Two case studies

Whew! That last post sure caused a stir in the comment area, and rightly so. So lovely to hear such passionate opinions (reminder: please watch your spoilers!). In a similar vein, let me present the following:

Case study #1

Situation: Young boy reads only comic books for the first 16 years of his life. Many (helpful) adults warn him, "Those will rot your brain." Boy is unusually self-confident and stubborn and withstands the criticism, continuing to read the books of his choice.

Result: Boy graduates high school with 3.8, receives scholarship offers to various colleges, and continues as a life long reader of all kinds of genres. As an adult, he proves himself an upstanding citizen in all regards, and showed enough brains to woo and marry a certain (brilliant) young adult author.

In Conclusion: Comic books don't actually rot your brain.

Cast study #2

Situation: Young girl loves to read. Loves it. Reads passionately through elementary school and junior high. High school comes. She learns that the only acceptable kinds of books are "classics" which mean, "books that are usually amazing in some regard but were written at least 100 years ago, end badly, are most likley depressing, have long sentences, and 9 times out of 10 take place in England. No genres allowed, especially anything with humor, pictures, or fantasy."

Result: Girl isn't as stubborn and self-confident as boy from case study #2. She believes the propaganda, and determined to be a good adult and intellect, she shuns the books of her youth and begins to read only classics. Her reading and verbal score percentages are higher in elementary school than high school. She falls out of love with reading, and even as an English major in college, only picks up books out of duty. She doesn't realize her error in buying into the warped ideology for many years, until she finally cracks, desperate to lose herself in the wonder of a Story again, and rebels against the establishment by writing the goose girl.

In Conclusion: So, um, why is it again that most high school English classes only read the classics?

Comments

[Lauren A.]

...because they are afraid of breaking out of their stubborn little shells, perhaps?
Yah know, this would be really good to add under your bios. It's good background info, really.

[Rujie]

Wow- that's really something to think about, Shannon. I don't know esactly what to say. I hope some high school English teacher reads this. Thanks for that post!

[asha]

to tell you the truth, none of my english teachers have forced me to read classics yet, i'm in yr 9.
still, i agree with your point of view, and i just feel lucky that i mostly don't have to deal with it!

[asha]

hey, i just read the time that i sent this, and it says 2:42 am! but in australia, it's only 7:42 pm! awesome!!!

[Jas fr Aus]

hey snap! I'm in australia too. its 9.30 at the moment, but its gonna say like 4.30 isn't it? haha. yeah i haven't really been made to read many classics either...we did To Kill A Mocking Bird which i guess is a classic but is sooooo good I don't really think of it like that. We have to read Pride and Prejudice next year (I'm in year 10 at the moment), but I reckon that's the same deal. Maybe the whole non-classics is an aussie thing...?

[aaron]

Though I have to agree with Shannon on the WSJ article--it IS stupid--I wonder if she's taking too much liberty with the word "classic" (especially in contrast to "fluff").

By the way, there's nothing wrong with "fluff." I just finished a John Sanford novel (my first), which I found gripping. My problem with it was the plot twist at the end (split personalities are a cheap way out of an interesting set-up) not that it is printed on pulp or that my fellow English PhD candidates might scoff at it (though in fairness many of them enjoy fluff too, despite the stereotype). This summer I've been reading (and loving) Patricia Highsmith and Graham Greene, in turn, both of whom sit nicely in between "fluff" and "classic". Highsmith, unlike Greene, was labled a hack in her lifetime (she moved to Switzerland because nobody in the US took her seriously) and is only now being taught in college lit. courses (she'll never know). My point is the labels "classic" and "fluff" do little to describe a book and at the same time, there is a difference between John Sanford and Jane Austen. We all know it. I know I'm digressing; back to the question: Why is it again that most high school English classes only read the classics?

