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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So...what do you do in class when everyone is reading a different book? Granted I was in MS almost twenty years ago at a private school, but as I recall we did a lot of discussing the plot, symbolism, character motivation, close reading, etc. Or is literary analysis now outdated as well? It seems like “read something you love to develop a sense of joy with the written word” is for SSR in elementary school, not middle or HS English class. What’s changed?

(PS: we read Kindred in seventh grade and idk if it counts as a classic but it was great!)[/quote]

They can still discuss all those in the context of their own book. Track YOUR character’s development. What motivates them? What do their words and choices reveal about them? How does YOUR book use imagery or setting to impact the story? They can do all that and have discussions around big questions (e.g., “Who or what determines whose stories get told?”) in the context of their own  book.  All books have plot, characters, dialogue, literary devices- they’re just applying their knowledge of those things to analyze how they work in their book and to what effect. [/quote]

Right, but what does the classroom actually look like? One kid is talking about the hero’s journey as illustrated by Frodo’s character arc or whatever, how are any of the other students who aren’t reading LotR going to connect with that? “Hey, look at this cool way light and dark imagery shows up again in this climactic scene, reminding me of the scene where the protagonist was introduced...it’s on page 73 of a book I’m the only one who has.”

Look, cards on the table, I think there’s a certain corpus of material people need to be familiar with in order to engage productively with those big questions. Never mind with works of literature! You’re not going to understand what Derek Walcott is saying if you haven’t read the Odyssey, and frankly reading Ulysses helps too. “Whose story gets told” is, IMO, a question that you need to know a lot of history to answer and I’m not convinced you can provide appropriate context for students who are reading twenty five different books. I mean, fine, if you want to do the Harlem Renaissance not everyone needs to be reading Invisible Man, but I can’t imagine a productive classroom conversation between someone reading Invisible Man and someone reading the latest dystopian YA. This may be a failure of imagination on my part! So I’m curious how you envision it going. [/quote]

I agree with parts of what you are saying. It IS more challenging to teach when students aren’t all reading the same book. However, great schools donthat all the time. Sometimes, they cluster students in discussion groups around books with a common theme. I don’t teach English, but in my SS class students work on individualized research topics, reading totally different primary and secondary sources, but manage to have group discussions about common themes. Part of the work that has to be done upfront is teaching students [i]how[/i] to have this type of discussion. It’s a skill of lifelong real world value.[/quote]

I’m OP and this is why I said it would definitely take a little more work on my part... it’s giving kids tools and a framework to lead their own learning and discussion without the normal training wheels in place.

Pp, imagine a topic or interest in the news. Gun violence let’s say. You mention to a friend one article you read. They say oh, here’s the one I read. You discuss the merits of each, how the author made the point, was it persuasive? Expository? Opinion? How do you know? Were the tools they used effective? You could have a very rich discussion having not ever necessarily read the other article. And you might even feel compelled during or afterward to go read that article because the discussion was that interesting. We do this ALL the time as adults! I believe kids can too. “I picked a book about poverty. Here’s how my book handles it.” “And here’s how my book handles that same issue.” [/quote]

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