Question from a teacher about your kids...

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Oh, and also, I would never try to have a conversation with a friend about the specific merits of a given article without reading the article. The content, sure — “oh yes, Charles Mann argues that the population of the Americas before Columbus was much larger than we thought” but not “Charles Mann has this beautifully lyrical description of Amazonia...” (I’d immediately go “ooh lemme see.”)

And what if- hear me out- this exact thing happens to kids and they go “wait let me read that” and then they too are doing extra reading just because they were curious.

I mean, great, but you’re making it sound like the best thing that could come out of your class are kids reading on their own, which as the kid who would have preferred to read her own book in the library than go to English class (and whose kid is the same!) makes me wonder why it should be a required course. But that’s cool, I was already pretty sold on a classical curriculum for my kids.

I think you are missing the point. English class is not about reading the book. One can do that on their own. It's about dissecting and discussing the book. You know, critical thinking. That's why it's a required course. It has never been about the reading part.

No, I don't think PP was missing the point. I think OP is missing the point. To OP, the point of English class is to read the book and 'love reading.'

No, the books are actually beside the point which is why I don’t need to control what they pick. The point of English class is to connect with humanity, honor someone else’s voice and lived experience, hone your own writing and voice to tell your story, understand your world.

That is the silliest thing I’ve read in a long time and completely makes my point. -PP

+1

[Anonymous]

The specifying race in an English class would make me very uncomfortable. For history and there be a lesson on it, yes, but as a political statement, no.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of those "was an avid reader as a teen" people for whom I think this approach would have been a problem. I didn't like all the texts I read in high school English (I did, however, read them all - I think the only one I didn't finish in four years was Red Badge of Courage). But I did think it was valuable to have assigned texts with some support - I wasn't the type of kid who would have picked up, say, 100 Years of Solitude on my own. I would have been intimidated by the length and reputation and writing style. But it was really valuable to me to have read it and to have the in-class discussion as a guide to getting through it. And then later, I did read more Marquez on my own. But if just asked to choose a book in high school by a Latin American author (or whatever the prompt would be)? That wouldn't have been my choice; something much simpler would be.

Similarly, there's a lot of value, IMO, to being able to discuss critiques of works and the like as a whole group. We never read TKAM in school - so fine, skip it. But, for instance, we read Heart of Darkness. Then we read and discussed Chinua Achebe's critique of Heart of Darkness, which obviously stuck with me since I'm posting about it 20 years later - if some kid had decided to read Heart of Darkness on their own, and nobody else had read it, and maybe you hadn't read it, or hadn't read it recently, how can you get into in depth critiques like that? Or social context - I absolutely loved Jane Austen (still do) and probably would have chosen to read her books if given a choice. But having a teacher there who had also read all her letters and historical stuff about the period and who could talk about things like what the entailment meant in the context of the book added depth I wouldn't have gotten on my own.

As an adult, I've found a lot of value in book clubs for the same reason as all of this - it challenges me to read stuff I wouldn't have picked up on my own and gives me a chance to talk about a single work with other people who have thought about it and maybe read other things about it than I have.

I'm also now a lawyer, so being able to take dense texts and argue my position about them is basically the foundation of my work. Again, just picking and having broad conversations about themes? I don't think that would have gotten me to the point of being able to do my job the way I can. A more traditional curriculum really helped, though. I'm not saying there's no place for choice - but I do think there are lessons you can learn from assigned reading.

[Anonymous]

I would have picked books I already read to have one fewer class that I had to do work for. (I read — and still read — a ton for fun. Mysteries are my jam, but I like a wider range of contemporary fiction too and always read the Booker and Pulitzer finalists each year, just as a way to get a survey of recent “great” books.) I went to a magnet with a lot of work and making one class much less work would have outweighed all other considerations, just being honest.

Also, I would have hated discussions in a class like this: what if my classmates basically “spoiled” a ton of good books I was otherwise interested in reading? I admittedly read for plot and would likely never read a single book discussed in the class as a result of it.