The question confuses curriculum choices and student choices. If you're studying literature, you should know something about literature--the history of literature, what many people call the classics, and the only way to do that is to start with *ahem* the canon (another dirty word). Sure, most high school students won't like HAMLET in 12th grade--so what? It may be the only contact some students have with Shakespeare. And yes, Shakespeare is THAT good. I have made the mistake of trying to convince my college freshmen that they HAVE TO enjoy Jane Austen as much as Stephen King. They don't buy it, but they read EMMA anyway.

Students should be encouraged to read whatever they want outside of those classes (my English teacher had a reading day when we were required to bring, and read, our OWN books). More people are reading now than ever have before--a good thing. Harry Potter is a good thing, though I find the books boring. I love Phillip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS, Lemony Snicket, and yes, THE SECRET GARDEN. I also love HAMLET, THE SOUND AND THE FURY, THE GREAT GATSBY, and EMMA. I love that I was force-fed classics, that I went through my own book-snob phase, and that I just read my first John Sanford novel without shame. The WSJ article was written by a book snob who seems to know little about children and literature, but ease off on "classics". The two scenarios in the post are just that: two different experiences with books. I think Shannon's own experience is a little disingenuous. I had a lit course with Shannon during her "falling out of love" phase and I would guess that if she were honest, she loved reading many of the books as much as I did. At least she was learning to characterize her own stance toward the classics--liked this, hated that, confused by this. Furthermore, her own writing ability, I have to guess, has a lot to do with all those books she read. You don't rewrite a fairy tale without understanding something about where that fairy tale fits into literary history. Of course, I could be wrong. But I've got to get back to my own reading. After Sanford I need a to reread my own favorite fairy tale, BLUEBEARD.

[Jenna]

Where I am it is 7:30 in the morning...I think that lots of classics are great to read, but if that was all I read, I wouldn't read nearly as much, probably.

[Jenna]

Hey - 5:30! And did you just say your favorite fairy tale is BLUEBEARD?

[Melissa]

Wow, an interesting post. It's interesting to see these two case studies side-by-side. They really reinforce the librarian mantra: "It doesn't matter what kids are reading, as long as they're reading." I wish there were more articles out there that talk about that. But after all, it's so simple and easy, no wonder the media wants to go with "Gossip Girls turn modest young girls into scheming sluts!"

[aaron]

How embarrassing--in my post I wrote John Sanford when I meant John Saul.

And yes, Jenna, Bluebeard is my favorite fairy tale. The prototype for the slasher film, the tale that troubles notions of what is appropriate for children, and the tale that confuses the literal and the figurative. I've said too much. Back to work.

[Libby]

Shannon, i agree with you completely. it's really a stupid situation.

[Nunnya business]

Dean and You? Maybe?

That totally happened to me this last year. For about five months I just stopped reading. Hopefully mine has the same result as case 2.

Ok totally random,

I had the freakiest dream! Here it is!

I was babysitting my brother and we decided to take a bus to Shannon's house. So we did and Shannon lived in this huge mansion! I'm not kidding it was massive! She had a pool the size of a lake. It had a waterfall and everything.

So my brother and I are swimming in the pool (how we got in is still fuzzy) and all of a sudden Shannon asks me to throw away Max's diaper! (I don't even know if Max wears diapers!)

But the thing is Shannon's garbage is on this mountain! Not kidding, a mountain! So I struggle up this mountain, dump the diaper and go back to swimming.

We swim all night and into the next day when at 11:00 am Dean offers to drive us home. We get home and my parent's are ticked! They are so mad that I took my brother out all night. But Dean calms them and leaves!

Maybe I spend too much time on Squeetus??

Oh and Shannon I am sending your latest entry to my teacher!

[Nunnya business]

Asha,

If you start a fan club for Shannon I call VP!

