Google Lit Trips: Reading About Reading

I remember being shocked when I discovered that the authors of published articles do not often get to title their articles. The reason being that unlike titling books, articles that are published in newspapers, magazines, and often online must live within layout restraints. 

Tradition has it that the best titles are as close to the same length as the line space in which it sits. One line titles with only a word or two and lots of white space on the right end of the line look like empty space as opposed to the much desired white space. This is particularly important when the layout  has the article text in multiple columns and the headline doesn't reach across the columns.

Okay that was a digression intended as a set up for my problem with this article's headline. The good news is that it demonstrates the desire to "fill the space." However, it does not accurately reflect the important point being made in the article and thereby implies something that happens to annoy me a bit.

The author does not say that he considers some books to be essential books for the article's readers. In fact, his very first sentence says that the list is subjective. And, his second sentence says that they happen to be the books he mentions because they were important to HIM. He even goes on to suggest that he doesn't address "Every Major Genre" in spite of what the headline says, pointing out that he has no listing for "Romance" writing because personally it isn't an important genre for him. He even ends the article by making the point that even though it's a personal list of HIS FAVORITES, his thesis is not that they are essential for everyone, but rather for an audience of people who happen to write in any of the genres he does include.

Okay. So what bothers me besides the misleading headline? The use of the word "essential." That's what bothers me.

The term reeks of the long held belief that the only literature of any merit worthy of being in the curriculum was that of "dead white guys."

That's sort of like refusing to think outside the small, hertetically sealed box.

There are many paths to gaining the benefits of literary reading. Shakespeare may or may not be essential for all. For many Neruda might serve a very similar purpose.

How many adults have become truly great thinkers without ever having read a single word of Shakespeare? And, conversely, hom many adults have become truly great thinkers specifically because they had encountered the wisdom of Shakespeare?

In the real world, it is often not a simplistic either / or situation. There can be many right answers and many right answers that are not right for everyone.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

Just for fun.

Watch and just for the heck of it, pay attention to all the people reading on the floor as the books fall. I thought they were mannequins at first.

~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com

It's just one of those days!

My third scoop of the day and each takes a slightly different take on the value of openness to ambiguity and alternative interpretations.

Like the ThugNotes comments, this article poses both concepts and ideas that I find quite attractive and  concepts and ideas that I'm not so certain I can agree with.

But in either case, reading both what I agree with and what I may not agree with provides a value much richer than reading with blinders on. 

For example, I really liked this..

_____

“ 'Deep reading' — as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Web — is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would imperil the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the perpetuation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to apprehend them."
_____

Yet at the same time, when the author extends this argument to suggest ...

_____

"A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging and less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” for whom it is so familiar. Last month, for example, Britain’s National Literacy Trust released the results of a study of 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly two times less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen."

_____

...I have concerns that the explanation for such data has insufficiently considered the causes and effects leading to the conclusions drawn. 

I think a serious case could be put forward that printed reading is becoming much less engaging for many digital reading of the same text. But that is not the parameters of comparison here. Comparing engagement with paper text with engagement with e-reader text is a perhaps more authentic than comparing printed text (implying paper) to web reading (including very different kinds of reading).

I would concede that reading text on my laptop does cause me to lose that deep engagement. Yet, reading text on my iPad is much more engaging for me. The difference? The physical process of reading on my iPad is very similar to reading a paper-based version of the same text. I can hold my iPad in one hand. I virtually turn pages in a very similar fashion, I can slouch around in my hammock while reading or sit on a rock at the top of a mountain with my iPad. But, I can't do that with my laptop so easily.

On my laptop, I can't as easily pause and savor while highlighting and writing marginalia (which does slow the reading allowing for the very slowing down the author endorses). When comparing paper-based reading to web reading, these disadvantages of web-based reading do make web-reading less engaging to me. 

But, on the other hand, my iPad kicks the butt of paper-based reading when it comes to highlighting and marginalia conveniences and advantages.

Is the author wrong and therefore is this article to be dismissed? Of course not, critical thinkers don't really judge complex issues in such black and white terms.

