart was one of my favorites from that class), most of that wasn't until 12th grade. Teenage staples like Maus, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Romeo & Juliet, etc were all in middle school in my school district. A lot of (un)translated lit was also done in language class -- I took French, so French 3 & 4 were where I read the Stranger, Candide, Rimbaud's poetry, etc.
I went to a public high school in the early 00s. Not an especially fancy school at all, in fact I think it's Title I and know it was/is majority minority. Honestly, I knew even at the time that I was getting a wonderful education, but I appreciate it even more in retrospect.
posted by rue72 at 12:46 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Did I miss the part where we skip Dickens? Because I will award one (1) Metafilter favorite to anyone who joins me in complaining about having to slog through Dickens. Especially Great Expectations.
I'm your huckleberry.
When I was 13, some friends of my parents handed me a list of "must read' books that started with Great Expectations. Not just no, but "Are you high?" Also on the list was Moby Dick. JFC. Under duress, I made it to page 120 before throwing it across the room, never to open again.
posted by corvikate at 12:50 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm your huckleberry.
When I was 13, some friends of my parents handed me a list of "must read' books that started with Great Expectations. Not just no, but "Are you high?" Also on the list was Moby Dick. JFC. Under duress, I made it to page 120 before throwing it across the room, never to open again.
posted by corvikate at 12:50 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
The only likeable character in any Dickens book is the one that gets killed off.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:51 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:51 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Honestly, I think that teenagers not only can handle but often actually prefer the bleaker and heavier lit. The older I get, the more I crave fun and lighthearted or even just very abstract stuff. As a teenager, I wanted to study very serious and "adult" things. Although to be fair, Death of a Salesman gave me nightmares. Still consider it the scariest play I've ever seen. The lesson I learned was to never take on a mortgage. Fucking death sentence, apparently.
posted by rue72 at 12:52 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by rue72 at 12:52 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
What kind of high school routinely assigns Pilgrim's Progress, Dante, Paradise Lost, or Gulliver's Travels*?
Actually, we did all of these but Pilgrim's Progress. I was in AP Classes at a small private school though . We didn't do Orwell or Salinger or Cooper
(Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm and 1984 were all part of the middle school gifted curriculum in the public school system I attended before transferring to private school)
.
posted by thivaia at 12:52 PM on August 28, 2018
Actually, we did all of these but Pilgrim's Progress. I was in AP Classes at a small private school though . We didn't do Orwell or Salinger or Cooper
(Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm and 1984 were all part of the middle school gifted curriculum in the public school system I attended before transferring to private school)
.
posted by thivaia at 12:52 PM on August 28, 2018
I remember Gulliver's Travels, Lord Of The Flies, Silas Marner (which I actually dug), and Moby Dick. And a couple Shakespeare plays.
But I was also a voracious reader, with a side-dish of "stage-struck", so I also independently read Death Of A Salesman, Streetcar Named Desire, Waiting For Godot, Equus, Royal Hunt Of the Sun, a few Beat things, and a lot of Anne Sexton.
I was the only kid in my Jr. High in the 1980s who had heard of surrealist existentialism French New Wave cinema. However, I was probably the only kid in my Jr. High in the 1980s who even considered that hearing of French New Wave Cinema was a thing that one might want to do.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
But I was also a voracious reader, with a side-dish of "stage-struck", so I also independently read Death Of A Salesman, Streetcar Named Desire, Waiting For Godot, Equus, Royal Hunt Of the Sun, a few Beat things, and a lot of Anne Sexton.
I was the only kid in my Jr. High in the 1980s who had heard of surrealist existentialism French New Wave cinema. However, I was probably the only kid in my Jr. High in the 1980s who even considered that hearing of French New Wave Cinema was a thing that one might want to do.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ditch: On The Road: Have high schools seriously ever assigned that?
None that I've ever encountered, but I suppose it isn't unlikely that it's appeared on supplementary reading lists. If that's even a thing schools still do. I sought it out during my Doors phase because I'd read that Morrison liked it. I still think of it fondly, despite all of its baggage, but I can't imagine trying to assign it to a high school class. I'd probably choose Snyder, O'Hara, and Di Prima were I to teach such an era. And it'd be tempting to throw Lenore Kandel in there, too, but what high school would let you get away with
None that I've ever encountered, but I suppose it isn't unlikely that it's appeared on supplementary reading lists. If that's even a thing schools still do. I sought it out during my Doors phase because I'd read that Morrison liked it. I still think of it fondly, despite all of its baggage, but I can't imagine trying to assign it to a high school class. I'd probably choose Snyder, O'Hara, and Di Prima were I to teach such an era. And it'd be tempting to throw Lenore Kandel in there, too, but what high school would let you get away with
"who finked on the angels?posted by octobersurprise at 12:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
who stole the holy grail and hocked it for a jug of wine?
who fucked up Gabriel’s golden horn?
was it an inside job?
who barbecued the lamb of god?
who flushed St. Peter’s keys down the mouth of a
North Beach toilet?"
Station Eleven is an excellent choice, especially for a curriculum that included Hamlet followed by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead for a really rich discussion about the meaning of art. Maybe a film adaptation of Hamlet if you're feeling spicy.
From experience I think including transformative works is a great idea for high school lit classes - it gives young people a sense of literature as a conversation rather than a series of books existing in a void. And as a young person it's fun to notice easter eggs in the stories and debate why things were changed or how their messages differ. Reading and comparing works with similar themes (and debating which you like more!) helps develop your critical muscles more than reading one example of a novel from every time period/genre the way a lot of classes do.
For the same reason I would also suggest replacing Beloved with Song of Solomon, paired with some study of mythology. Toni Morrison is essential and Beloved is fantastic, but as a story about parenthood I think it resonates more with adults. Song of Solomon is really nicely suited for young people still finding their way in the world.
posted by Emily's Fist at 1:05 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
From experience I think including transformative works is a great idea for high school lit classes - it gives young people a sense of literature as a conversation rather than a series of books existing in a void. And as a young person it's fun to notice easter eggs in the stories and debate why things were changed or how their messages differ. Reading and comparing works with similar themes (and debating which you like more!) helps develop your critical muscles more than reading one example of a novel from every time period/genre the way a lot of classes do.
For the same reason I would also suggest replacing Beloved with Song of Solomon, paired with some study of mythology. Toni Morrison is essential and Beloved is fantastic, but as a story about parenthood I think it resonates more with adults. Song of Solomon is really nicely suited for young people still finding their way in the world.
posted by Emily's Fist at 1:05 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
That he suggests keeping "To Kill a Mockingbird" makes me question his judgment overall. I mean, seriously? The respect that book continues to garner is completely inexplicable to me. It's terrible book to use to teach about race, especially now (although it always has been).
posted by holborne at 1:07 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by holborne at 1:07 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Actually, we did all of these but Pilgrim's Progress. I was in AP Classes at a small private school though . We didn't do Orwell or Salinger or Cooper
In our junior year, we read the Iliad, the Oresteia, and the sequence you would naturally expect to unfold from that--not light reading, though we did not do Dante and IIRC they wimped out on doing Ulysses at the end even though it was the obvious ending point. As I recall, we did not bother delegating a class as "AP English" because we considered that our curriculum, which permitted a relatively free choice of English classes senior year (I ended up reading Peer Gynt (!?!), still not sure why that happened), was sufficient to prepare you for the exam regardless of which classes you took. But, man, it's not insulting a fifteen-year-old to suggest that, at least for literary purposes (religious schools have other priorities to consider), mandatory reading of PP in particular, but the others, too, is not the best use of their limited instruction time. Those of you who are all 'well the teachers are there to help you!"--yes, there are teachers in first-year algebra class, too, who do know calculus, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to teach integrals there. You have to balance obscurity of subject with difficulty of form, and pick things that aren't overwhelming. Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of disenchanted readers who might well have liked the books had they been introduced to them at a more appropriate time. (I am very glad that circumstances conspired to keep me away from Proust until I was in my 40s.)
And, yes, I think if you surveyed even the peer schools to the one I went to, even back then (now one hopes for a slight modernization of the curriculum), you'd find that these were relatively uncommon choices.
posted by praemunire at 1:17 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
In our junior year, we read the Iliad, the Oresteia, and the sequence you would naturally expect to unfold from that--not light reading, though we did not do Dante and IIRC they wimped out on doing Ulysses at the end even though it was the obvious ending point. As I recall, we did not bother delegating a class as "AP English" because we considered that our curriculum, which permitted a relatively free choice of English classes senior year (I ended up reading Peer Gynt (!?!), still not sure why that happened), was sufficient to prepare you for the exam regardless of which classes you took. But, man, it's not insulting a fifteen-year-old to suggest that, at least for literary purposes (religious schools have other priorities to consider), mandatory reading of PP in particular, but the others, too, is not the best use of their limited instruction time. Those of you who are all 'well the teachers are there to help you!"--yes, there are teachers in first-year algebra class, too, who do know calculus, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to teach integrals there. You have to balance obscurity of subject with difficulty of form, and pick things that aren't overwhelming. Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of disenchanted readers who might well have liked the books had they been introduced to them at a more appropriate time. (I am very glad that circumstances conspired to keep me away from Proust until I was in my 40s.)