[shannon hale]

I have to disagree, aaron (I'm not sure who you are). Though one of my favorite pasttimes throughout my life is reading, I only finished about half the books assigned in high school. I loved discussing the books in class in college, but I never felt swept away by those stories. I did enjoy many of them, but the experience was totally different than my younger reading days. I never stayed up late because I couldn't put the book down. I stopped reading for pleasure outside of class. I talk about my experience at length at speaking engagements, but it's too long to go into here.

And I have to fight the notion that we teach only the classics in high school in order to give students an understanding of the history of literature. If that were true, why don't we teach gothic romance, fairy tale, pulp, comic book, humor, romance, thriller, horror, children's, Tarzan or anything written in the last 20 years to see where we've arrived? Why don't we read chronologically? Or learn about the influences on each writer and different literary movements? No, we read The Scarlet Letter and talk about symbols.

And I disagree that Shakespeare must be read in high school. I believe he should be watched. Call me kooky, but I believe plays are meant to be seen.

[Laura]

I had a fantastic high school English teacher who taught the classics (and exclusively the classics) with skill and enthusiasm. Because of her influence, I enjoyed studying classic literature, and I wholeheartedly bought in to intellectual snobbery that abounds in academia. The result? I did not pick up a "fun" book to read in the next decade. I didn't pick up any unassigned classics, either. Oh, I was reading: textbooks, professional journals, essays, all pretty boring stuff, really. But I didn't read for fun.

I finally caught on that reading didn't have to be work, that no one was going to ask me for a literary or rhetorical analysis, and that books written during my lifetime might have some redeeming qualities, after all. My classmates may have had different experiences and outcomes. Some of them may even be teaching college English, but that doesn't make it disingenuous for me to say that while I enjoyed studying the classics, I didn't find reading them irresistible. It was not studying the classics that made me an avid reader, it was finding contemporary authors, like Shannon Hale, whose writing sings to my soul, and whose books keep me up at night because I cannot bear to put them down.

[hwalk]

I don't think it's all one sided--if English classes wouldn't have exposed me to classical literature, I would have never learned that I actually like the genre (some people do out here).

So by making me read the classics, it made my love of reading only deeper.

Not that I disagree with what peopel are saying, because I still have to have my YA novel that I devour while I slowly plod along in my classical book.

[hwalk]

And completely agree with the Shakespeare thing. I read Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade and plays make no sense when you simply sit down and read them. It made me hate Shakespeare.

[Lauren A.]

Hmmm... Shakespeare. I've heard interesting theories on this one. Here we go:
Theory #1: A student really enjoys reading and literature in every way, and he/she is really interested in getting to know Shakespeare a little bit better, so he/she reads Romeo and Juliet for *fun* and discovers that his words, the rhythm, the language, all (sorry Laura, I am borrowing your phrase) sings to his/her soul.
Theory #2: Student is more of a visual person, so they watch the plays to get a feel for the Bard instead and find that they either like or dislike it.

[Julie]

I read The Scarlet Letter about a month ago, and while it had good points, I wanted to slap all of its characters. I love to read books with characters I'm rooting for--like Miri, Enna, or Ani. I really appreciate your thought-provoking posts, Shannon.

[Gretchen]

There's a lot to comment on, so if my thoughts seem scattered, I apologize in advance!
First off, in continuation from the last blog, reading is reading no matter the form, and that is what should be rewarded. But english classes have it a little differently. I always loved english, and even though I didn't love Dickens or Sophocles, I also read some very enjoyable books as well. To Kill A Mockingbird will forever be a favorite of mine and I was one of the few girls in my class who liked Lord of the Flies. These books are classics for a reason, either in the messages or just the impact they had on society. I think some kids today hear classic and automatically think of boring and hard, and that isn't what lots of them are, at least to me! The skill of understanding of symbology shouldn't be ignored either.

Trust me, I'm not saying that we should force people to read just the stereotypical classics and only that. It would be nice if english classes were expanded to include romance and thriller and mystery as well. There are multiple recent books that could someday count as classics-Criss Cross was just as wonderful as Shannon said it was. In eigth grade, we read the graphic novel Maus about WWII and that had just as much of an impact on me as the other books we read that year. And I really like being able to read plays on my own and picture the way I think the set should be.

