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Well, I don't know, but I might tell them that everything in the curriculum is for the students' enrichment, will help when they go to college, provides the students with chances to explore their own cultures, values, and beliefs, and maybe helps students practice higher-order thinking? Why wouldn't this work in a real classroom?
Better readers are generally better writers, and better writers AND better readers are generally better communicators, and being a strong communicator is a fairly invaluable tool.
Reading also exposes you to innumerable perspectives and schools of thought, and provides the opportunity not only for broadening your own worldview, but for analyzing the perspectives of others, and determining your own response.
Students do not determine the curriculum in this school district....................
A wonderful answer -- and only one amongst many on this thread, which has prompted me to consult for the first time in many years an essay by Flannery O'Connor called "Total Effect and the Eigth Grade" where she concludes:
...And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? While that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.
I highly recommend three essays relevant to this topic. The first is called "Teaching Language in Open Admissions" by Adrienne Rich; it is in an anthology called "On Lies, Secrets, and Silence."
The second and third are by Flannery O'Connor, and contained in a book called "Mystery and Manners." They are called "Total Effect and the Eight Grade" (mentioned above) and "The Teaching of Literature."
Mystery and Manners and On Lies, Secrets, and Silence are both brilliant books that should be owned by anyone who loves literature.
A wonderful answer -- and only one amongst many on this thread, which has prompted me to consult for the first time in many years an essay by Flannery O'Connor called "Total Effect and the Eigth Grade" where she concludes:
...And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? While that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.
I highly recommend three essays relevant to this topic. The first is called "Teaching Language in Open Admissions" by Adrienne Rich; it is in an anthology called "On Lies, Secrets, and Silence."
The second and third are by Flannery O'Connor, and contained in a book called "Mystery and Manners." They are called "Total Effect and the Eight Grade" (mentioned above) and "The Teaching of Literature."
Mystery and Manners and On Lies, Secrets, and Silence are both brilliant books that should be owned by anyone who loves literature.
This thread has really got me thinking the last couple of days...especially in tandem with another one running in parallel on the "College" forum where the usual suspects are, predictably, bashing "English degrees" as useless and the literary study as superfluous so long as one has access to a library....
I found myself paging through my ancient copy of Mystery and Manners yesterday and find myself, as ever when I read nearly anything by Flannery O'Connor, overcome with awe and gratitude.
As one former professor, a specialist in 18th c. American literature and brilliant scholar from whom I learned much, once explained to me:
"The study of literature is the study of human frailty."
Here is some more from O'Connor (from "The Nature and Aim of Fiction," emphasis mine):
The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; and it's well to remember that the serious fiction writer always writes about the whole world, no matter how limited his particular scene....
People are always complaining that the modern novelist has no hope and that the picture he paints of the world is unbearable. The only answer to this is that people without hope do not write novels. Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.....
People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them. They dont take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience....
We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.
Dreaming, you have some great things to say, and I have only one thing to add. Someone once told me about a sign they saw at a craft fair: "Sure you can go home and make one yourself, but will you?" Same could be said of lit--sure you can go to the library and read the great books, but how many people actually do that w/o being made to? And then if you do read it on your own, how many understand what they're reading w/o a discussion group to bounce ideas off of? I'm a very good reader, but I still like to have other peoples' insights. Some people need to be told that it's okay to skip large parts of Les Miserables. Well, maybe I added more than one thing--it's that kind of day.
The book contents themselves might not help you out specifically, but the idea behind it is to allow students to get their creative mind juices running and stimulate those brain cells to work comprehension magic and all that jazz.
We really take reading for granted, so it's high time we get back on track as from the high schoolers I've met...let's just say their comprehension skills aren't that great...:/
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Another one for the English teachers...