And, yes, I think if you surveyed even the peer schools to the one I went to, even back then (now one hopes for a slight modernization of the curriculum), you'd find that these were relatively uncommon choices.
posted by praemunire at 1:17 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
From experience I think including transformative works is a great idea for high school lit classes
The standard run of Iliad-Oresteia-Aeneid-Inferno-Ulysses is all transformative works. You can tell someone badly educated in Western literature by whether they assume that "literature" and "transformative works" are intellectually separate categories.
posted by praemunire at 1:22 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The standard run of Iliad-Oresteia-Aeneid-Inferno-Ulysses is all transformative works. You can tell someone badly educated in Western literature by whether they assume that "literature" and "transformative works" are intellectually separate categories.
posted by praemunire at 1:22 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman could be great if you're willing to delve into the sexism and his other blind spots. The book is basically about the various kinds of privilege that attached to Feynman and what he could and couldn't get away with, told through his necessarily imperfect memory and understanding. Like many upwardly mobile white men, he intuitively understands class issues--the title quote comes from a response he got while trying to order in some fancy dining environment--but is to put it mildly less sensitive when it comes to gender.
I don't think race comes up much in the book, but it's impossible to imagine someone of his generation who wasn't white pulling off a lot of his Bugs Bunny Goes to Los Alamos style capers: cracking official safes and mailing coded messages to his wife while working on the Manhattan Project, openly frequenting strip clubs while he's teaching university physics, and refusing to wear a suit and tie unless absolutely necessary.
If you read it with a critical eye, it could be very timely and still entertaining. If you just hand it to a bright young person who's interested in science, maybe not ideal for 2018.
posted by smelendez at 1:33 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I don't think race comes up much in the book, but it's impossible to imagine someone of his generation who wasn't white pulling off a lot of his Bugs Bunny Goes to Los Alamos style capers: cracking official safes and mailing coded messages to his wife while working on the Manhattan Project, openly frequenting strip clubs while he's teaching university physics, and refusing to wear a suit and tie unless absolutely necessary.
If you read it with a critical eye, it could be very timely and still entertaining. If you just hand it to a bright young person who's interested in science, maybe not ideal for 2018.
posted by smelendez at 1:33 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Damn right things need fixing. I somehow got through high school without reading a single scrap of Xenophon, Virgil, or Boethius. As a result, decades later, I'm still barely educated at all.
posted by sfenders at 1:40 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by sfenders at 1:40 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The only book on the "ditch" list that I read for school was Animal Farm, although we did that in junior high. The only books on the "keep" list was 1984 and the Shakespeare play we read every year. Those on the "add" list were probably not yet written when I was in school.
I remember we read The Diary of Anne Frank (probably in 6th grade), and Lord of the Flies, but I really don't recall that many books that were required reading for an entire class. Maybe we just didn't have enough books. Or maybe it was just too long ago.
posted by Miss Cellania at 1:41 PM on August 28, 2018
I remember we read The Diary of Anne Frank (probably in 6th grade), and Lord of the Flies, but I really don't recall that many books that were required reading for an entire class. Maybe we just didn't have enough books. Or maybe it was just too long ago.
posted by Miss Cellania at 1:41 PM on August 28, 2018
Ditching Camus and the existentialist oeuvre as a whole seems wrong-headed. The only time in my life I ever had a protracted existentialist crisis was when I was 16. It was through Camus that I was introduced to the "benign indifference of the universe."
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:53 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:53 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
If I had to guess, I would think that the books most commonly assigned in American high schools were The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. Maaaaaaybe Lord of the Flies. I am firmly in favor of knocking the first two back into obscurity, and probably the last as well.
posted by praemunire at 2:01 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by praemunire at 2:01 PM on August 28, 2018
If you're looking for the low end of what a public high school might be assigning as literature to read in class, from 1998-2002, here is everything we were assigned that wasn't in a textbook, even in the most academic track available to me:
Freshman year: Romeo & Juliet
Sophomore year: Lord of the Flies
Junior year: The Scarlet Letter
Senior year: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, 1 book of our choice subject to approval (I chose the Iliad because I was that kind of kid), a selection of the big deal Shakespeare plays, and The Importance of Being Earnest for some reason
Maybe that background is skewing my impressions of what schools are assigning, but I have a suspicion that schools that assign 5-10 books every year and cover significant parts of the canon aren't actually that common.
posted by Copronymus at 2:25 PM on August 28, 2018
Freshman year: Romeo & Juliet
Sophomore year: Lord of the Flies
Junior year: The Scarlet Letter
Senior year: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, 1 book of our choice subject to approval (I chose the Iliad because I was that kind of kid), a selection of the big deal Shakespeare plays, and The Importance of Being Earnest for some reason
Maybe that background is skewing my impressions of what schools are assigning, but I have a suspicion that schools that assign 5-10 books every year and cover significant parts of the canon aren't actually that common.
posted by Copronymus at 2:25 PM on August 28, 2018
I misread The Scarlet Letter as The Scarlet Pimpernel and thought, "Yeah, that is a banger." Then I went back and reread. Wha???
posted by Quackles at 2:31 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Quackles at 2:31 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
The argument to remove Brave New World but keep 1984 seems odd, given that Huxley was more on the mark than Orwell.
Yes, Huxley is closer to our consumer capitalist mentality than Orwell, but Huxley also comes across as a bit more outmoded in terms of gender -- his female characters, like Kurt Vonnegut's, tend to be empty-headed stereotypes. (And I wouldn't have much of a problem with cutting Vonnegut, despite my affection for his warmth, humor, and humanity. His books don't tend to be kind to women.)
Add: Wolf Hall
Seriously? I mean, I really like that book, but I have met history professors who specialize in Tudor England who had trouble reading it. The narrative voice is really challenging, way too much for most high schoolers.
Keep Poe's The Raven
Fuck this stupid overrated reject from a Simpsons Halloween episode poem. Toss it in the freakin garbage. If you want Poe, maybe Cask of Amontillado, or the Tell-Tale Heart, or something like that.
Shakespeare
Here are the plays that teach well to younger students, IMHO:
Comedies: Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew (although I don't teach it because I'm sick of it), maybe Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night (the latter can be fun with the right adaptation, but I think it's a bit tricky). I also had a good experience the one time I taught Love's Labour's Lost, because it's pretty simple plot-wise. As You Like It is one of my faves, but students tend to get confused with the pastoral elements and the different satiric voices of Touchstone & Jacques. The other comedies are either too obscure, difficult, or, in the case of All's Well that Ends Well, just terrible.
Histories: Henry V & Richard III. Those are usually the only histories I teach; they have strong central characters and fairly self-contained storylines. Richard II has wonderful poetry, but students don't get it. I've never tried to do the 2 Henry IV plays, but they might work, if you had enough time. I'd never try to teach the Henry VI plays on any level beneath grad school. However, I did once experiment with teaching King John, and it actually went OK! (I wouldn't recommend it, though).
Tragedies: These can be harder to predict. King Lear is too much for most younger students; they just don't get the tragedy. Macbeth, Othello, & Hamlet work well, and of course R&J is super popular to teach, but, eh, it's a bit overdone. Students might respond well to Titus Andronicus, but I think the other Roman plays are a bit too much for most students. Julius Caesar is accessible, perhaps, but Antony & Cleopatra is too sophisticated, I think, and Coriolanus would bore the pants off most.
Romances: The Tempest is the only one that gets taught regularly, and its pretty easy to get, although it is usually taught wrong (either as Shakespeare's "farewell to the stage," which it wasn't, or it's shoehorned into a simplified post-colonial interpretation). I taught The Winter's Tale once, and I was so irritated that the students didn't appreciate its complexities, I decided not to teach it again -- it's one of my favorites, and I just can't stand to hear it slagged off. I wouldn't try Pericles or Cymbeline with high schoolers, or even undergrads.
Finally, I'd be fine if both To Kill a Mockingbird and Twain's Adventures of Huck Finn got removed from high school. Lee's book is a bit better on race than Twain's, but both are written from a paternalistic, white liberal perspective that, I think, works to demean African-Americans.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:32 PM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yes, Huxley is closer to our consumer capitalist mentality than Orwell, but Huxley also comes across as a bit more outmoded in terms of gender -- his female characters, like Kurt Vonnegut's, tend to be empty-headed stereotypes. (And I wouldn't have much of a problem with cutting Vonnegut, despite my affection for his warmth, humor, and humanity. His books don't tend to be kind to women.)
Add: Wolf Hall
Seriously? I mean, I really like that book, but I have met history professors who specialize in Tudor England who had trouble reading it. The narrative voice is really challenging, way too much for most high schoolers.
Keep Poe's The Raven
Fuck this stupid overrated reject from a Simpsons Halloween episode poem. Toss it in the freakin garbage. If you want Poe, maybe Cask of Amontillado, or the Tell-Tale Heart, or something like that.
Shakespeare
Here are the plays that teach well to younger students, IMHO:
Comedies: Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew (although I don't teach it because I'm sick of it), maybe Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night (the latter can be fun with the right adaptation, but I think it's a bit tricky). I also had a good experience the one time I taught Love's Labour's Lost, because it's pretty simple plot-wise. As You Like It is one of my faves, but students tend to get confused with the pastoral elements and the different satiric voices of Touchstone & Jacques. The other comedies are either too obscure, difficult, or, in the case of All's Well that Ends Well, just terrible.
Histories: Henry V & Richard III. Those are usually the only histories I teach; they have strong central characters and fairly self-contained storylines. Richard II has wonderful poetry, but students don't get it. I've never tried to do the 2 Henry IV plays, but they might work, if you had enough time. I'd never try to teach the Henry VI plays on any level beneath grad school. However, I did once experiment with teaching King John, and it actually went OK! (I wouldn't recommend it, though).