I have to attribute my love of the classics to all of my enlgish classes, but everyone should be able to develop their own personal tastes. Little Women will forever hold a special place in my heart, but honestly, these days I spend most of my time reading current fantasy. I also have a rather strong penchant for those so-called "fluff" teen romance novels.

I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that it would really be great if we could expand how the general public reads-there are so many wonderful types of books out there. But I don't think what english teachers are doing (at least the one I had-some of mine were truly amazing) is wrong.

[sarah]

The problem with classics is that though some of them have decent story lines they're really difficult to read! I don't think I have ever enjoyed studying a classic in my english lessons but, because we do so many of them, whenever we do study a decent book, I'm put off it because it's a school thing (one such book is 'Holes' by Lois Sachar). Our English teacher even gave us a list of about 30 books we should read to enhance our abilities in reading, this list includes 'War and peace' which I have sworn never to read in order to keep my sanity. I definatly don't want to become like my sister who reads books like that, but only so she can tell people she's read them and sound clever. We should be encouraged to read imaginative, stimulating books at school, not mind dissolvers! I agree with Shannon, Down with the establishment!

[Jaya Lakshmi]

We didn't always read classics in English. Sure, we read Newberry Honors and all, but in seventh grade we read The Dark is Rising. If that isn't fantasy, then I don't know what is. And in ninth grade we read a short story from the collection Krik?Krak! by Edwidge Danticat. (She later came to visit us. I think I wore her out with too many questions.)

[Shawn]

Everyone seems to have reading pretty well covered, but as for theatre reading vs. seeing: I read Twelfth Night in eighth grade and hated it. With a passion. Then, two weeks after I finished reading it, I reluctantly saw it on stage in Shakespeare in the Park...

...and promptly fell completely in love with it. It was excellent, and in fact was probably a factor in my current involvement with my community's theatre.

[Erin]

When I read some of the comments saying Shakespeare shouldn't be read in highschool, I had to smile a little. When I was in 6th grade my mom (who homeschools my brother and I) sat the three of us down and we read aloud JULIUS CAESAR, taking turns with the different characters. We took it slowly, stopping often to work out what different phrases meant and what was going on when we got a bit lost, but we loved it. In fact when we finished we read it through a second time. The next year when I was in 7th grade we did the same thing with HENRY V, and enjoyed it just as much if not more.

So I find the notion that a highschooler shouldn't read Shakespeare to be ridiculous when my brother and I read and had fun with it before I was even in Junior High.

[Shauna]

Reading's for sissies!!!! FACE!

[Jenna]

I beg your pardon! Reading is for sissies? Excuse me, but how did anybody who doesn't like reading even get to reading this?
I have never seen a Shakespeare play, but I would love to! And I have only read a little. Where do you guys and Shannon generally go to see these?

[Megan Elbow]

About Shakespeare . . .
personally, I love him, but probably because I first loved to watch the plays before I started reading the plays. But I think that my English teacher this year did a very good thing while we were reading Shakespeare. Like Erin's mom, our English teacher assigned parts while we read A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. She would switch the parts on and off again, so I think everyone who wanted a chance got a chance to read out loud. I was assigned the part of Hermia for part of the time, and it made it more real to me, because it was almost like being able to BE in a play and to put emotion in my voice, and to FEEL like Hermia, even though we were just reading it.
Anyway, it made that story a lot more enjoyable to me, not only because I had seen it before, but now that I was a little older, it made more sense to me, and I could cope with the characters a little more, especially with Hermia and Helena.
Sorry about that long rant. I hope it made sense.
Oh, and Shannon . . . your books have made me stay up late many-a-night to finish them . . . again, and again, and again. I can say the same for my friends.