Also, it sounds like maybe you teach at a school with few students headed to elite colleges, but if that’s wrong... I think depriving your students of real, in depth literary analysis before they head to college is a mistake. No way you get that experience when everyone is reading different texts and you, the teacher, may not have read every book and certainly won’t have read critiques of all of them or even thought about them in depth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 7th and 4th grade daughters read a ton for pleasure and relaxation. Examples of 7th graders books - Homecoming, Dicey’s Song, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, Satellite, some biographies

DP- there are 7 books total about the Tillerman kids. After Dicey's Song, they are harder to find but SO good. They have been my favorite since I discovered them in my great grandmother's playroom at 10 or 11. I still to this day will grab and re-read if I have nothing else to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am a college literature professor at a very good school and I have several close friends who are high school English teachers. I understand that your/their job is harder than mine in many ways: I don't have to work very hard simply to engage my students. I can assume a certain level, not just of literacy, but of critical analysis skills. I take for granted my students' commitment to the coursework and to the educational endeavor in general. I realize that your students and goals are different.

That said, I am bothered by how dismissive you are of so many responses. You call on the "latest research" as though it were an irrefutable authority when these are all questions that teachers wrestle with and will continue to wrestle with for years to come.

Personally, I believe that the goal of any language arts instructor, or high school English teacher, or college literature professor should be to teach certain skills, to ensure that students can analyze difficult texts (whether it's a canonical work, an opinion article, or a political speech), and can put together a coherent argument. It is our job to challenge students -- to try to prepare them a little bit for the challenge that is life. If the students are going to read (maybe only part of...) of a few books per year, they should be books vetted and carefully chosen by YOU (the most prepared person in the room!). Every part of the classics can be analyzed, questioned, critiqued, deconstructed -- as you do that, you both deal with the difficult issues instead of avoiding them and teach students how to deal with them in life.

I admire you for being so thoughtful in your approach to teaching but I don't see how you can get a consistently good discussion or how you can consistently teach important skills
with this format.

Well said. I can just imagine a kid proposing a theory she did not agree with, or wanting a healthy debate about theme or author's purpose, and OP nastily shutting them down and refusing to let them use their own voice and explore their own ideas. Makes me really, really sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lurker NP here.

OP, this is just food for thought. Your responses here on this thread seem to be hypocritical considering what you are advocating in your classroom. In your classroom, you are giving wider choice for reading material and discussion in order to get themes across and teach critical thinking from what is read.

On this thread, you are actually trying to focus the discussion only in the direction you want it to be, exactly focused on what you are trying to get. Unfortunately, on a public open discussion board like DCUM it is virtually impossible to keep the peanut gallery narrowly focused on just one topic or question. Since it is a discussion board, there are natural diversions and tangents in conversation and people will pick up on that. In addition, people will choose how they want to answer your question even if it is in a different direction than you are guiding.

So your are giving more freedom of choice and response to your students and less freedom of choice and response to the discussion board, which frankly is hopeless. A better choice for you is to let people respond as they want and just pick the responses that are helpful to you and your focus and ignore or move on from the responses that are not focused for you. It might be helpful to other people, like the other teachers who are on the thread or to other parents who may find some of the comments useful.

But your response to the people who are not doing exactly what you want are brusque and rude, despite what you seem to think. So be more polite and just opt not to respond to those responses that don't fit your desired focus.

+1. OP is getting fewer constructive answers because of her first rude response about the sticky notes. OP sounds like an early to early-middle career know it all.

[Anonymous]

My 16 year old DEVOURED books up until about 7th grade and now it's like pulling teeth to get her to read. I think she got burned out reading textbooks, etc. in the last few years. She's picked up Sotomayor's autobiography (which was a christmas gift) and read about a chapter so far. Last summer, she read Things Fall Apart, but that's because we (parents) required it. (She didn't hate it, though.)

[Anonymous]

Wow-- I read part of this thread with several responses from OP. I hope she doesn't teach in my kid's school! So rude and immature in her responses.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:While I am no fan of OP's classroom model, my 10th grader who's taking challenge math, science and social studies classes would be thrilled to have a class where he can coast by selecting easy books that he "loves." He'd have more time to engage in his other classes that require more depth. He'd be happy to have OP as a teacher.

