Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: 42 on May 15, 2004, 12:26:06 PM
-
I've decided that many English teachers who have attempted to teach me appreciation for particular prose have in fact had the opposite effect of scarring my perseption of that prose. Does that make sense? For example, in an English class at BYU, I got to read "A River Runs Through It." I really liked this book since my brother and I are into fishing and stuff, however, the class discussion of it now makes me cringe at just the thought of re-visting that story.
Has anyone else had this experience?
Here are some books that I can never enjoy again because of some teacher:
- Pride and Prejudice
- Peter Pan
- The Illiad
- Anything by James Joyce
- Alice in Wonderland
- Huckleberry Finn
-
Yeah, Peter Pan is at the top of that list for me, given all I've learned about James Barrie in the last year or so. icky. James Joyce is not really enjoyable either way, with or without a bad teacher, IMO. I can't think of anything I've studied in lit classes other than that, though. I think I've come out of it pretty much lightly scratched, rather than scarred.
-
"Robinson Crusoe"
Ick. Just Ick.
-
Lord of the Flies...
Its a book that doesnt need much interperitation
and I love ROBINSON CRUSOE but would hate to have it taught to me...
Just like I love Candide but would hate to have that taught to me.
-
Yeah, and on top of that, my 251 class dealt ONLY with Robinson Crusoe and the story. Whatever you do, don't read J.M. Coetze's "Foe", which for some god-awful reason won a nobel prize.
-
I'll hold myself back from ranting TOO much.
However, this has always been an annoyance of mine. (Some of you have probably heard me complain about it.) I'm not exactly sure what the solution is, but I do think that more HS English classes should focus on getting the students to read for enjoyment. Then, when it comes time to study literature in a scholarly way, they could take passages of certain 'literary' texts, read them, and discuss them. Forcing kids to read an entire book and take a test on it kind of takes the life out of the reading experience.
-
No offence, but if you've waited till high school to get kids reading for pleasure its too late.
I'd flip your solution around and say teach elementary kids to read for fun, and high school kids how to read to understand.
then again how do you know they read the book?
-
Catch-22
Its a book that should never be taught.
Its one you have to wait to experience for yourself before you can even read it. Catch 22 requires and demands that you have life experience behind the actual text. A 16 year old kid, just doesnt understand that kind of humor at least not at the same level as 25-30 year old (and I expect they dont even get the full signifigance.)
And this is a pet peeve of mine,
Just because there is a movie of a book, dont show that movie to the kids in lieu of actually reading it.
Catch-22, Lord of The Flies, Romeo and Juliette (Dont even get me started about "reading" Shakespeare) Catcher in the Rye. Books are an experince you create on your own. Watching to movie robs people of their own creative power.
-
I agree with the 'some things just aren't for HS kids' idea. James Joyce. WHY would you have kids read this? Shakespeare I can understand--I think it's a good experience for students to read him. But Paradise Lost? The Illiad? Grapes of Wrath? I just don't think HS students can appreciate these books.
Let them study more contemporary writings. Find things that are actually interesting, but have a literary bent. Lord of the Rings is a good example. Some of Stephen King's work would be a good fit too.
-
lord of the flies
cannery row
grapes of wrath
mrs frisbee and the rats of nihm
thank you miss richter, for ruining these books and making me read each one a fifth time...
-
I have a mixed effect. Some things I studied, I really enjoyed despite that, like Othello, for example, which I still like. Others may have been ruined, or I may have just not liked it from the beginning, like in the case of J.G. Ballards "Empire of the Sun."
-
It is not too late to learn to read for enjoyment in HS. My sister hated reading until HS. Now she writes prolificly. POETRY none the less.
I think EUOL is on it. It doesn't have to be one of the greats to get them started. Get something many of them will like. Then look at interesting things the writer does. Build up to literary criticism.
-
And maybe thats what Im getting at too; reading Classics in high school is a little like driving a car before you've owned a bike. Yeah you had a big wheel, but the transition from Big Wheel to Studebaker is a big one especially if you never owned a huffy.
Course its entirely possible that all the huffy will do is reinforce bad habits.
-
What ruins a book ruins a book for me is when the instructor enforces her/his interpretation on the students. Which I have to point out is the anti-cognitive learning proccess. I have to point out that the books I've enjoyed reading most for a class are the ones where the instructor let the class come to their own conclusions.
-
Yeah 42, that's my biggest complaint with HS English teachers. I had one teacher (for three years) that taught English like it was math -- there was one right answer for everything. It doesn't make sense to me to have an English test with multiple choice questions.
-
I think they do that because the kids whine about writing essays. Which, really, is the only way to test how well you can criticize literature. You could have mutiple choice or short answer, but that's really only going to test whether you read the book (or at least the Cliff's Notes).
So that's a teacher problem. Cursed teachers! Give me essays!
-
Wow, I guess I was in a unique situation. I don't remember hating any English-assigned books that, if read on my own, I wouldn't have hated anyways. I guess that's cause I never took the books very seriously. If it was bad, I'd probably read the "notes" on it and answer the questions as my teacher wanted them answered. Why should I care if I didn't like the book anyways? If it was good, I'd add it to my library and not care what the teacher thought of it (aside from getting the right answers on a test).
On a side note, I started reading Lord of the Flies for fun as a freshman. I didn't know the plot of the story, but if you just read the first part without any comparison or analysis, it's a really good story. I finished the second half as a senior, but by then I had good memories of the book. Strangely, even after all the analysis of it, I like that book.
-
Humm. I don't think I've ever had a book ruined for me. There are a couple books I read in classes that I didn't like (Wuthering Heights, A Thousand Acres), but I think I wouldn't have liked those anyway. And other books I've read in classes I have enjoyed.
But still I don't like literary criticism. The classes that turned me off on literary criticism failed to turn me off on books.
-
Ditto on a lot of that. Books make sense. Literary criticism is nuts.