[Mads]

I was home-schooled all through middle-school (5-8th). Never once did I have to pick up a single 'classic'. But, my mom would suggest different classics, and we would read them together. The Magna-Charta, Pride and Prejudice, even Shakespeare. It was better for me this way, because not only was I free to read what I wanted, but it brought me to think, 'Hm, this might not be so bad after all, Pride and Prejudice.' I think that all classics are good in some way or another, but when you are told to read them, you don't want to. Some people will never like them, and it's pointless even to try. But maybe we're wrong. Maybe we should be force fed the classics because maybe we need that kind of culture in our lives. Or maybe we shouldn't have to read them at all because maybe then we will like reading more. I am going to high school the first time this year, and for summer reading we had to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelo. It was the perfect cross between a classic and a fluff. And the reason they picked it was for the lesson learned and it wasn't a movie.
So chew on that for awhile.
Are both sides wrong?
Should we be meeting in the middle somewhere?
So much to think about!

[Jenna]

Thanks to Megan Elbow - that sounds great. I have read plays out loud in class, but most of them were ones from our literature book about dying football players with a few enjoyable lines humorous to friendly classmates. Reading Shakespeare sounds like a lot of fun.

[lisette]

Shannon,concerning case 1:
Author Peter Dickinson's article "In Defense of Rubbish" is a must-read. http://www.peterdickinson.com/DefenseOfRubbish.html
(I also recommend his fiction, and that of his wife, Robin McKinley.)

About classics (what with all the other posts, I can't resist adding my own two cents): My personal opinion is that there are very few adult "classics" within the last century (and possibly a half) which are worth reading. All the best stuff--Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Dostoevsky--came before that. Later works referred to as classics (which are those that put a person off reading) are mostly the self-promotion of an "elite" circle of writers for whom the most important criteria seems to be obfuscation and obscurity. If "the masses" can't read your work, you've created a masterpiece.

Children's classics (and YES, Narnia belongs in this category) are an entirely different matter. The people who wrote them actually cared enough about children to give them STORY. So I trust this category of classics. And still read them. And recommend them to all my younger siblings. (Though I also have many favorites which are too recent to be called "classic.")

But whether classics or comics are the preferred fare, the most important thing is just to READ!

[Isabelle]

Wow! I can appreciate that post! As a high-school student myself, I've had Romeo and Juliet, the Oddessey (i can't even spell it..haha), Watership Down, Jekyll and Hyde, Great Expectations, Greek Mythology, and A Wind in the Willows shoved down my throat, among others...and I'm 15 years old. It drives. Me. Crazy. I love reading, I read cereal boxes and everything just to read...but I hate. Hate. Hate. Being forced to read dreary, ancient, english, and depressing books. Bravo!

[Jaya Lakshmi]

I dunno . . . not all classics are good, but at the same time I can't read a novel that doesn't have intelligence. I also hate slowly pace novels like Elizabeth Goudge's Rosemary Tree or The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
I consider Ender's Game to be a science classic. The same is with Fahrenheit 451 and Isaac Asimov's stories. They were the masters of the genre and the reason why I can't come up with original ideas for sci-fi.
Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes are considered classic comic strips. Yet read any strip from Real Life (www.reallife.com) and you'll be laughing your head off. Garfield isn't funny anymore either, and that's considered a classic. More on this next time.

[rachel]

Uhh, I'm so happy that you brought that up. I like some classics, but I prefer more creative approaches to writing. I especially LOVE fantasy, which led me to reading shannon's books in the first place. Why, in highschool English, do we always have to read yuk books like "siddarhtha" (dunno if I spelled that right)or "button, button"? It's not right. Some other classics are good, and even enjoyable to read, but often fall in the "old, praised, BORING, and a chore to read" category. See, a lot of the problem in classics is just that: they're classics because everybody says how brilliant they are. It seems no one ever really stops and thinks, "is it really that wonderful of a book?" It reminds me of the children's story, "the Emperor's new clothes". mmm...
k, I'm done rambling...some classics are good, don't forget that, I'm just sayin'.