I like much, perhaps even most of what this author is suggesting in spite of the fact that there are parts of the argument that I find troublesome.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

Be careful. This video has more than enough reasons to be considered inappropriate. But, that being said I really believe that an English teacher who doesn't watch the entire video is missing an incredibly valuable professional development opportunity.

Personally, I've never been a big fan of The Great Gatsby. This is not to say that I think it is a bad book. There's certainly plenty of opportunities for contemplating the great literary themes. And, I have no doubt that it "works" for many teachers and students. 

I just had trouble finding a bridge from the world I knew as a high school student to the world of annoying people in the story. For the most part, I blame this on my "late blooming." So this is not intended as an anti-Great Gatsby argument by any means.

I just wasn't ready for it when my life trajectory crossed the course syllabus trajectory. 

I read the book again in college and only disliked it a little less than I did in high school. I still found the style to be indistinguishably pretentious from the characters's pretentiousness. That's when I learned that F. Scott Fitzgerald lived life pretty much in the same fashion as those he appeared to despise in the book which I found fairly off-putting. Though at the time I was beginning to discover that many authors' personal lives were not the best example of the value of the wisdom they appeared to profess in their work.

But, somewhere along the line there were experiences that began to clear some of the many fogs of youthful obliviousness. One such experience was hearing Dick Cavett once say, ...

It is a rare person who wants to hear want he doesn't want to hear. 

Another was when I ran across Voltaire's quote...

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

The key here, at least in my mind, was that I came to understand that I didn't always have to pit my beliefs against others' beliefs as though life were no more than knowing which answer on a multiple choice test was the one and only correct answer. And, that if "A" was the correct answer then "B," "C," and "D" couldn't possibly be correct. 

There are plenty of examples of there being "one and only one" right answer I suppose, but there are also plenty of examples of there being many viable alternatives to a single question.

So, as has become my practice, I am a bit reluctant to treat my opinions as though they were tattoos that I committed to thinking would always appear to me to have been a good decision for which I'd never see as foolish in hindsight. (And just to be clear, no I don't have any tattoos)

Therefore, my personal opinion of The Great Gatsby aside, I've never dismissed it as having no real value in the curriculum or the canon. It, like so many other complex elements of the real world, works for some and not for others.

So, I went to see the The Great Gatsby film the other day, just to see what my reaction might be. I must admit that I'd liked the controversial version of Romeo and Juliet also directed by 

Baz Luhrmann and also starring Leonardo diCaprio.

And, like so many other film adaptations (To Kill A Mockingbird for example), I found much to be disappointing and much to like.

And then I came across this video that certainly discusses The Great Gatsby in terms that many will not want to hear. And, though we do live in times when a dangerous percentage of people are absolutely unwilling to listen to anything they do not want to hear. There's a rather unexpected turn of events in this video. 

I'd have a pretty tough time defending the use of this video in class. And I'd be extremely cautious about recommending this video to colleagues, knowing that many would find it offensive. Yet, I'd definitely recommend it WITH A WARNING that offensive as it might be to some, there is significant reason to watch it to the end rather than to stop watching it at the first sign of offensive content.

So thanks to Baz Luhrmann and Sparky Sweets, I think I'll dust off my copy of The Great Gatsby and give it another read.

If, by chance you happen to find this video of some interest, you might also find Sparky Sweets' Thug Notes explanation of Crime and Punishment worth a look. (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWVp_qrD8o)

Intrigued? Check out: http://www.thug-notes.com 

i've actually scooped an article about Natalie Phillips' work called "Your Brain on Jane Austin. see: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/september/austen-reading-fmri-090712.html

The kind of benefits of literary reading that might be difficult to measure without a Functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. But, there are benefits even the most bibliophilic English teacher might find absolutely fascinating.

An intriguing list. 

Now, what might we do with the list? One of my favorite learning experience design strategies is to construct a three part experience.

And by the way, though it takes a bit of time to explain the following, it actually doesn't take long to do the following. For example the multiple steps in the first part might not take more than 10 minutes all together.

The FIRST PART consists of a short individual experience designed to give each student a little time to contemplate a personal relationship with a topic. It's pretty freeing because it allows students to recognize that there are sometimes many right answers. And, that what might be a right answer for some may not be a right answer for others. AND THAT SOMETIMES THIS IS PERFECTLY OKAY.