Tragedies: These can be harder to predict. King Lear is too much for most younger students; they just don't get the tragedy. Macbeth, Othello, & Hamlet work well, and of course R&J is super popular to teach, but, eh, it's a bit overdone. Students might respond well to Titus Andronicus, but I think the other Roman plays are a bit too much for most students. Julius Caesar is accessible, perhaps, but Antony & Cleopatra is too sophisticated, I think, and Coriolanus would bore the pants off most.
Romances: The Tempest is the only one that gets taught regularly, and its pretty easy to get, although it is usually taught wrong (either as Shakespeare's "farewell to the stage," which it wasn't, or it's shoehorned into a simplified post-colonial interpretation). I taught The Winter's Tale once, and I was so irritated that the students didn't appreciate its complexities, I decided not to teach it again -- it's one of my favorites, and I just can't stand to hear it slagged off. I wouldn't try Pericles or Cymbeline with high schoolers, or even undergrads.
Finally, I'd be fine if both To Kill a Mockingbird and Twain's Adventures of Huck Finn got removed from high school. Lee's book is a bit better on race than Twain's, but both are written from a paternalistic, white liberal perspective that, I think, works to demean African-Americans.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:32 PM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
I feel like it’d be interesting to have some sort of combination wiki/survey to find out What Metafilter Read In High School. We could check as many options as we read, and add new items if they weren’t already on the list, and get a sorted frequency list of The Actual Canon, As Experienced By Us. And ideally it’d let you see what you put and go back and add stuff in case you forgot (I had forgotten a lot of stuff). I don’t know how to set that up, and maybe it should go to MetaTalk.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:37 PM on August 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:37 PM on August 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
If you want Poe, maybe Cask of Amontillado
which has the benefit of being a meme, for the true "how do you do, fellow kids?" factor
Now that I think about it I'd guess the meme likely came from tumblr users who read the story in their English classes.
posted by Emily's Fist at 2:55 PM on August 28, 2018
which has the benefit of being a meme, for the true "how do you do, fellow kids?" factor
Now that I think about it I'd guess the meme likely came from tumblr users who read the story in their English classes.
posted by Emily's Fist at 2:55 PM on August 28, 2018
Why all the hate for Gatsby? It provides a vibrant sense of a not-too-distant time (the Roaring Twenties) to synergize well with history classes, well-defined characters, thematic cohesion, strong use of metaphor, and a really good prose style. Those are things worth exposing students to.
posted by jackbishop at 2:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by jackbishop at 2:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm dubious about teaching almost any book in high school— in my experience, it deadens the book. The thick layer of obligation takes all the delight out of it. So though I approve in theory of (say) replacing Heart of Darkness with Things Fall Apart, it might just make Achebe seem difficult and dusty.
The comics list seems facile, but I'm going to have to come back to that. (Chris Ware, reeeeeally?)
posted by zompist at 3:02 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The comics list seems facile, but I'm going to have to come back to that. (Chris Ware, reeeeeally?)
posted by zompist at 3:02 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'd also like to keep Gatsby, which in my ideal world populated by only competent teachers would be used as the keystone of a unit about queer characters in literature/queer theory in general.
posted by Emily's Fist at 3:06 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Emily's Fist at 3:06 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think of Orwell as a better essayist than novelist. Maybe you could substitute some of his essays in. Many of them have held up well. Everyone cites "Politics and the English Language," but "Shooting an Elephant" and "Marrakech" would be great if colonialism is on the menu, "How the Poor Die" for class concerns, and "Such, Such Were the Joys"--while the scenario described is likely to be unimaginably alien to most American kids, as an analysis of an abusive yet revered institution, it's superb.
Gatsby...the keystone of a unit on queer analysis
Since we're redesigning, why not lead with an openly queer novel by an openly queer author? One hopes the game of hunt-the-subtext will become ever more outmoded, at least as a primary source of nourishment, as the century wears on.
posted by praemunire at 3:14 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Gatsby...the keystone of a unit on queer analysis
Since we're redesigning, why not lead with an openly queer novel by an openly queer author? One hopes the game of hunt-the-subtext will become ever more outmoded, at least as a primary source of nourishment, as the century wears on.
posted by praemunire at 3:14 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm confused about On the Road. I don't think I would want to have to read it, but I did benefit from reading it.
Is there some semiotic tell given off when you, with a straight face, both claim Heart of Darkness hasn't aged well and suggest adding Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman?
posted by ethansr at 3:20 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Is there some semiotic tell given off when you, with a straight face, both claim Heart of Darkness hasn't aged well and suggest adding Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman?
posted by ethansr at 3:20 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
I agree with and disagree with many elements of this article, as was obviously the intention.
...and I still haven't read any Asimov.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:26 PM on August 28, 2018
...and I still haven't read any Asimov.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:26 PM on August 28, 2018
I think of Orwell as a better essayist than novelist.
We did Wigan Pier in school, too. (I think history but like above, I had parallel/mixed history-lit classes.) I was already inclined to be a socialist, but damn, that was effective.
posted by dame at 3:35 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
We did Wigan Pier in school, too. (I think history but like above, I had parallel/mixed history-lit classes.) I was already inclined to be a socialist, but damn, that was effective.
posted by dame at 3:35 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Since we're redesigning, why not lead with an openly queer novel by an openly queer author? One hopes the game of hunt-the-subtext will become ever more outmoded, at least as a primary source of nourishment, as the century wears on.
That would be good too, but I do think there is value in exploring how queer characters and themes are present in famous "canonical" old-timey novels, too, and aren't just a feature of contemporary works. As a queer person I find it affirming every time I see how we've been around forever, even if no one wanted to acknowledge us at the time. I think in Gatsby it's interesting to note how the queer themes are directly stated and yet ignored by many readers and pop culture anyway. It's a good book to study to learn about literary blindspots, especially since students usually arrive at studying it bringing a set of assumptions with them from popular culture.
But granted, I shouldn't say that Gatsby should be the keystone of a unit on queer analysis, but rather but that queer analysis should be one of the keystones we use to teach Gatsby in high school classes.
posted by Emily's Fist at 3:36 PM on August 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
That would be good too, but I do think there is value in exploring how queer characters and themes are present in famous "canonical" old-timey novels, too, and aren't just a feature of contemporary works. As a queer person I find it affirming every time I see how we've been around forever, even if no one wanted to acknowledge us at the time. I think in Gatsby it's interesting to note how the queer themes are directly stated and yet ignored by many readers and pop culture anyway. It's a good book to study to learn about literary blindspots, especially since students usually arrive at studying it bringing a set of assumptions with them from popular culture.
But granted, I shouldn't say that Gatsby should be the keystone of a unit on queer analysis, but rather but that queer analysis should be one of the keystones we use to teach Gatsby in high school classes.
posted by Emily's Fist at 3:36 PM on August 28, 2018 [13 favorites]
We did Wigan Pier in school, too. (I think history but like above, I had parallel/mixed history-lit classes.) I was already inclined to be a socialist, but damn, that was effective.
The whole thing, or just the first half? Because while the descriptive reporting on Yorkshire poverty is riveting and affecting, the screeds about how these culture-war beardy feminist hippies are the wrong kind of socialists and are destroying the movement's credibility with their freaky freakiness in the second half are kinda unappealing (so much so that the editor's foreword more-or-less disavows them).
posted by jackbishop at 3:43 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The whole thing, or just the first half? Because while the descriptive reporting on Yorkshire poverty is riveting and affecting, the screeds about how these culture-war beardy feminist hippies are the wrong kind of socialists and are destroying the movement's credibility with their freaky freakiness in the second half are kinda unappealing (so much so that the editor's foreword more-or-less disavows them).
posted by jackbishop at 3:43 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't think race comes up much in the book, but it's impossible to imagine someone of his generation who wasn't white pulling off a lot of his Bugs Bunny Goes to Los Alamos style capers: cracking official safes and mailing coded messages to his wife while working on the Manhattan Project, openly frequenting strip clubs while he's teaching university physics, and refusing to wear a suit and tie unless absolutely necessary.
All very fair criticisms and I don't doubt that by the time he died Ashkenazi Jews were definitely considered white by mainstream American society but remember that he was born in 1918. He was rejected from Columbia because of their Jewish quota and there are letters about his admission to Princeton for graduate study that can be boiled down to "He's Jewish but not too Jewish so we can bend the rules a little for him". That happened in 1939.
The whole thing, or just the first half? Because while the descriptive reporting on Yorkshire poverty is riveting and affecting, the screeds about how these culture-war beardy feminist hippies are the wrong kind of socialists and are destroying the movement's credibility with their freaky freakiness in the second half are kinda unappealing (so much so that the editor's foreword more-or-less disavows them).
The second half is more important in 2018 actually. The first half describes a completely vanished world, modern poverty is equally grim but as a descriptive document it just isn't that relevant - although the explanation of why the poor may seem to "waste" money of cheap treats is still very topical. The second half could easily have been written about the British left at any point in the 20th and 21st century and is more relevant than ever.
posted by atrazine at 4:08 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
All very fair criticisms and I don't doubt that by the time he died Ashkenazi Jews were definitely considered white by mainstream American society but remember that he was born in 1918. He was rejected from Columbia because of their Jewish quota and there are letters about his admission to Princeton for graduate study that can be boiled down to "He's Jewish but not too Jewish so we can bend the rules a little for him". That happened in 1939.