[Grace]

I think it really doesn't matter what you read - if you love reading. Sometimes I'm in the mood for some sort of heavy fantasy - maybe the Dark Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop - and then another day I'll feel like some stupid, fluffy romance story.
I was first introduced to shakespeare in year 8 which would be grade 7 in the US, i think. i had a wonderful english teacher who inspired me to start writing myself. she adapted a Midsummer Night's Dream to a shorter play with a role for all 20 in my class, and we acted it out. this was a great introduction to shakespeare - we didn't do a modern language version of it, she went through all the lines with us until we knew precisely what we were saying, and we all enjoyed it so much. we performed it for parents after a term and it was amazing. i think acting it out ourselves was just as good as reading the book or watching a movie - this term (i'm now in year 10) we have started MacBeth and we were all extremely enthusiastic after our other Shakespeare experience - we're trying to convince our english teacher to let us act it out!

I have a question for Shannon, if you see it (sorry this is completely off topic) - but I wonder if when you are writing, do you write your books from start to finish first, or do you start by writing whatever scenes you want? I'm trying to write a first proper story after a couple of years on fanfic and ficpress and I'm not that enthusiastic about starting the story, but I'd rather start a few chapters in - is this ok?

thanks if you happen to see this.

[rachel]

It's me again. I just read all the other comments, and I feel I need to elaborate a bit more. (sorry guys)Anyways, I have seen one shakespeare play, and I LOVED IT!
I have also been in a shakespeare play: "midsummer night's dream".
It was an immense enjoyment for me, and helped me learn more about the writer. I had always thought he was boring, but then, only in 6th grade, I was enjoying myself playing the part of Helena in the play. I think that shakespeare should be read in highschool. After all, I was in sixth grade, and it benefitted all of us, even the kids whose forte was by far not literature, let alone shakespeare. To tell you the truth, I myself have had good experiences with reading classics...that I choose. It drives me nuts when a class takes a not so bad book and anlyses (sp?)
it. Possibly ruining the potentialy enjoyable book for many in the classroom. I do, however, like Jane Austen's books plenty which are in fact classics. I shouldn't be talking so much, after all, I'm not exactly an intellectual. But, we all must express our opinions. :D

[Libby]

I wrote so much about this topic in the last entry, i don't really have anything more to say! see last entry if you didn't before! All i have to say is, if you have a classic-y english teacher, give her the url for this blog! it might help!

[AREM]

I know exactly what Grace is saying. If you have a story idea, it's hard to create a beginning. I think that it becomes easier, though, when you've laid out your story and explained it all to yourself - then you can sort of tell what needs to be revealed at the beginning.
Also, I think that doing a Shakespeare play would be great, but that changing it into modern language would ultimately ruin it.

[Megan Elbow]

I agree that sometimes classics are hard to read. But it's different when you CHOOSE to read them than when you HAVE to read them. For example, in English this year, we had to read The Metamorphosis as a class. Agh! I think that every single one of us HATED that book by the time we were finished with it, but probably because we didn't want to get much out of the book. Besides, we didn't really want to listen to our student teacher, either. So, with all of those put together: student teacher, not wanting to learn from the book, a HAVE to read, and a kind of obscure, depressing story, we all ended up hating the book, until the end because that's when it was over.

I'm not saying that Franz Kafka was a bad writer, no, he was a brilliant writer and even has a writing phrase named after him. And eventually, I became less thick-headed, and I learned from the book and even liked some parts of it (and not just the ending).
But I think also, when we get our teacher saying, "We're going to read this in class, and afterwards you're going to do a project about it," automatically a portion of the brain goes out, the part of the brain where we learn to love the story, and automatically, we're in "work" mode. "Oh, we HAVE to do this. This won't be fun, it's work."
I think it would have been different if I had just decided to read the story on my own. But then again, I still might have not liked it.