Interesting you think I’m a big enough bozo to be like “sure you can read The Boxcar Children” in 10th grade. Again, there is NO WAY for anyone to glean an entire pedagogy from this one thread. Obviously the kids would have to propose a title, why they selected it, and I would have veto power if it were inappropriate (Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray) or way below grade level or like 50 pages long.

The anti teacher sentiment that is replete across the rest of DCUM makes tons of sense now though. You guys really do think we are idiots! It’s a wonder you send your kids to school at all since you can do it so much better.

Well, this thread has increased the likelihood of me homeschooling by several percentage points!

Hope OP isn’t representative of a new wave of teachers...

Yep, one of the newer teachers with all her new age crap.

Don't worry, I am a teacher (I'm 30, so I am still 'young' but have been teaching 9 years). She sounds like a first through third year teacher, and like she probably is really hated by her whole staff. She is the type who speaks up and argues at faculty meetings, who defies the curriculum and the parents and admin, and then feels scorned and like she was treated unfairly. There has been one or two every year. Don't worry, she'll chill out or quit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I am no fan of OP's classroom model, my 10th grader who's taking challenge math, science and social studies classes would be thrilled to have a class where he can coast by selecting easy books that he "loves." He'd have more time to engage in his other classes that require more depth. He'd be happy to have OP as a teacher.

Interesting you think I’m a big enough bozo to be like “sure you can read The Boxcar Children” in 10th grade. Again, there is NO WAY for anyone to glean an entire pedagogy from this one thread. Obviously the kids would have to propose a title, why they selected it, and I would have veto power if it were inappropriate (Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray) or way below grade level or like 50 pages long.

The anti teacher sentiment that is replete across the rest of DCUM makes tons of sense now though. You guys really do think we are idiots! It’s a wonder you send your kids to school at all since you can do it so much better.

Well, this thread has increased the likelihood of me homeschooling by several percentage points!

Hope OP isn’t representative of a new wave of teachers...

Yep, one of the newer teachers with all her new age crap.

Don't worry, I am a teacher (I'm 30, so I am still 'young' but have been teaching 9 years). She sounds like a first through third year teacher, and like she probably is really hated by her whole staff. She is the type who speaks up and argues at faculty meetings, who defies the curriculum and the parents and admin, and then feels scorned and like she was treated unfairly. There has been one or two every year. Don't worry, she'll chill out or quit.

[/quote

Yep. One of the newer teachers with all her new age crap.

[Anonymous]

I have a reader who reads non fiction. I have 2 non readers, who didn’t read anything this summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The specifying race in an English class would make me very uncomfortable. For history and there be a lesson on it, yes, but as a political statement, no.

It is difficult to study American lit in any meaningful way without discussing race because it decontextualizes both the fictional events and the author that produced the work. Laura Lippman has spoken about audience reactions to her latest novel, saying that she could not write about Baltimore without writing about race.

Imagine studying British lit without ever discussing social class?

[Anonymous]

My high school English teacher did this. I read Anne Rice vampire books all year. I spent a lot of subway commuting time in my 20s catching up on the classics I never got to read because they were never assigned to me in school. I felt like an idiot in college every time Catcher in the Rye came up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi! It’s me, the high school English teacher. Gearing up for another year back. I’m playing around with my curriculum this year and thinking I will do no whole- class texts this year and instead give the kids a genre or general requirement and then have them choose a book within those parameters. So, for instance, if I say a book by a BIPOC author, they can choose any book that interests them as long as it was written by someone who is Black, Indigenous, or otherwise a person of color. All our mini lessons, essential questions, tasks will revolve around that type of book so what they are reading specifically won’t matter- they’ll be able to apply it all to their individual text.

Here’s my question to you: can you tell me honestly if your kid actually read for pleasure this summer and if so, what they read? Don’t be selective about answering only if your kid did, it helps me to know if they didn’t as well. Getting kids to read for pleasure is a huge struggle and I’m tailoring my curriculum to hopefully help them do more of that without the whole “we are going to read this tedious old book from 1945 and beat it to death” thing. It’s a good jumping off point for me to know whether the kids are reading books of their choice when they’re able or if they’re not reading at home either since getting them to think of reading as a valuable pastime they should consider doing for enjoyment is, well, hard.

How will you know if their answers are accurately if you haven't read the book, yourself?