The whole thing, or just the first half? Because while the descriptive reporting on Yorkshire poverty is riveting and affecting, the screeds about how these culture-war beardy feminist hippies are the wrong kind of socialists and are destroying the movement's credibility with their freaky freakiness in the second half are kinda unappealing (so much so that the editor's foreword more-or-less disavows them).
The second half is more important in 2018 actually. The first half describes a completely vanished world, modern poverty is equally grim but as a descriptive document it just isn't that relevant - although the explanation of why the poor may seem to "waste" money of cheap treats is still very topical. The second half could easily have been written about the British left at any point in the 20th and 21st century and is more relevant than ever.
posted by atrazine at 4:08 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Leaving out Shakespeare's comedies in favor of the tragedies and histories? The comedies are what hooked me to begin with. A friend's teenage daughter told me her class got to choose between Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet; they chose the former and the whole class loved it. I wish I could say my Grade 9 class had a good time with R&J.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:14 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:14 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Am I the only one who enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby and Catcher In The Rye in high school? (They weren't assigned as a class reading, but they were both on a long list of books for us to choose from to do book reviews in freshman English class.)
I read The Scarlet Letter in AP English junior year. I thought I was going to enjoy it, but I found it to be super boring. What a disappointment!
And how is Moby Dick not on the ditch list? The only people I know who liked that book are people who read it (or reread it) as adults.
posted by SisterHavana at 4:33 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
I read The Scarlet Letter in AP English junior year. I thought I was going to enjoy it, but I found it to be super boring. What a disappointment!
And how is Moby Dick not on the ditch list? The only people I know who liked that book are people who read it (or reread it) as adults.
posted by SisterHavana at 4:33 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
So Hamlet was paired with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Jane Eyre with Wide Sargasso Sea; Heart of Darkness with Things Fall Apart, etc. It was a good way to both get some diversity in the authors we were reading, and then to undercut some of the problematic things in, say, Heart of Darkness.
This is my favorite approach. I am pro-canon for manifold reasons, but my biggie is that the canon exists, therefore we are obligated to teach it. Excuse the recursion, there. What I mean is that knowing the canon allows young scholars to contextualize countless other works that respond or refer to older (but usually still kicking!) canon ancestors. For that reason alone, I get het up about the canon. I believe in canonical context as a very beautiful, revelatory, fissile form of power. And I truly think everyone at least deserves access to that power—deserves to carry it in their reader's arsenal.
All that said, yes, the canon, however one defines it, can be a struggle. And I've often felt excluded from it. But what's been empowering is the feeling of ownership I gained from reading (and continuing to read) those texts. It's my canon now, my block of marble to do with as I will.
But granted, I shouldn't say that Gatsby should be the keystone of a unit on queer analysis, but rather but that queer analysis should be one of the keystones we use to teach Gatsby in high school classes.
Hail, kindred spirit!
posted by desert outpost at 5:04 PM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
This is my favorite approach. I am pro-canon for manifold reasons, but my biggie is that the canon exists, therefore we are obligated to teach it. Excuse the recursion, there. What I mean is that knowing the canon allows young scholars to contextualize countless other works that respond or refer to older (but usually still kicking!) canon ancestors. For that reason alone, I get het up about the canon. I believe in canonical context as a very beautiful, revelatory, fissile form of power. And I truly think everyone at least deserves access to that power—deserves to carry it in their reader's arsenal.
All that said, yes, the canon, however one defines it, can be a struggle. And I've often felt excluded from it. But what's been empowering is the feeling of ownership I gained from reading (and continuing to read) those texts. It's my canon now, my block of marble to do with as I will.
But granted, I shouldn't say that Gatsby should be the keystone of a unit on queer analysis, but rather but that queer analysis should be one of the keystones we use to teach Gatsby in high school classes.
Hail, kindred spirit!
posted by desert outpost at 5:04 PM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
I just read the course list 2 years before from my older siblings books. We had A Clockwork Orange, but now I'm trying to recall if it was on the list or just one of his books?
posted by ovvl at 6:32 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by ovvl at 6:32 PM on August 28, 2018
Assigned books everyone had to read:
Grade 9: Romeo and Juliet, 1984
Grade 10: Julius Caesar, To Kill a Mockingbird
Grade 11: The Scarlet Letter, The Jungle
Grade 12: Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Cyrano de Bergerac, Beowulf
(Nerd that I was, I had already read most of them before.)
Additionallyter we had to read something off an approved list and do either of report or a quiz to prove regret it. I remember it was heavy on the dead white guys, but I also remember that the Sword of Shannara and Clan of the Cave Bear, all the Austen books, and The Hobbit. And if you wanted to read something else and you could make a good case for it to your teacher, it was usually approved. I read Camus in French class, and all the big Russians (in translation) in an elective.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:38 PM on August 28, 2018
Grade 9: Romeo and Juliet, 1984
Grade 10: Julius Caesar, To Kill a Mockingbird
Grade 11: The Scarlet Letter, The Jungle
Grade 12: Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Cyrano de Bergerac, Beowulf
(Nerd that I was, I had already read most of them before.)
Additionallyter we had to read something off an approved list and do either of report or a quiz to prove regret it. I remember it was heavy on the dead white guys, but I also remember that the Sword of Shannara and Clan of the Cave Bear, all the Austen books, and The Hobbit. And if you wanted to read something else and you could make a good case for it to your teacher, it was usually approved. I read Camus in French class, and all the big Russians (in translation) in an elective.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:38 PM on August 28, 2018
Teaching Animal Farm to people without a firm understanding of the Russian Revolution is asinine, public schools aren't interested in teaching high schoolers that information, and asking English teachers to teach that bit of history is, also, asinine.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:46 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:46 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I read The Scarlet Letter as a sophomore ~1970 and, unfortunately, it remains one of my clearest memories of high school. Having to read the book was bad enough—having to discuss it was pure teenage torture. (If you're reading this, Mrs. Cunningham, we got the symbolism, just didn't feel a need to talk about it.)
A banger? I'm betting he's confused this book with some other novel.
posted by she's not there at 6:46 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
A banger? I'm betting he's confused this book with some other novel.
posted by she's not there at 6:46 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Gatsby needs to be read for this stage of capital, plus it's gorgeous. I wonder what happens if we replace Shakespeare with Behn, esp Oroonoko. I also think a thwack of poetry around the middle of the 1600s--Donne, Herrick, Marvell would be delightful. Lastly, Cavendish, so much Cavendish.
posted by PinkMoose at 6:58 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by PinkMoose at 6:58 PM on August 28, 2018
"Teaching Animal Farm to people without a firm understanding of the Russian Revolution is asinine, public schools aren't interested in teaching high schoolers that information, and asking English teachers to teach that bit of history is, also, asinine."
What's curious to me about this is I remember reading it in school (or actually, possibly just watching a movie) about it, but I don't have any association in my memory of it with the Russian Revolution. I just went through the wikipedia article and am still kind of baffled there was no mention of how it warns against capitalism, which is the moral of the story as I remember it. Googling seems to suggest others have had the same idea about it, but it doesn't seem to be an established academic perspective yet.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:05 PM on August 28, 2018
What's curious to me about this is I remember reading it in school (or actually, possibly just watching a movie) about it, but I don't have any association in my memory of it with the Russian Revolution. I just went through the wikipedia article and am still kind of baffled there was no mention of how it warns against capitalism, which is the moral of the story as I remember it. Googling seems to suggest others have had the same idea about it, but it doesn't seem to be an established academic perspective yet.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:05 PM on August 28, 2018
The Scarlet Letter makes me think this person is terribly wrong. I'd rather be forced to critically read the sermons of Cotton Mather again than even look at Hawthorne.
As for Foundation, I went back and reread the first couple of books last year. Aside from the underlying feeling that the series is the first real manifestation of Engineer's disease (we'll fix the decline and fall of civilization with math, over the course of a thousand years, shame about all the billions of lives lived in hellish conditions, but if we follow this plan, people who've never even heard of the Empire will be able to relive our glory a thousand years from now!), the gender roles in the books are stupefying. The example that leaps out (probably the second or third book?) three characters are escaping on a space ship, the wise old guy, the young adventurous guy, and the really smart, highly educated female character. Guess who makes dinner, then clears away the plates and does the washing so the two important characters can discuss what to do over cigars and brandy? And this is coming from someone who kind of even likes the books...
I don't personally believe the canon, or the idea of "a" canon, much better, more inclusive, is itself a bad thing. At its best, a canon should be a collection of shared experiences, texts that show who we are, where we've come from, and what, at our best, at our worst, at our most fantastic, at our most mundane we're capable of. In an ideal form, the canon needs to be a thing that we all have that base experience of, and how we approach it, experience it, and internalize it should form a basis, a basic relationship so that each member of society at least has that much in common, and that each and every member of society has that shared experience and understand of who we are, and have been, and could be, to fall back on, so that we can move forward together. But that's all ideals and coulda woulda shoulda dreaming when we can't even convince people that funding education is worthwhile, or that inequality in funding education is dangerous to the idea of a shared society as a whole, and when there is a solid section of those in power that prefer that such inequality persists.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
As for Foundation, I went back and reread the first couple of books last year. Aside from the underlying feeling that the series is the first real manifestation of Engineer's disease (we'll fix the decline and fall of civilization with math, over the course of a thousand years, shame about all the billions of lives lived in hellish conditions, but if we follow this plan, people who've never even heard of the Empire will be able to relive our glory a thousand years from now!), the gender roles in the books are stupefying. The example that leaps out (probably the second or third book?) three characters are escaping on a space ship, the wise old guy, the young adventurous guy, and the really smart, highly educated female character. Guess who makes dinner, then clears away the plates and does the washing so the two important characters can discuss what to do over cigars and brandy? And this is coming from someone who kind of even likes the books...