[Jenna]

Recently there were some comments about serializing stories, which led me to lament the fact that they are so rarely found now... At least, I rarely find them. Anyway, today I learned that our paper is serializing a story by Avi weekly! Hurrah!

[asha]

hey, jas fr australia, where do you live? hardly anyone i know likes shannon's books as much as i do( because i'm obsessed!). it would be cool if we lived near each other. i live in castlemaine, vic. anywhere near you at all?

shannon, i'm really revved up about river secrets! i wish it would hurry up!!!

[Carl V.]

I'm sure there is an overall perception by THE EDUCATORS in general that the classics are the only 'good' books to teach but also consider these things:

Some of the classics...once food for protests because of their content...are compartively 'safe' reading today compared to some of the offerings out there that parents would no doubt raise a fuss over.

Second, there has to be some fear in today's high energy world that the classics will be forgotten. As ridiculous as that sounds I'm sure there is some legitimate fear there. I for one believe there are so many wonderful classics out there that I would have hated to miss out on and might not have read if it weren't for high school 'forcing' me to read them.

The fact is, though, I've always been a reader. So the issue wasn't getting me to read, it was simply exposing me to stuff I wouldn't have picked up on my own. Who knows if I'd have the affinity for Shakespeare and other classics today if my teacher hadn't assigned that reading.

[SJM]

linette up there has a great point.
Also whoever it was who mentioned (either in these comments or the ones of last post) that the WSJ was putting their own interpretation on the terms "classic" and "fluff."

People confuse the term "classic" with meaning either just "old" OR (worse) with meaning "books we're forced to read and analyze in English class." Orson Scott Card has a lot to say on that subject, the gist of which (IMO) is that university literature departments (and therefore trickling down more or less to high school) are not interested in *experiencing* or *enjoying* stories, but only in analyzing or deconstructing them. They only approve of books which have "layers" and "themes" and such that they can interpret with their own methods, and preferably in multiple ways (sometimes this means ignoring part or most of what's actually there, but never mind that!).

In some ways this is practical: after all, it's hard to imagine how long you could go on writing papers on, say, The Lord of the Rings, without running into repetition and so forth. This is for a very good reason: it was written as a story to be *experienced*, not something to be decoded.

Many of the "classics" were written before all this literary theory came into play, and they had to sell! Like Charles Dickens for example. Not that he appeals to every modern reader nowadays, but at least he had to present a STORY at the time, not just a bunch of overly artsy twaddle for a few elitists to ooh and ahh over and feel superior because THEY could understand it; not like all those lowly masses who got bored or confused or both when reading it. But a lot of those older books (Shakespeare in particular) have been taken over and put through the wringer of lit theory, because they could apply funky specialized theories to them, or simply because the authors were dead and couldn't disagree.

The point of it all is that, the majority of the time, the theory angle is the only one that is taught, and it turns kids way off, because it asks them to only examine the story, not actually get caught up in it and enjoy it. And that's maybe the real problem. There can be interesting things when you're studying something from this literary point of view (I was an English major myself) but if people don't know or care what's going on in the book, why would they want to expend the effort to study the book's themes?

I know that it is possible to teach classics in a way that is more interesting and accessible (maybe not to everyone all the time, but you know what they say about pleasing people). My best example is when I was in 4th or 5th grade: the upper grades of our school were going to be putting on Pirates of Penzance for the whole school, etc. My music teacher took a whole lesson period with us and went through the play: the story, some of the songs and jokes, etc. The result was that when we all saw the play, I LOVED IT. There's very little chance that I would've enjoyed it without some sort of preparation, what with my age and how unfamiliar the time, place, etc of the story of it was. But with that preparation, I had SO MUCH FUN. I think it's possible for teachers to present books in class -- both "classic" and not so -- in a way that will ENGAGE their kids, prepare them to understand and enjoy a book, no matter when it was written.

