Teaching the Classics
As a teacher and lover of classical literature, I'll admit that interest in the classics has waned since I started teaching 33 years ago. Nonetheless, I'm still convinced students must read challenging works that expand their world view, vocabulary, and understanding of different time periods and cultures.
Certainly students don't need to read traditional or antiquated literary peices to achieve these benefits. I just finished teaching The Kite Runner to my sophomores, and most of them easily devoured this story about a man seeking redemption for past mistakes. In recent years I haven't enjoyed the same success with A Separate Peace, a classic novel with a similar theme, but more difficult to read. So I plan to continue teaching The Kite Runner and will probably offer A Separate Peace as an optional assignment. But part of me worries about placing less emphasis on a novel that forces students to struggle with vocabulary and syntax. Is my decision to teach an "easier," more contemporary novel what educators refer to as "dumbing down the curriculum"? Don't get me wrong. I loved teaching The Kite Runner and value its poetic style and cultural relevance--and my students loved the novel (a victory in and of itself). But they rarely asked questions about the meaning of certain passages or vocabulary the way students do when reading the classics. If I want them to improve their rhetorical skills, don't I need to expose them to literary forms not typical of what they like to read?
Just this morning I read an article in the Rocky Mountain News about the One Book, One Denver program promoted by Mayor John Hickenlooper. Apparently the program isn't doing too well because readers don't like the book choices. According to local author Joy Hakim, "This is the information age and what most of us want to read is real stuff...The novel was an exciting literary form in the 19th century...Today's literary form is nonfiction." Excuse me. The destructive power of jealousy in Othello is not real? The pain of Gene in A Separate Peace understanding that he is his own worst enemy is not real? The joy of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice discovering a soul-mate who is her intellectual equal depite the pressures of a society consumed by social status not real? Portia's definition of mercy as a quality which "blesseth him that gives and him that takes" in Merchant of Venice not real? The purpose of great literature is to give us a real understanding of ourselves and the world around us. We need the classics to give us words that increase such understanding, and we need to learn the art of expressing our emotions in words that can move others.
Nothing compares with watching students experience the joy of reading literary masterpieces which defy the passage of time. This past week my AP Language students read Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Students struggled with words such as "apoplexy," "portmanteau," and "Quixotic," but their laughter rang out more often than their questions; and as one student exclaimed while walking out of class at the end of the period, "This play is sheer perfection."
Certainly students don't need to read traditional or antiquated literary peices to achieve these benefits. I just finished teaching The Kite Runner to my sophomores, and most of them easily devoured this story about a man seeking redemption for past mistakes. In recent years I haven't enjoyed the same success with A Separate Peace, a classic novel with a similar theme, but more difficult to read. So I plan to continue teaching The Kite Runner and will probably offer A Separate Peace as an optional assignment. But part of me worries about placing less emphasis on a novel that forces students to struggle with vocabulary and syntax. Is my decision to teach an "easier," more contemporary novel what educators refer to as "dumbing down the curriculum"? Don't get me wrong. I loved teaching The Kite Runner and value its poetic style and cultural relevance--and my students loved the novel (a victory in and of itself). But they rarely asked questions about the meaning of certain passages or vocabulary the way students do when reading the classics. If I want them to improve their rhetorical skills, don't I need to expose them to literary forms not typical of what they like to read?
Just this morning I read an article in the Rocky Mountain News about the One Book, One Denver program promoted by Mayor John Hickenlooper. Apparently the program isn't doing too well because readers don't like the book choices. According to local author Joy Hakim, "This is the information age and what most of us want to read is real stuff...The novel was an exciting literary form in the 19th century...Today's literary form is nonfiction." Excuse me. The destructive power of jealousy in Othello is not real? The pain of Gene in A Separate Peace understanding that he is his own worst enemy is not real? The joy of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice discovering a soul-mate who is her intellectual equal depite the pressures of a society consumed by social status not real? Portia's definition of mercy as a quality which "blesseth him that gives and him that takes" in Merchant of Venice not real? The purpose of great literature is to give us a real understanding of ourselves and the world around us. We need the classics to give us words that increase such understanding, and we need to learn the art of expressing our emotions in words that can move others.
Nothing compares with watching students experience the joy of reading literary masterpieces which defy the passage of time. This past week my AP Language students read Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Students struggled with words such as "apoplexy," "portmanteau," and "Quixotic," but their laughter rang out more often than their questions; and as one student exclaimed while walking out of class at the end of the period, "This play is sheer perfection."
posted by mferrill at 9:03 AM
2 Comments:
With much less skill, I echo your words and admire you as a champion in this "battle." Thank you for teaching, believing, and remaining steadfast in your pursuit of what you value. Read on!
Marlys,
I applaud your steadfast efforts to challenge and inspire young people. Your students praise you, quote the books you’ve taught them, and express gratitude to you for opening their minds to Shakespeare, Austen, Wilde, Conrad, Waugh, Eliot, Byron, Keats, and on and on.
It’s funny that you should call A Separate Peace a “classic.” When I was in high school, young and innovative teachers replaced Silas Marner with A Separate Peace because Knowles’ novel was more “relevant.” To think that today’s students view A Separate Peace as an incomprehensible relic of the past makes me laugh. (It also reminds me how old I am.)
Never mind that, though... Keep fighting the good fight, Marlys!
Post a Comment
<< Home