I don't personally believe the canon, or the idea of "a" canon, much better, more inclusive, is itself a bad thing. At its best, a canon should be a collection of shared experiences, texts that show who we are, where we've come from, and what, at our best, at our worst, at our most fantastic, at our most mundane we're capable of. In an ideal form, the canon needs to be a thing that we all have that base experience of, and how we approach it, experience it, and internalize it should form a basis, a basic relationship so that each member of society at least has that much in common, and that each and every member of society has that shared experience and understand of who we are, and have been, and could be, to fall back on, so that we can move forward together. But that's all ideals and coulda woulda shoulda dreaming when we can't even convince people that funding education is worthwhile, or that inequality in funding education is dangerous to the idea of a shared society as a whole, and when there is a solid section of those in power that prefer that such inequality persists.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
It is frankly mind boggling to me to add Foundation, as Asimov's idea of characterization is to give someone a catch-phrase or a funny hat or something.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:59 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Wow, did we all read Romeo and Juliet freshman year? We read it, then saw the movie (1968 version - this was in 1988 so the Baz Luhrmann version had not been made), then went on a field trip to see the play in Chicago. (Phoebe Cates and Michael Cerveris starred!)
My sophomore English teacher LOVED Greek drama and we read several of the plays that year.
I read Candide in French class. I enjoyed it and later read the English translation.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:07 PM on August 28, 2018
My sophomore English teacher LOVED Greek drama and we read several of the plays that year.
I read Candide in French class. I enjoyed it and later read the English translation.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:07 PM on August 28, 2018
OK, about his comics choices...
The only one of his choices that's bad is Jimmy Corrigan. There's better choices whether you want experimental comics or white-man angst.
With the others, there's no argumentation, so it feels like he randomly picked some good comic in a particular genre. Like, why those and not 99 Ways to Tell a Story, Love & Rockets, Lumberjanes, Nausicaa, Sandman, The Incal, Les cites obscures, Finder, Ranma 1/2, Ghost World, Stuck Rubber Baby, The Death of Stalin, Frank, Moomintroll, Aya, Little Nemo, or the anthologies by Trina Robbins or Spike?
Some of the lit choices are like that too: Foundation, The Man Who Was Thursday, Hitchhiker's Guide. (I like all three, but they're things to discover on your own, and hardly eternal classics.)
posted by zompist at 9:19 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The only one of his choices that's bad is Jimmy Corrigan. There's better choices whether you want experimental comics or white-man angst.
With the others, there's no argumentation, so it feels like he randomly picked some good comic in a particular genre. Like, why those and not 99 Ways to Tell a Story, Love & Rockets, Lumberjanes, Nausicaa, Sandman, The Incal, Les cites obscures, Finder, Ranma 1/2, Ghost World, Stuck Rubber Baby, The Death of Stalin, Frank, Moomintroll, Aya, Little Nemo, or the anthologies by Trina Robbins or Spike?
Some of the lit choices are like that too: Foundation, The Man Who Was Thursday, Hitchhiker's Guide. (I like all three, but they're things to discover on your own, and hardly eternal classics.)
posted by zompist at 9:19 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Did anyone else read Sinclair Lewis in high school? We read “Babbitt” junior year and I adored it, but the rest of my classmates loathed it. I’ve always been a particular kind of smart aleck, I guess. I think his “It Can’t Happen Here” would be a good read for these political times.
posted by epj at 9:28 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by epj at 9:28 PM on August 28, 2018
I remembered a lot of books on the ditch list as among my most hated from high school, so I looked up the summer reading assignments from my old school district for funsies. The pattern I noticed is frankly a little disturbing.
Let’s start at 9th grade; English 1B is essentially special ed. Their required book is a YA novel in verse about gun violence, written by a black man. The non-honors academic track’s requirement is John Green, who’s still a white dude but good on them for trying out a newer, not traditionally canon book. That track also requires reading a second book, and the options there range from dead white guys to Sherman Alexie. Honors, though? They get A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as the requirement, and the free choice picks are Austen, Bronte, and two different Dickens. There is value in all of those choices, I am not looking to jettison the canon wholesale, but there’s none of the innovative choices, not to mention non-white authors, that the non-honors tracks get.
10th grade looks similar. The special ed track gets Dear Martin, which looks good enough that I’m adding it to my reading list right now. The regular tracks get The Sun is Also a Star, a contemporary YA novel that deals with deportation and is by a woman of color, plus other interesting choices. Honors gets My Antonia, which has interesting queer readings, granted, but that’s the same book I had to read the summer before honors 10th grade English 16 years ago, surely there’s room to switch things up. The free choice books for honors are also overwhelmingly white, though good on them for adding The Joy Luck Club, that wasn’t one of my choices.
I’m not going to go through the remaining grade levels one by one, but the pattern continues; non-honors tracks seem more likely to require books that are newer, by authors of color, and which address issues that are prominent in current events. (Immigration/deportation, police brutality, gun violence, etc). 12th grade AP does an independent study project with some more contemporary options (Americanah is one that jumped out at me), but the list still has a lot of books I remember as being utterly miserable.
To me, this difference has a few implications that are not a good look for the school:
1) Current events, as addressed in the non-honors-assigned books, don’t affect kids in the honors tracks enough to justify having space for those contemporary books in the curriculum.
2) Older, dead white person literature is what “smart” people need to know and analyze.
3) There is no need to insert newer books into the honors/AP curriculum because the canon of literature those classes cover is established and unchanging. Contemporary books are for hooking in reluctanct readers.
My quserstion to all of you now is, were you in honors and AP classes too? Does the pattern I see in my old district also hold for yours? If so, maybe the conversation we need to be having is less about which specific books to keep or not keep in curricula and more about how we redefine what literary intelligence looks like
posted by ActionPopulated at 9:35 PM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
Let’s start at 9th grade; English 1B is essentially special ed. Their required book is a YA novel in verse about gun violence, written by a black man. The non-honors academic track’s requirement is John Green, who’s still a white dude but good on them for trying out a newer, not traditionally canon book. That track also requires reading a second book, and the options there range from dead white guys to Sherman Alexie. Honors, though? They get A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as the requirement, and the free choice picks are Austen, Bronte, and two different Dickens. There is value in all of those choices, I am not looking to jettison the canon wholesale, but there’s none of the innovative choices, not to mention non-white authors, that the non-honors tracks get.
10th grade looks similar. The special ed track gets Dear Martin, which looks good enough that I’m adding it to my reading list right now. The regular tracks get The Sun is Also a Star, a contemporary YA novel that deals with deportation and is by a woman of color, plus other interesting choices. Honors gets My Antonia, which has interesting queer readings, granted, but that’s the same book I had to read the summer before honors 10th grade English 16 years ago, surely there’s room to switch things up. The free choice books for honors are also overwhelmingly white, though good on them for adding The Joy Luck Club, that wasn’t one of my choices.
I’m not going to go through the remaining grade levels one by one, but the pattern continues; non-honors tracks seem more likely to require books that are newer, by authors of color, and which address issues that are prominent in current events. (Immigration/deportation, police brutality, gun violence, etc). 12th grade AP does an independent study project with some more contemporary options (Americanah is one that jumped out at me), but the list still has a lot of books I remember as being utterly miserable.
To me, this difference has a few implications that are not a good look for the school:
1) Current events, as addressed in the non-honors-assigned books, don’t affect kids in the honors tracks enough to justify having space for those contemporary books in the curriculum.
2) Older, dead white person literature is what “smart” people need to know and analyze.
3) There is no need to insert newer books into the honors/AP curriculum because the canon of literature those classes cover is established and unchanging. Contemporary books are for hooking in reluctanct readers.
My quserstion to all of you now is, were you in honors and AP classes too? Does the pattern I see in my old district also hold for yours? If so, maybe the conversation we need to be having is less about which specific books to keep or not keep in curricula and more about how we redefine what literary intelligence looks like
posted by ActionPopulated at 9:35 PM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
First year hs English, I know we read Romeo and Juliet, The Jungle, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, and maybe Catcher in the Rye (southwest Michigan, early 90s, English lit class)
posted by Ghidorah at 11:07 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by Ghidorah at 11:07 PM on August 28, 2018
The works we studied in AP were mostly aimed towards having to pass the AP test and needing to know how to analyze "older" or "important" literature. The works we studied in honors classes were focused on preparing us to study the works that would allow us to pass the AP test. AP Lang was focused on teaching us how to write and analyze, and everyone pretty much got a 5 on the test because of that training.
AP Lit had both Beloved and Maxine Hong Kingston, the latter of which was pretty relevant as it was a majority Asian-American class, but both books were framed as part of the Canon instead of frivolous hooky books for fun: our teacher used them to talk to us about postmodernism, intertextuality, postcolonialism... My AP Lang teacher also had a class library and encouraged us to use it: I discovered White Teeth and Wolf Hall around that age and fell in love with them.