Maybe the whole point is that: we learn better when we're enjoying something. If we could focus more on experiencing and enjoying books than picking them apart, we'd learn more about a lot of things (including theme, etc, all that stuff they focus on now.)

[SJM]

oops, I meant liSette's comment; a thousand lashes with a wet noodle!

[Kevin J]

The problem is not high school. The problem is University.

For me at least. A guy with a double Major in Comparative Literature and English.

Re: High School. I have always looked upon the books i read in high school the same way i looked at high school math: it was boring, hard, (at the time) useless and no matter how hard i tried i couldn't see why i needed to know it. 15 years later and that math, and those books, helped shape me into a thinking adult who writes good poetry, comics and is building up to good fiction (tho i still have yet to put Functions and calculus to any good use).

Re: University. What i was taught in university literature classes turned me off reading and writing for almost 4 years. The snobbery that runs rampant through those 'great' halls of learning is enough to curl even the hardiest bibliophiles' lips into a sneer of disdain! Oh, sure, it's great while you're there. Grand conversations about any obscure topic you can think of; commaderie over the works of Ivan Klima, Foucault, Beaudelaire, DeLillo, Eco, et al. It's a place where you can (at least when i was there) look down on science ficton, fantasy, comics and feel good about it.

But then i left university and that group of people i could sit with and talk with was gone; each having taken their own direction through life. And you know what happened? I tried to read Eco, DeLillo, Klima and hated them. HATED! So much so that drove me away from books so that i didn't read a thing beside's comics until the 3rd Harry Potter book came out. I was wondering what the hullabaloo was so i pick up the first book, make a cup o' tea and speant the evening with Harry, Hermione and Ron.

Know what happened? Yup. It was like a bolt of lighting from heaven. Reading was all of a sudden fun again. I have read the whole HP series, Shannon's books, Tamora Pierce's books, Pullman's, Lewis', Tolkien, Nix, Westerfeld, Cooper, L'Engle, Dan Brown, Steve Berry, Daniel Silva, Patricia McKillip, Garrison Keilor.... on and on and on. You will not see without a book, nor have i been without one on my person or near to it since the night i read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Oh, and of the 'cannonized' books still on my shelves? Austen, Dickens, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marquez, Tolstoy, Waugh, Greene... ect. Some remnants of university and everything i read in high school.

In the end, high school turned me into a reader and university hurt me by turning me into an academic. And being an academic was the worst thing for me as a reader.

[Laura]

Sadly, this problem does not end with high school and college. My sister is in a book club which has one very overbearing member who insists that they read only classics (because only they have literary merit) and non-fiction (because they are intellectually enriching). My sister-in-law participates with a book group whose leader has decided that they should read nothing but the classics. Their book for this month? Don Quixote.

Now, if that is what everyone wants to read, that's great; there is no problem. But in both cases, many of the members are overwhelmed by the books, and they slog through them (if they read them at all) joylessly.

Of course, my view that reading should be fun is very unsophisticated. I'm glad that my own book club welcomes me despite my ignorance.

[shannon hale]

Wow, Kevin J, we could talk for hours about this! I haven't even broached the topic here of my experience in grad school reading literary fiction, but it sounds a lot like yours. I'm going to write another blog about this in the near future...there must be others like us out there...

[asha]

hey shauna, who are you?! what are you doing here?
i'd like a long explanation, please, including an apology!
(sorry, i know that was way back, guys, but i only just read it.)

[asha]

by the way, what does FACE mean?

[Shauna]

Dear Shannon,

First of all, reading is for the...how should I put it? Weak of mind, perhaps?
And hey, everyone knows the more information you put in your head, the more you become an over-bloated, think-your-so-tough, panty-waist. And who wants that bag?
Enough said.
Secrest, out!

[Carl V.]

Intelligent thoughts there Shauna, thanks for sharing.