Excuse me while I go put all those female authors on my Amazon wish list! There were at least three I hadn’t heard of!
Haley I am begging you for a public Goodreads profile with all your recs - I get so many great book recommendations from you (and Christy) but I am greedy and want more!
I remember my early intro to classic literature was in 8th grade in 1977 at Catholic school--we read entire books (Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, etc.). The teacher, a religious sister, passed out the brown paper covered books and we read aloud in class. I have no memory of tests, though I am sure we had them. I remember the books and reading them in class, from beginning to end. All of our grammar training was in a different class, and, I remember liking it. My own kids have been homeschooled since day 1. The oldest with special needs was sight reading at age 2, the two youngest read on their own time clock (about age 9). We read aloud from the best literature I thought they could handle from an early age, and still read aloud today (they are 21, 18, 17). All are huge fans of great literature. I think late reading was an advantage to the younger ones since they weren’t inundated with silly chapter books at a young age. There is far too much “junk food” literature out there, and when kids read early they often spend too many years in that “processed” section of the library and book store. I agree that it is a myth that young people can’t appreciate a good story unless it is wrapped in some sort of contemporary setting/lingo/cultural references!
I really appreciated the piece about training children to hate English. I was a middle/high school English teacher for several years and trying to help my students to see the joy/wonder of the books they read, while teaching what I was “supposed” to teach standards wise, was always a struggle. As you noted with your own kids, it was always my debates and Socratic Discussions that my students enjoyed the most and got the most passionate about.
Yes, I do occasionally link to NY Times and other publications or Substacks that are paid only. It is frustrating when things are behind a paywall, but I some pieces are so good that I want to highlight them.
Excellent article - happy to have discovered you! In Canada, works of classic literature are also being stripped from the curriculum, leaving three out of four mandatory English high school courses devoid of any classic works and instead injected with social studies. This has the additional effect of degrading language proficiency, because students are simply not exposed to classical vocabulary anymore (see my post 'Tilling the ground for ChatGPT https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/tilling-the-ground-for-chatgpt).
I totally saw the literature thing with my 9th grader. I knew that he has been reading Romeo and Juliet in English and I was happy to hear that. But I didn't realize until this week that it was the MODERN version. I only had to read about two lines to see how awful it was! If I had to read modernized Shakespeare, I'd hate it too. He's a theatre kid and has performed bits and pieces of Shakespeare and always loves it so I agree with your assessment that if we give kids the opportunity, they actually love the things we think they won't understand.
Excuse me while I go put all those female authors on my Amazon wish list! There were at least three I hadn’t heard of!
Haley I am begging you for a public Goodreads profile with all your recs - I get so many great book recommendations from you (and Christy) but I am greedy and want more!
I remember my early intro to classic literature was in 8th grade in 1977 at Catholic school--we read entire books (Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, etc.). The teacher, a religious sister, passed out the brown paper covered books and we read aloud in class. I have no memory of tests, though I am sure we had them. I remember the books and reading them in class, from beginning to end. All of our grammar training was in a different class, and, I remember liking it. My own kids have been homeschooled since day 1. The oldest with special needs was sight reading at age 2, the two youngest read on their own time clock (about age 9). We read aloud from the best literature I thought they could handle from an early age, and still read aloud today (they are 21, 18, 17). All are huge fans of great literature. I think late reading was an advantage to the younger ones since they weren’t inundated with silly chapter books at a young age. There is far too much “junk food” literature out there, and when kids read early they often spend too many years in that “processed” section of the library and book store. I agree that it is a myth that young people can’t appreciate a good story unless it is wrapped in some sort of contemporary setting/lingo/cultural references!
I really appreciated the piece about training children to hate English. I was a middle/high school English teacher for several years and trying to help my students to see the joy/wonder of the books they read, while teaching what I was “supposed” to teach standards wise, was always a struggle. As you noted with your own kids, it was always my debates and Socratic Discussions that my students enjoyed the most and got the most passionate about.
Haley, I love the links you include in your posts but can’t access a number of them because I don’t have a paid subscription.
Yes, I do occasionally link to NY Times and other publications or Substacks that are paid only. It is frustrating when things are behind a paywall, but I some pieces are so good that I want to highlight them.
Excellent article - happy to have discovered you! In Canada, works of classic literature are also being stripped from the curriculum, leaving three out of four mandatory English high school courses devoid of any classic works and instead injected with social studies. This has the additional effect of degrading language proficiency, because students are simply not exposed to classical vocabulary anymore (see my post 'Tilling the ground for ChatGPT https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/tilling-the-ground-for-chatgpt).
I totally saw the literature thing with my 9th grader. I knew that he has been reading Romeo and Juliet in English and I was happy to hear that. But I didn't realize until this week that it was the MODERN version. I only had to read about two lines to see how awful it was! If I had to read modernized Shakespeare, I'd hate it too. He's a theatre kid and has performed bits and pieces of Shakespeare and always loves it so I agree with your assessment that if we give kids the opportunity, they actually love the things we think they won't understand.
😱😱😱 what on earth!! If you want to do the modern version at least just watch the baz Lehrman movie!