I went to a very competitive high school, so it was sort of assumed that the AP/honors crowd was already motivated to learn and didn't have to be encouraged to read with relevant, contemporary or diverse voices. I don't want to generalize, but the affluent Asian-American community we came from had a respect for education and educators that meant we generally figured our teachers were smart people who knew what they were doing and chose their assigned reading for a reason. We were also in the middle of being pressured to find and perform being "passionate about learning" for college applications, and whatever the hell that actually means... in practice I was a bit scared that people would consider me not intellectual enough for college if I wasn't smart enough to appreciate what we read.
posted by storytam at 11:18 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
AP Lit had both Beloved and Maxine Hong Kingston, the latter of which was pretty relevant as it was a majority Asian-American class, but both books were framed as part of the Canon instead of frivolous hooky books for fun: our teacher used them to talk to us about postmodernism, intertextuality, postcolonialism... My AP Lang teacher also had a class library and encouraged us to use it: I discovered White Teeth and Wolf Hall around that age and fell in love with them.
I went to a very competitive high school, so it was sort of assumed that the AP/honors crowd was already motivated to learn and didn't have to be encouraged to read with relevant, contemporary or diverse voices. I don't want to generalize, but the affluent Asian-American community we came from had a respect for education and educators that meant we generally figured our teachers were smart people who knew what they were doing and chose their assigned reading for a reason. We were also in the middle of being pressured to find and perform being "passionate about learning" for college applications, and whatever the hell that actually means... in practice I was a bit scared that people would consider me not intellectual enough for college if I wasn't smart enough to appreciate what we read.
posted by storytam at 11:18 PM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
This article has got to be a troll if The Brothers Karamozov is on the "remove" list. The author may be interested to learn that 800+ page Russian novels are, in fact, not frequently assigned in high school English classes.
I did read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Angels in America (technically, only part 1 was required reading) in high school English class. And they're good, but I also feel like an ideal curriculum will mix up the drama readings based on what's being produced nearby. Especially since the film adaptations of both works are kind of mediocre -- and 8 hours long, in the case of Angels.
posted by phoenixy at 12:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I did read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Angels in America (technically, only part 1 was required reading) in high school English class. And they're good, but I also feel like an ideal curriculum will mix up the drama readings based on what's being produced nearby. Especially since the film adaptations of both works are kind of mediocre -- and 8 hours long, in the case of Angels.
posted by phoenixy at 12:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'd also be shocked if Kindred isn't already on reading lists all over the place. If you set out to write a book with the goal of getting it onto high school English reading lists you could not possibly produce something more suited to the task than Kindred.
Oh, and:
Ibsen, DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, and David Foster Wallace (save it for college)
One of these things is not like the others...was the inclusion of Ibsen in that list a typo or something? Very confused by that.
posted by phoenixy at 1:40 AM on August 29, 2018
Oh, and:
Ibsen, DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, and David Foster Wallace (save it for college)
One of these things is not like the others...was the inclusion of Ibsen in that list a typo or something? Very confused by that.
posted by phoenixy at 1:40 AM on August 29, 2018
Along the lines of expanding the canon, here's what I wrote a few days after the Nazis invaded my hometown last year. I think a lot of it holds true about the need for increased representation in high school literature, especially to show students from minority or marginalized backgrounds that their story is has value. But I'm skeptical that it will ever make a difference to students of privilege. Maybe to some. But some of those Nazis went to the exact same school as me, and ... well .... It's a bit disheartening.
I'm currently in the midst of trying to build a humanities program for pre-med undergrads (i.e. some of the most blinkered people in the world), and while many of them have been taught (almost by rote) to "hunt the metaphor," they really struggle with stories that fall outside the Joseph Campbell Hero-narrative. Trouble is, 99% of the stories patients tell don't follow the neat rising action-climax-falling action structure we're all taught in 3rd grade. A doctor who can't listen to her patients can't possibly hope to help them. So yeah, reading other types of stories is hugely important in a practical, please-don't-kill-someone kind of way.
posted by basalganglia at 4:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm currently in the midst of trying to build a humanities program for pre-med undergrads (i.e. some of the most blinkered people in the world), and while many of them have been taught (almost by rote) to "hunt the metaphor," they really struggle with stories that fall outside the Joseph Campbell Hero-narrative. Trouble is, 99% of the stories patients tell don't follow the neat rising action-climax-falling action structure we're all taught in 3rd grade. A doctor who can't listen to her patients can't possibly hope to help them. So yeah, reading other types of stories is hugely important in a practical, please-don't-kill-someone kind of way.
posted by basalganglia at 4:53 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Is this where I talk about how Anthony and Cleopatra is a much more enjoyable Shakespeare play than Romeo and Juliet? Because I think it is. By far. I never liked Romeo and Juliet, but I had a really good English teacher take us through Ant and Cleo and it's funny! There's a lot of jokes in it! Their relationship seems deeper and far more real than Romeo and Juliet. It seems like people assume that Romeo and Juliet will resonate more because it involves teenagers, but nobody I know actually connected with those characters mooning at each other.
So that's the first swap I would make. And yes, the comedies are way more fun than the dramas, we loved A Midsummer Nights Dream, I don't know why you'd pick the tragedies first that just seems counter-productive if the aim is to actually engage students and get them interested in Shakespeare.
I really enjoyed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and I would have *loved* having the Earthsea Quartet on the reading list. I still enjoy reading it, so I don't think it's too young, plus what's wrong with reading something accessible?
The Importance of Being Ernest was loads of fun, we acted it all out and then watched the film. Good times. Do Recommend.
I think including Dickens in a reading list for kids is madness, so few kids want to read that many pages - and I was one of the ones who regularly read that much in a day and still had no interest in Dickens. Ditto Moby Dick. I'd always suggest just doing Jane Austen instead, there are so few books we read centered around female characters, in fact I think that was the only one? There's been a whole bunch of discussion about how boys just don't read books with a woman as the main character and so they don't get experience empathising with a female character the same way girls do with male characters. So MORE WOMEN.
And Brett Easton Ellis? Oh god no. I think that's one of the few things I'd actually *resent* having been asked to read.
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:14 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
So that's the first swap I would make. And yes, the comedies are way more fun than the dramas, we loved A Midsummer Nights Dream, I don't know why you'd pick the tragedies first that just seems counter-productive if the aim is to actually engage students and get them interested in Shakespeare.
I really enjoyed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and I would have *loved* having the Earthsea Quartet on the reading list. I still enjoy reading it, so I don't think it's too young, plus what's wrong with reading something accessible?
The Importance of Being Ernest was loads of fun, we acted it all out and then watched the film. Good times. Do Recommend.
I think including Dickens in a reading list for kids is madness, so few kids want to read that many pages - and I was one of the ones who regularly read that much in a day and still had no interest in Dickens. Ditto Moby Dick. I'd always suggest just doing Jane Austen instead, there are so few books we read centered around female characters, in fact I think that was the only one? There's been a whole bunch of discussion about how boys just don't read books with a woman as the main character and so they don't get experience empathising with a female character the same way girls do with male characters. So MORE WOMEN.
And Brett Easton Ellis? Oh god no. I think that's one of the few things I'd actually *resent* having been asked to read.
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:14 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
This article has got to be a troll if The Brothers Karamozov is on the "remove" list. The author may be interested to learn that 800+ page Russian novels are, in fact, not frequently assigned in high school English classes.
It was in the 1960s (I guess) because my dad still complains about having to read that book in high school. I was never even brave (or a jerk) enough to bring it home to check it for myself.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:58 AM on August 29, 2018
It was in the 1960s (I guess) because my dad still complains about having to read that book in high school. I was never even brave (or a jerk) enough to bring it home to check it for myself.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:58 AM on August 29, 2018
My tenth grader was assigned "a book". Any novel, no comics, no sci fi, no romance. He picked Crime and Punishment from my Russian shelf. It's kinda making his teacher crazy, because it doesn't really fit the novel structure i think she's planning on teaching, and she hasn't found any vocabulary from the book that he doesn't know. I had to explain to Boy that even if he knows all the words, he still has to pick words for the vocab assignment. HeHe would rather have had the option of choosing fantasy or sci fi, but on the plus side, he seems to be digging the book he chose.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:16 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:16 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
ActionPopulated, I think the regular track English classes in my district read similarly staid stuff from the canon, but yes, in AP Lit and AP Composition we read the boring canonical stuff, mostly for the sake of best preparing for the AP exam.
However, we also had the additional requirement of reading non-assigned books on our own in the "Accelerated Reader" program. Basically we had to read a certain number of books a month that were our choice, but that had to be part of the school's Accelerated Reader program, which included quizzes on the books that we had to take on our own on the library's computers. The quizzes were brief, just meant to gauge whether you read and comprehended the book. The only problem was that there was a set, limited selection of books available under the AR program. So I, who had literally two full-height shelves worth of books in my room and who went to the public library every month to check out a haul of books, still couldn't use most of those books for the purposes of the AR program, because there were no quizzes available for them. This led to me reading The Da Vinci Code in like one hour one night, the night before our AR requirement was due, because it was the only book lying around the house that was on the AR list and that I hadn't already used for the AR requirement. Meanwhile, the likes of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods was not on the damn list. Guess which book has made a more lasting impression on me, and which book taught me more about both writing and life. It was not the goddamn Da Vinci Code, which I knew was garbage even as a 16 year old. I'd read better fan fiction than the Da Vinci Code as a teenager.
