No Stimulus Plan for Literature
I am sitting in a doctor’s office. CNN is on. The talk is of job markets, employment, and resumes. As I sit here thinking about a conference proposal I am convinced that teaching literature will crumble.
You can’t put “read Paradise Lost” on your resume. Well, you can but best of luck with that. The fact is we live in especially pragmatic times. The things we do in education must have practical value or we risk losing the ability to teach at all. Literature, as I have said before, lacks practicality. If it does seem to have practical value, I would challenge how it is being read (or taught). How can English educators raise awareness of the value of aesthetic literary experiences? Of teaching students to inquire into who and why they are through fiction?
Perhaps CNN has the answer.
Related posts:
- Losing Literature Literature is losing the fight. By “the fight” I mean...
- New Article on Re-reading and Unit Plan Check out my new article on re-reading books with 10th...
- Reading Music, Reading Literature My friend Brian is back from Japan. He’s a music...
- Rekindling Reading I went to a dinner last night with colleagues from...
- Literature as Useless Next month, I’ll be presenting at a conference on the...
Boy, do I wish I had the answer! I have noticed within the past three years, perhaps longer, that students entering my 9th grade language arts classes have no interest in literature. None. What is the cause? Too much emphasis on standardized tests? Mandatory pacing charts that allow two weeks to teach novels and assess learning, and that’s only if we’re caught up on everything else. Last year after days and weeks of imploring my students to select a novel for independent reading to no avail, I finally asked “Do you guys know what a novel is?” I won’t tell you the answer. Unfortunately, the library was booked up with testing so I couldn’t take my students over during class time. I had to hope they’d find their way over on their own time. Sigh.