In this case, I might type up this list in a form that removes any indication of some reasons for reading might be better than others. So, I'd lose the bold type that implies such a judgment.

I'd preset the removal of judgment by prefacing the experience with some sort of statement like, "You know when I was a kid I really liked reading stories about imaginary places like OZ in the Wizard of OZ. But, my best friend preferred stories about faraway real places. That's one of the neat things about reading. There's something for everyone."

Then I'd invite the students to a challenge to find out what they like about reading. I'd give them the list [OR A VERSION OF THE LIST ADAPTED TO FIT THE STUDENTS' AGE]  and say, "Here's a list of many reasons that people say are reasons they like to read. What I'd like each of you to do is read the list and circle any of the reasons that are reasons that you like to read. Don't worry. Some of you will have many reasons circled. Some of you will have fewer reasons. And, my guess is that no one will have circled ALL the exact same words with no differences. 

Then I'd give them just a few minutes to circle the reasons that they liked the best. I'd encourage them to circle as many reasons as they could find  that matched the reasons they like about reading but not too worry too much about the exact number they circle. Just try to make sure you don't "miss any reasons" that they do like.

Then I'd casually tell them that I'd like to try an experiment that doesn't make any sense at all. I'd say, "What if there was a law that said you could only have 3 reasons for liking to read? That you could pick any three reasons you wanted from the reasons you circled, but you HAD TO cross out all the reasons you circled EXCEPT the three you'd keep? And then I'd say, "Of course this would be a silly law, but what if...? What three would you keep?"

Then I'd ask each to turn the paper over and divide it into 3 columns and to label each of the columns with one of their personal favorite reasons for liking to read.

In the columns I'd invite them to try to think of one or two or three stories that are good examples of stories they've enjoyed for the reason they wrote at the top of each column. (Be sure to let them know that some stories might appear only in one column and other stories might appear in more than one column)

All of this is designed to have them :

1.FEEL LIKE THEIR PERSONAL LIKES ARE RESPECTED

(All answers are right answers for liking to read, but everyone has permission to have a different set of right answers)

2. THINK ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT THE VARIOUS PERSONAL RIGHT ANSWERS ARE TOO THEM (Some of their personal "right answers" are "especially right answers for them)

3. SPEND JUST A BIT MORE TIME THINKING ABOUT MATCHING THEIR OWN FAVORITE STORIES TO THEIR PERSONAL RIGHT ANSWERS FOR LIKING READING.

And this creates a 'ready-set' for SECOND PART of the design which involves small group discussions. A "ready-set" is when students come to small group discussion having done a bit of pre-group contemplation; sort of like warming up in the on deck circle in a baseball game just prior to going up to bat. 

In the SECOND PART students are put into small groups. I'm a fan of groups of three and sometimes four; large enough to have a variety of input possibilities but small enough to preclude group members from "just letting everyone else do the talking."

Once kids are sitting in circles ready to begin, I explain the following rules.

1. The conversations should be limited to sharing the many reasons why people like reading AND the titles of books that they enjoyed reading. BUT, the conversation shouldn't drift off into disagreements about whether one reason for liking reading wasn't a good reason or a conversations about why someone's favorite story "wasn't a good book."

2. Students are welcome to ADD TITLES to their list if someone mentions a favorite book they had forgotten to put on their own list or a book they had not read but might want to take a look at since it was someone else's favorite book for one of their own favorite reasons.

3. And, finally students are also free to forget about the limitation of only three reasons for liking to read. So, if the conversation intrigues them they are now free to add new reason columns and new titles.

Then the students simply take turns going around the group sharing a connection between any one favorite book and the reason they put that title in one of their columns. They continue going around the circle as many times as they like or as many times as they can in a time span set by the teacher.

Generally speaking, the members of the group will find some commonalities as each share..

Perhaps a book they've enjoyed was mentioned by somebody else. But each put that same book under a different reason for liking it. Or perhaps one student mentions a book that another had not read but the first person put that book under a reason for liking it that connects with another student's top reasons for liking to read.  Or perhaps a favorite book is mentioned and connected to a reason that another person didn't consider a reason why some people liked the book.