Anyway, I don't think something like the AR program is a bad idea at all, so long as it has a wide selection of books. Most of us didn't mind the quizzes too much, they took like five minutes, we just resented that we had yet another limited and boring selection of ostensibly assigned reading.
posted by yasaman at 9:19 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
However, we also had the additional requirement of reading non-assigned books on our own in the "Accelerated Reader" program. Basically we had to read a certain number of books a month that were our choice, but that had to be part of the school's Accelerated Reader program, which included quizzes on the books that we had to take on our own on the library's computers. The quizzes were brief, just meant to gauge whether you read and comprehended the book. The only problem was that there was a set, limited selection of books available under the AR program. So I, who had literally two full-height shelves worth of books in my room and who went to the public library every month to check out a haul of books, still couldn't use most of those books for the purposes of the AR program, because there were no quizzes available for them. This led to me reading The Da Vinci Code in like one hour one night, the night before our AR requirement was due, because it was the only book lying around the house that was on the AR list and that I hadn't already used for the AR requirement. Meanwhile, the likes of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods was not on the damn list. Guess which book has made a more lasting impression on me, and which book taught me more about both writing and life. It was not the goddamn Da Vinci Code, which I knew was garbage even as a 16 year old. I'd read better fan fiction than the Da Vinci Code as a teenager.
Anyway, I don't think something like the AR program is a bad idea at all, so long as it has a wide selection of books. Most of us didn't mind the quizzes too much, they took like five minutes, we just resented that we had yet another limited and boring selection of ostensibly assigned reading.
posted by yasaman at 9:19 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
When I was in 9th grade Honors English, the teacher told us we'd be reading the Canterbury Tales starting the following Monday. And I was a smart-ass.
I went to the local Community College, which let high school students check books out of their library.
Monday rolls around, and I have two big books with me on my way into English. My teacher was expecting something but wasn't sure what I was doing.
Which is how I had a middle-English copy of the Tales and a book on Middle English to use to translate. An unexpurgated copy of the Tales, no less. And I ended up reading it in class along the rest, then did the paper in ME with a translation into modern English.
I got an A and a Don't Do That Again.
posted by mephron at 9:52 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
I went to the local Community College, which let high school students check books out of their library.
Monday rolls around, and I have two big books with me on my way into English. My teacher was expecting something but wasn't sure what I was doing.
Which is how I had a middle-English copy of the Tales and a book on Middle English to use to translate. An unexpurgated copy of the Tales, no less. And I ended up reading it in class along the rest, then did the paper in ME with a translation into modern English.
I got an A and a Don't Do That Again.
posted by mephron at 9:52 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
In grad school I took a really great course on James Joyce. One day when we were talking about contemporaneous writers and texts, the subject of Gatsby came up as one of the "great American novels." My prof said something like, "I wouldn't trade Ulysses for 20 Great Gatsby's." He's not wrong. ;)
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:29 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:29 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
We don't wait to read Shakespeare until we can understand all the text - we understand all the text because we are taught it.
If you think the majority of your classmates understood all the text, there were at least some things you weren't paying attention to in school. That's not an argument against the limited teaching of Shakespeare, but there's nothing particularly vital about Shakespeare alone that makes learning to decode his very specific archaic vernacular an essential lesson for everyone. The idea that it's so important to struggle to understand the thoughts of dead white guys that we need to invest enormous amounts of teaching time in it, at the expense of more marginalised and just as (or more) challenging voices, is surely the only really coherent thing to come out of articles like this?
Shakespeare's fucking great, but no-one needs Shakespeare in their life except insofar as it is necessary because of his current place in our society and culture.
posted by howfar at 12:31 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you think the majority of your classmates understood all the text, there were at least some things you weren't paying attention to in school. That's not an argument against the limited teaching of Shakespeare, but there's nothing particularly vital about Shakespeare alone that makes learning to decode his very specific archaic vernacular an essential lesson for everyone. The idea that it's so important to struggle to understand the thoughts of dead white guys that we need to invest enormous amounts of teaching time in it, at the expense of more marginalised and just as (or more) challenging voices, is surely the only really coherent thing to come out of articles like this?
Shakespeare's fucking great, but no-one needs Shakespeare in their life except insofar as it is necessary because of his current place in our society and culture.
posted by howfar at 12:31 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
I went to a very competitive high school, so it was sort of assumed that the AP/honors crowd was already motivated to learn and didn't have to be encouraged to read with relevant, contemporary or diverse voices.
This, this is sad to me. Such books aren't taught just because readers need to be encouraged; they're taught because they're good to have read (into which being relevant, diverse, or contemporary might figure). This is the kind of very mechanical approach to the canon that understandably breeds people who want to smash it to pieces. There's not a single work a high schooler needs to read only or even primarily because it's in someone's idea of the canon.
posted by praemunire at 1:01 PM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
This, this is sad to me. Such books aren't taught just because readers need to be encouraged; they're taught because they're good to have read (into which being relevant, diverse, or contemporary might figure). This is the kind of very mechanical approach to the canon that understandably breeds people who want to smash it to pieces. There's not a single work a high schooler needs to read only or even primarily because it's in someone's idea of the canon.
posted by praemunire at 1:01 PM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
My first experience with the Bard was a read-through of Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade English class. I played Benvolio, and having heeded the introduction to the text by Joseph Papp, concentrated mostly on not reading line-by-line duhDAHduhDAHduhDAHduhDAHduhDAH but in a more natural rhythm. So I, like my classmates, was taken by surprise that this entrée into the Serious Adult World of the Canon of English Words started off with two teenage boys mouthing off and panicking into a fight. Even if the Montague Boyz's actions and thoughts were darkened with the soot of hundreds of years of language drift, we all grasped quickly that the broad term Western Lit even fit "talk shit get hit."
Nowadays I believe that my cohort would have enjoyed R&J more and gotten just as much out of it had we read it a year earlier. Instead, the only work I remember treating in depth from 8th grade English was The Thread That Runs So True. I found Stuart's autobiography anodyne and boring then, but would probably have appreciated it more (and been better able to critically analyze it stylistically and politically) as a high school senior looking towards a career.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:06 PM on August 29, 2018
Nowadays I believe that my cohort would have enjoyed R&J more and gotten just as much out of it had we read it a year earlier. Instead, the only work I remember treating in depth from 8th grade English was The Thread That Runs So True. I found Stuart's autobiography anodyne and boring then, but would probably have appreciated it more (and been better able to critically analyze it stylistically and politically) as a high school senior looking towards a career.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:06 PM on August 29, 2018
I stopped reading assigned books somewhere near the end of sophomore or beginning of junior year. After reading Red Badge of Courage, A Separate Piece, Shane, and A Catcher in the Rye, I decided that there was no point in reading anything else because they were all boring and had nothing to do with me or my life. Plus, I could usually write the required essay with a quick skim. Strangely enough I was a voracious reader, I just could not work up any enthusiasm for anything they assigned. I think I did end up reading Metamorphosis senior year. I wrote an essay about how it's a much funnier book if you imagine that he hasn't literally turned into a cockroach, but only imagines he has. I still get a little chuckle thinking about Gregor Samsa trying to open the door with his human mouth. Of course my teacher thought I had entirely missed the point and wanted to talk about symbolism and other boring stuff like that. I went back to reading the Dragonlance Chronicles for the rest of the year.
posted by runcibleshaw at 1:44 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by runcibleshaw at 1:44 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
We don't wait to read Shakespeare until we can understand all the text - we understand all the text because we are taught it.
I went to a Baptist primary school; we read and discussed great whacks of the KJV Bible every day, and had more to memorize every week, never knowing if we'd be called on to recite in class or Chapel. When it came time for my official introduction to Shakespeare, I was that weird kid in the back of the class who laughed at all the dirty jokes the other kids didn't get.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:45 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
I went to a Baptist primary school; we read and discussed great whacks of the KJV Bible every day, and had more to memorize every week, never knowing if we'd be called on to recite in class or Chapel. When it came time for my official introduction to Shakespeare, I was that weird kid in the back of the class who laughed at all the dirty jokes the other kids didn't get.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:45 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
People seem to have thoughts on whether or not The Scarlet Letter is actually a "banger" or not -- what is that even supposed to mean?
Is it meant to evoke a sausage, like a poor quality sausage? A good quality sausage? A firework? (Exciting! Or maybe it just blows up.) An old car? (Also exciting in some ways but not fun ways, but hopefully you'll get to your destination if you just keep at it)
Edit: Sorry I probably should have learned this in school but I think we had a different cannon.
posted by yohko at 7:09 PM on August 29, 2018
Is it meant to evoke a sausage, like a poor quality sausage? A good quality sausage? A firework? (Exciting! Or maybe it just blows up.) An old car? (Also exciting in some ways but not fun ways, but hopefully you'll get to your destination if you just keep at it)
Edit: Sorry I probably should have learned this in school but I think we had a different cannon.
posted by yohko at 7:09 PM on August 29, 2018
Dinnertime anyhow, so I tried cooking up The Scarlet Letter.
Definitely a poor quality sausage.
posted by yohko at 7:21 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Definitely a poor quality sausage.
posted by yohko at 7:21 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
As said above, Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel is definitely a banger.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:46 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 8:46 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
In terms of teaching Shakespeare:
If a student has a poor experience with Shakespeare when they are younger, it's very, very difficult to bring them back. I've met a couple of professors who were such great teachers (and/or intellectual giants in the eyes of their students) that they had a lot of success bridging the gap to haters. I have a good success rate with the indifferent and mildly turned off, but I am not good enough to reach most of those who just reject the work outright. Sometimes I bring them over to indifferent.
