After taking the Adolescent Literature course, I have new ideas about how I will teach literature in my classes. Last school year, I was disappointed in the number of students who became excited about reading and books. I was overcome by fighting illiteracy, low efficacy, and low motivation in most of my classrooms. Probst’s experience of a classroom discussion session is what I want to see happen in my classroom literature discussions. “There was a first a lot of talking (this in itself is sounded good); very little listening. It was as if the reading had filled them with a passion and energy they could discharge only through speech. Gradually, however, the monologues became dialogues and kids began to hear what others were saying and to pause long enough to actually listen and reflect." (2000, p.9) Probst then goes on to talk about overly-guided discussion that occurs in many classrooms and its potential to suppress students’ urges to reflect on and discuss what they think about the literature. I felt in many ways this had occurred in my classroom, and was even encouraged by administrators as a way to maintain control of the classroom. Since literature discussion is what I want in my classrooms, I plan on attempting a freer structure with in-class reading time, free-write time, and class discussions. I don’t really like literature circles as they have been proposed to me, so I will try Probst’s suggestion of small group share in which each students speaks about what they free-wrote, and then large group share where conversation can take its own course. We’ll see what happens.
Probst, R. (2000). Literature as invitation, Voices from the Middle, 8 (2). pp. 9-15.
I had some strong reactions to the article, “It’s the THAT teacher.” I agree with some of arguments such as the one against fixations on classics and the traditional cannon of literature taught in secondary schools. I also agree that YA literature has a place in the secondary classroom and can lead to good thinking and good discussions, especially since many students are not prepared to read adult literature. However, I feel that adult literature should be the goal. I feel like Hipple’s argument, “enjoyment is what we’re after, at least at the secondary school level, where our students are going to grow up to be pediatricians and politicians, carpenters and car mechanics….but only very rarely English majors who need this early lit crit training.” (1996, pp. 16-17) I feel like the equivalent of the high-school student’s argument, “When are we ever going to have to use this?”
Which, actually, is a pretty good argument, as every teacher knows. Who needs physics or geometry proofs? What fun are they? I’m an English major, and I don’t ever have to use them, but I have an appreciation for them, understand that some people need them when designing a bridge or vehicle or theory about how the world works. What if we said “that” about math? “It’s not what kind of math students are doing, it’s that they’re doing math!” I somehow don’t think that argument would fly.
I feel like students should know higher literary ideas, symbols, extended metaphors exist, or they probably will not enjoy literature beyond a certain caliber. I happen to know a 7th grader personally, who attends a public school in a middle to lower class neighborhood, she plays video games, chats online, text messages, and loves to read. Her mother took her to the bookstore where she purchased adult-level books of her choice and read them each in a day. I gave her Speak and The Chocolate War to read, and after a few chapters, they languished on the couch, un-read. My theory is, they were too easy. The craft was not at a level that challenged her. Enjoyment is key, and no one enjoys learning something they are not ready to learn, but the opposite is true as well; no one enjoys being taught something they already know. Like I said before, YA lit has a place in the classroom, but as soon as students are able to move to adult literature, teachers should be ready to as well.
Hipple, T. (1996). It’s the THAT, teacher. English Journal. 86 (3). pp. 15-17.
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