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Category Archives: Literature in the Classroom
Everyones a Critic
Thanks to the popularity of Stephanie Meyer’s book series and the recent release of New Moon in theaters, Twilight mania has devoured my classroom. Every other female is reading one of the books in the series, blogging about it and of course arguing over Team Edward and Team Jacob. Every other male in the classroom is poking fun of the females’ obsession.
Then Joey came along.
Joey was the typical male student who teased his older sister about her love affair with the series. As older, more wise siblings often do, she advised him not to judge until he read the books himself. Joey informed me last week that he was going to take his sister’s advice and journey through the series, of course blogging about it along the way.
This week brought about Joey’s very first blog post about Twilight. The post was a great start in which he chose to critique the author’s writing style rather than use his blog to joke about the legions of female fans running rampant through my classrooms.
Of course his post enticed a number of comments from his peers: males and females, enthusiastic fans and passionate cynics. All of the students contributing to the debate are doing so good-naturedly and not attacking any one individual.
My point though, is that it was uplifting to see a debate taking place between my students about literature. Not only are they partaking in the reading process but they are also analyzing using more than “this is a great book.” Not only are they critiquing authors’ writing style but they are developing their own style and realizing it in their peers’.
Rediscovering a classic, maybe
When I found out my students would be studying To Kill a Mockingbird, I was less than thrilled. After all, I attended a school that pushed future teachers to reconsider why we were teaching canon books. How did such books relate to the students? What were they being offered that they couldn’t find in more modern text? What made such text more significant than modern day pieces?
So I set out to reread the book I remember never finishing during my sophomore year of high school. In the beginning, all my concerns were validated. I thought the text was extremely slow moving. The language was difficult and the dialogue was confusing. I was bored so why would my students’ reactions be any different.
Then I stopped and reassessed how I was reading the book. I realized my dread of teaching it was affecting my opinion of the book itself. When I accepted the fact that I would be using the text in my classroom and stopped moping about it, I realized I actually liked the book.
The themes and characters are authentic. Although, it is set in a time period unfamiliar to my students, they can still, in some way, relate to the characters and the themes presented. Often times, theme is a very difficult concept for students to understand. This book has an abundance of them and they relate nicely to the transitional time period my freshmen are now in.
I am now looking forward to teaching To Kill a Mockingbird and I think this is really important because I still believe my students will begin the book the same way I did, unenthused. Therefore, it is up to me to change their attitudes towards it by showing them my new found enthusiasm.