There are a lot of mistakes people can make when teaching Shakespeare. The first is not telling the students the plot (or having them read a summary) beforehand. The plots of Shakespeare's plays are not not important, but I don't think novice readers of Shakespeare should worry about trying to decipher the plot from minimal stage directions, poetic exposition, and action cues embedded in the text. His plots are familiar. They rely on conventions and standard tropes (which they often subvert). Pretty much all are totally unrealistic (by modern standards). Many are ludicrous and defy common sense, and rely on the characters to do the same, ignoring (to our eyes, and probably to the eyes of many in his audience) obvious solutions to situations so stupid they shouldn't have happened in the first place. Which, of course, is what makes them so much fun (even when they are real bummers). I think that a lot of novice readers, having the idea of Shakespeare as 1) GENIUS! 2) Suuuuper hard! & 3) Boooooring!, assume that they are misreading Shakespeare, that certain things can't be as obvious and dumb as they appear, there has to be some trick (they all think every question I ask is a trick, it's so depressing), and it reinforces their idea that they can't get it.
So I say, lean into it. The fun of Shakespeare, and most Renaissance drama, is that it is so self-consciously bigger than life; even the quiet, intimate, small moments are theatrically, dramatically, intensely smaller than life. The characters are recognizably human, but usually outrageous humans, soap-opera-level-drama characters ("You thought your wife died all those years ago, but she's alive! I've been hiding her for sixteen years!"). They are based on archetypes and simplistic character tropes, but they are also expanding into human consciousness. It's sort of like a lot of modern improv: they rely on traditional characters and genres, but they imbue it with some odd twist from their own life: the gangster who is very concerned about his crew's dental hygiene; a museum tour where the visitors keep getting kidnapped; whatever. If you give the students permission to be big and bold and over the top ridiculous with Shakespeare, it takes the edge off and gives them some intrinsic incentive to work at the language.
Here I also think giving the students a good bit of summary beforehand is really useful. Tell them basically what's going to happen in the scene: "OK, you remember how Polonius thinks Hamlet is crazy because Ophelia rejected him? Well now he brings the king along to spy while he tests that theory. Polonius sets up his daughter to go give Hamlet back some gifts he gave her while they watch. Hamlet and Ophelia get into an argument, and while she tries to figure out what's wrong with him, he rants about all these issues he has related to recent events." If you know that "here is the part where she's really angry about X", then it's a lot easier to decipher the poetry. Of course, there's got to be some leeway of interpretation; she might not be mad, she might be scared, or both, etc. But that guidance gives enough to figure out a lot more on their own.
An idea I've been toying with is just teaching scenes, not whole plays. Give the students enough context in terms of plot to understand what's going on and give them a little preview: "OK, so in this scene, Iago, who is the villain, tries to get Othello to think that his new young wife Desdemona may be cheating on him. Remember that Othello, as a Moor, is a racial and religious outsider... etc." A good scene or 2 is usually enough to get a good sense of what a play and the characters are "about," as well as a lot of the poetic imagery, etc. Reading plays from 10, 12, 15 different plays, spending a week or 2 on one scene, would give a student a very interesting perspective on Shakespeare, and I don't know that a first-time reader is really going to lose that much. You can read a Shakespeare play a couple times, and get a lot, even while missing a huge amount. Maybe a more intimate familiarity with a bunch of scenes would make them better Shakespeareans.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:28 PM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
If a student has a poor experience with Shakespeare when they are younger, it's very, very difficult to bring them back. I've met a couple of professors who were such great teachers (and/or intellectual giants in the eyes of their students) that they had a lot of success bridging the gap to haters. I have a good success rate with the indifferent and mildly turned off, but I am not good enough to reach most of those who just reject the work outright. Sometimes I bring them over to indifferent.
There are a lot of mistakes people can make when teaching Shakespeare. The first is not telling the students the plot (or having them read a summary) beforehand. The plots of Shakespeare's plays are not not important, but I don't think novice readers of Shakespeare should worry about trying to decipher the plot from minimal stage directions, poetic exposition, and action cues embedded in the text. His plots are familiar. They rely on conventions and standard tropes (which they often subvert). Pretty much all are totally unrealistic (by modern standards). Many are ludicrous and defy common sense, and rely on the characters to do the same, ignoring (to our eyes, and probably to the eyes of many in his audience) obvious solutions to situations so stupid they shouldn't have happened in the first place. Which, of course, is what makes them so much fun (even when they are real bummers). I think that a lot of novice readers, having the idea of Shakespeare as 1) GENIUS! 2) Suuuuper hard! & 3) Boooooring!, assume that they are misreading Shakespeare, that certain things can't be as obvious and dumb as they appear, there has to be some trick (they all think every question I ask is a trick, it's so depressing), and it reinforces their idea that they can't get it.
So I say, lean into it. The fun of Shakespeare, and most Renaissance drama, is that it is so self-consciously bigger than life; even the quiet, intimate, small moments are theatrically, dramatically, intensely smaller than life. The characters are recognizably human, but usually outrageous humans, soap-opera-level-drama characters ("You thought your wife died all those years ago, but she's alive! I've been hiding her for sixteen years!"). They are based on archetypes and simplistic character tropes, but they are also expanding into human consciousness. It's sort of like a lot of modern improv: they rely on traditional characters and genres, but they imbue it with some odd twist from their own life: the gangster who is very concerned about his crew's dental hygiene; a museum tour where the visitors keep getting kidnapped; whatever. If you give the students permission to be big and bold and over the top ridiculous with Shakespeare, it takes the edge off and gives them some intrinsic incentive to work at the language.
Here I also think giving the students a good bit of summary beforehand is really useful. Tell them basically what's going to happen in the scene: "OK, you remember how Polonius thinks Hamlet is crazy because Ophelia rejected him? Well now he brings the king along to spy while he tests that theory. Polonius sets up his daughter to go give Hamlet back some gifts he gave her while they watch. Hamlet and Ophelia get into an argument, and while she tries to figure out what's wrong with him, he rants about all these issues he has related to recent events." If you know that "here is the part where she's really angry about X", then it's a lot easier to decipher the poetry. Of course, there's got to be some leeway of interpretation; she might not be mad, she might be scared, or both, etc. But that guidance gives enough to figure out a lot more on their own.
An idea I've been toying with is just teaching scenes, not whole plays. Give the students enough context in terms of plot to understand what's going on and give them a little preview: "OK, so in this scene, Iago, who is the villain, tries to get Othello to think that his new young wife Desdemona may be cheating on him. Remember that Othello, as a Moor, is a racial and religious outsider... etc." A good scene or 2 is usually enough to get a good sense of what a play and the characters are "about," as well as a lot of the poetic imagery, etc. Reading plays from 10, 12, 15 different plays, spending a week or 2 on one scene, would give a student a very interesting perspective on Shakespeare, and I don't know that a first-time reader is really going to lose that much. You can read a Shakespeare play a couple times, and get a lot, even while missing a huge amount. Maybe a more intimate familiarity with a bunch of scenes would make them better Shakespeareans.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:28 PM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
I'm one of those who thinks US students shouldn't have Shakespeare inflicted on them before their junior (second-to-last, for non-USians) year in high school. While the plots are indeed timeless, and the jokes hilarious, they only make sense if you understand some of the context and can follow the language - and barring an excellent teacher, that's not going to happen. The settings, characters, and literary tropes are so alien to modern students in the US that the time spent explaining them, would be better spent introducing the kids to works that relate directly to their lives.
I don't mean, "Shakespeare is bad; don't give it to students," but that Shakespeare is not particularly relevant to the average US teenager, and, as mentioned, introducing it badly is going to result in someone who actively avoids what value they could get from it later.
At the very least, I'd like schools that use Shakespeare to articulate what students are expected to learn from it, because "familiarity with classic works of white men's literature" is not a feature worth promoting. Not saying that that's all Shakespeare brings - but if that's the only reason for teaching it, it can go.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:03 PM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I don't mean, "Shakespeare is bad; don't give it to students," but that Shakespeare is not particularly relevant to the average US teenager, and, as mentioned, introducing it badly is going to result in someone who actively avoids what value they could get from it later.
At the very least, I'd like schools that use Shakespeare to articulate what students are expected to learn from it, because "familiarity with classic works of white men's literature" is not a feature worth promoting. Not saying that that's all Shakespeare brings - but if that's the only reason for teaching it, it can go.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 6:03 PM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
With so much Shakespeare available to view either as films or filmed plays, I'd think it would be better to introduce students to his works through watching them performed. Performance makes the context of the lines much clearer and as plays they were meant to be seen anyway. Once students become more familiar with how the language is used, then reading the plays is easier and provides opportunity to talk about different interpretations of the action. Reading Shakespeare is great, but it isn't the only way or even necessarily the best way to approach them for students who may not ever want to look at them again if their experience is too difficult or unpleasant.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:15 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by gusottertrout at 9:15 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yes, they need to see it performed (or perform bits of it themselves). They also need to stop calling plays or anything else published in book form a "novel" -- argh, it drives me crazy!
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:43 AM on August 31, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:43 AM on August 31, 2018 [2 favorites]
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Then it follows that you can be told what to say or think
Defend your constitutionally protected rights
No one else will do it for you
Thank you
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:56 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]