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Mama Goose

Joined: 04/17/2004 Posts: 226
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Former English teacher here. In my view, some of the classics... (long)


that we teach in high school, and even earlier, are books the kids cannot process without a lot of teaching to go with it. My own bright 5th grader was required to read Defoe’s *Robinson Crusoe* at home. His teacher was a little surprised and a lot offended when I let her know he was unable to understand the unfamiliar words and writing style without a lot of help and reading aloud on my part. Her comeback was that “well, many of the other students are just loving the book.” In other words, she was saying that my kid, who did quite well throughout his schooling, just didn’t measure up. I would never say that to a parent and certainly not so bluntly. In retrospect, I know that she was inexperienced and insecure. I think she viewed what I said as a criticism by a fellow teacher; in truth, I was just concerned that my child couldn’t do what was being required—and that our sweet 10-year-old was starting to tell us that “Mrs. J. doesn’t like me.”

Sometimes people think that education is so much better today in places like Southwest Virginia than it was in the early 1900s, when the hills and valleys separated families both from each other and from the larger world. The truth is that people like my parents received wonderful educations, even though the schools had only a scattering of students from a wide radius. Much was required, and the students rose to the challenge. Both of my parents studied both Latin and French, they learned to parse sentences and write coherent essays (and in beautiful cursive handwriting!), and they learned more about history than I ever did. In other words, they received a good, traditional, classical education that prepared both of them for college, where they did as well as any of the kids from Northern Virginia did.

I myself was required to read many books both in high school and in college that I wasn’t ready for and didn’t appreciate. Years later, when I re-read some of these same books before teaching them, I was amazed at how much I enjoyed and appreciated them as an adult. We’re still learning all the time, even after we get that final diploma—I know that’s true because these same books were so much easier for me ten years later. *Great Expectations” begins with a couple of chapters so difficult that they’d make any kid’s eyes cross! (That’s also true for some of Poe’s short stories.) I found it worked best for me to read the first couple of chapters aloud, really hamming it up to convey the roughness of the convict‘s character. Once the kids got started, I found that most of them were able to continue on their own, with lots of discussion each day. When I could, I’d allow 15 minutes at the end of class to start reading the homework assignment aloud, either aloud together or silently.

I found Shakespeare‘s language challenging in college and almost impossible in high school. As a teacher, I’d ask the kids to read several scenes for homework; then, when we read the same scenes aloud the next day, it wasn’t completely new. We could talk about what some of the archaic expressions meant and discuss what their words and actions said about the characters. One reading of a Shakespearean play isn’t enough for 14-year-olds to comprehend it. Luckily, I got to teach *Romeo and Juliet* and Macbeth* rather than the more challenging “Julius Caesar* and *Hamlet* that I myself had read in high school.

For several reasons, *The Count of Monte Christo* was my most challenging book to teach. First, it’s long. Second, I myself was reading the novel for the first time. Third, I’d never studied French, and keeping up with all the names—let alone the main character’s aliases—was a problem. My French teacher friend next door tried to help me with pronunciations. Also, I knew nothing about the different levels of European nobility. Finally, she laughed and told me just to do the best I could. Fourth, a couple of avid readers in my classes finished the book in two days flat and started asking me questions about chapters I hadn’t yet read. (Honesty is almost always the best policy with kids; I ‘fessed up, and the kids were okay with that—seemed even to appreciate that I was muddling right along with them.) Frankly, I had to take notes on each chapter as I read so I could keep the plot straight! Do you know how long it takes to read a novel while also taking notes on it? It’s a problem to know how to teach a book that’s basically just a really good plot, without too many literary devices thrown in to discuss The kids who enjoyed the book were already good readers and they liked trying to figure out the puzzles the plot presented. For the others, well, I‘d make up a crossword puzzle before every quiz, and if they had finished the puzzle the day before, they’d know all the quiz questions. So I didn’t think the weaker readers ended up being penalized, although I knew that some of them never finished the book.

Most of the kids liked *Lord of the Flies,* although by this point, they were asking why everything we were reading that year had people dying. Good point. Golding’s book is a great one for teaching symbolism in literature, although you have to be careful not to spoil things with too much discussion about literary devices. They thought *The Good Earth* had too much plowing, although they were intrigued by the concept of the Chinese tea houses! *Ethan Frome*? Again, too much dying. My middle-of-the-road students were reading *To Kill a Mockingbird* in 9th grade, and almost everybody liked that.

Here’s the bottom line, at least as I see it: The teacher has the responsibility to know what’s going to be hard for the kids to handle, and then to find ways to make it more accessible to them. I usually had a couple of classes of kids who read poorly, but I wanted to expose them to some of the literature that others in school were reading. So I found a simplified version of *Romeo and Juliet,” and we read that aloud, to everybody’s enjoyment. I overheard one of my boys, who had a reputation for being a little tough, bragging in the hallway one afternoon, “Yo, we’re reading *Romeo and Juliet* this week, and I’m Romeo!”

Without someone to lead us through them, I agree that the classics can be challenging even for well-read adults. My book club read *The Scarlet Letter,* which I’d never before read. I seriously struggled to get through it—it took me days! But I was glad afterwards that I’d pushed myself and thought it was worth it.

I think the bottom line of what I wish to say (and luckily, if you’re still reading this, there IS a bottom line!) is that there is value in studying the classics, but only if the teachers know how to make them accessible and relatable to their students. Okay, that’s it!



(In response to this post by Tank)

Posted: 05/30/2020 at 9:39PM



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