Stop Teaching Good Books Until We Start Reading Them.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 1:18PM | by Otter 
Let Not This Book Depart Out of Thy Mouth. Or Rather, Feel Free.I found myself writing the following response to somebody who complained that high school students are given works of fiction (Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick) to read merely so they'll get depressed.
My damn self writ:
I think rather that these are books written for people, and put in the curriculum by people, who have a fully functioning frontal lobe.
I mean that we have a pretty frighteningly slow development of action-to-consequence awareness in our culture. To really get some literature, you have to be (physiologically speaking) an adult in a way that kids used to be much, much earlier.
It's shocking how many books I read now and understand that made no sense in high school. But if you consider the critical evaluations made of such books by high school students before (for instance) the invention of the television, they're by no means any more brilliant than your average high schooler now, but at least show a comprehension of what the work intends.
It's a different world. We have a different mind.
The curriculum was established a long time ago before some enormous shifts in that mind came into being.
Probably I'm overreacting a little against how easy it is to talk about a book these days without having read it. Between Wikipedia and SparkNotes, I really have no way of knowing whether a student has read an assignment or not.
Reading the work is not really necessary anymore for this curriculum that was designed long ago when the only way to experience the text was to live with it. A twenty minute Google search now can give the diligent student more information about the book than the professor has.
It's a shallow, superficial knowledge, of course, in the same way that a twenty minute Google search on carpentry doesn't really enable you to build a great cabinet.
But it gets you through the reading quiz, or the essay, or a class discussion. It saves an enormous amount of time.
Well, Duh.
As a sometime-professor of literature and writing, I think that really it's time to cut the curriculum in two.
I think that there should be literature courses that are purely about the information content of the books where there is no presumption of actually reading the book.
I wish I were kidding.
But the truth is, as a teacher I have absolutely no idea whether my students are reading or not. I can sometimes design a quiz to beat SparkNotes, but it would necessarily depend on asking questions that are unfair even to students who read: niggling questions about details that slide under the "importance" radar.
In fact I've done this frequently.
But there's a dishonesty to the proceedings where the aim of my testing is not to see who has read but to see who has read which summary.
I think it's far more honest to say, "You can use whatever sources you like [a sardonic voice in my head adds, "except the original work"]. Just come ready to discuss the book on Monday."
Maybe one day they'll feel rebellious and pick up the damned book and read it, and discover a secret pleasure. Probably until that happens the best thing we can do is forbid them to.
Reader Comments (6)
There was a part in Harry Potter where Professor Umbridge banned a certain magazine from Hogwarts, thereby ensuring that every student would read it.
Yeah. And for the record, this is basic parenting technique. But really, this whole eat-your-broccoli approach to an obsolete skill like reading a book is just intellectual chaos.
I think as a teacher, my best strategy is sometimes to be rabbinic and tell or read the story with commentary. If they don't read, the main thing that's lost is the private experience of the text, which is (1) very modern; and (2) tightly related to the idea that the individual mind and conscience has a strong independence from the official thought of the community.
Yow.
I had a sorority sister who earned her BA in English b/c *I* had read a lot of the things she was supposed to have read and I'd quiz her, explain things, etc. Looking back that was a disservice, but it kept her from flunking out of college. There's a reason my parents always called her ditsy. It makes me wonder why people who obviously don't love to read sign up for classes (and majors!) that require lots of reading. If you don't love to read, being an English major is probably not your best choice.
Here's a thought that may be without value -- but just in case it's of any use at all ---
The kids are using these alternative sources because it's easy, low-effort compared to reading the book.
I'd try as an experiment -- assign (for a few weeks) a ridiculously small amount of reading, and make the test or assignment one in which reading the book (or passage) was the easy alternative to searching the web. Get them accustomed to a small amount of reading-the-text (and hope that intrinsic reward of reading takes over at some point).
... Or, if a large reading is assigned (book, chapters ..) perhaps tell them that you'll test them specifically on pages 35, 43, and 57.
You could then ask detailed questions without being unfair.
It would be difficult for them to prepare without reading the text.
They should be motivated to read the in-between pages because otherwise they'll be confused.
If different copies of the book have different page #s, you can let them know the passage at the beginning and end of each page -- perhaps t wouldn't hurt them to have to look for those passages.
Jon, excellent ideas! And I enjoyed looking at your blog.
Unfortunately my teaching days may be drawing to an end: but if I can pull a miracle out, I'll bear these excellent suggestions in mind....