Students might discover "new titles" that fit their favorite reasons for reading. They might discover new reasons to be open to reading new titles and/or new titles to read for their favorite reasons to read.

PART THREE is optional. And there are a vast array of options that might be of value.

Perhaps students could collect "data" from all groups to find out the class's top "X" number of reasons for liking to read.

Perhaps students could collect "data" from all groups to find out the class's  top "X" number of favorite stories

Perhaps the students could blend the previous two data sets into a wall chart with the class's ~"top 10" reasons to like reading and the top 10 titles listed under each reason.

This chart could be the source of monthly reading groups designed around common interests. 

Just some thoughts... I'm sure there are a thousand ways to use this list to give ownership of designed independent reading to the students while encouraging them to explore beyond what they might choose on their own.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

Following my earlier post today about  The Curse of Reading and Forgetting.

I offer this charming favorite and somewhat disturbingly reassuring poem called "Forgetfulness," by Billy Collins.

If you teach literary reading you may be amused. Perhaps a bit disturbed and hopefully reassured.

Must watch if you haven't read or seen "Forgetfulness."

By the way, there are actually two poems in the video, the second was my favorite poem to share with my creative writing class just prior to Mother's Day.

Coincidence that I'm finding articles that take me to thoughts of hypocrisy? Dunno, but I'm intrigued by how many very interesting articles I'm finding on the Stylist.co.uK website. A site otherwise devoted to the depths of superficiality to which one can delve in the fashion world.

Okay. Maybe fashionista-living will lead one to complete safisfaction with how a life has been spent. I just can't quite get past the lemming-ness of it.

Nevertheless, there are quite freguently very intriguing literary articles to be found on the site.

This one is a bit on the light side, but I'd bet there'd be some great possibilities for engaged learning here. The article presents the original poems, many often taught in schools, followed by a "translation" into "TEXT SPEAK," the shortcut text that pretty much every cell-phone tethered teen is quite familiar with.

I had an interesting thought as I read through these poems and their "translations." My guess is that those of us less "proficient" at TEXT SPEAK might find  a sort of fingernails-on-the-chalkboard (assuming many of us actually remember the sound of fingernails on the chalkboard!) ear-pain as the beauty of the original poetry clashes with our sense of the ugliness of the TEXT SPEAK translation.

Yet, in a sense, we might be responding as TSSL (Text Speak as Second Language) speakers. It may be that the disconnect isn't there for native TEXT SPEAKers. I wonder if they might read the TEXT SPEAK version, not only not bothered by the disconnect, but not even noticing it AND thereby potentially as equally moved by the beauty of the poem's sentiments as we might be less capable of appreciating because we are bothered by "poor translation."

I taught Candide for decades. I don't speak French, but for the first 2.5 decades, I gave little attention to the quality of the English translation. But, somewhere in the third decade, when ordering replacement copies, the district ordered copies with a different translation. And, I was shocked at what I perceived as the ugliness of the new translation.

The translation I'd used for 2.5 decades began...

"In Westphalia, in the castle of My Lord the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckj, there was a young man whom nature had endowed with the gentlest of characters. His face bespoke his soul. His judgment was rather sound and his mind of the simplist..."

I loved the phrasing...

"endowed with the gentlest of characters"

"His face bespoke his soul."

"his mind of the simplest"

It was so poetic.

BUT The new translation! Oh my! It began...

"In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his mind. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity..." 

How dry. How it "didn't sing" to me. How disappointed I was.

And then there was the reverse case experience. I'd read Don Quixote (well okay the famous parts anyway) and found it hilarious and a quite wonderful read. Then several years later, a "new translation" by Edith Grossman was published. The translation was heralded as being magnificent. And, it was. It brought a pulse to the read that I had not missed in my previous readings. But recognized immediately when compared to the new translation.

My point? Perhaps we see a degradation in going from an original version of the poems in this article to the TEXT SPEAK versions and thereby do not or can not appreciate the "translation" as I was never quite able to appreciate the "new" translation of Candide. While at the same time our students who are more comfortable with TEXT SPEAK are in a position more similar to my experience with Don Quixote in that the quality of the poorer earlier translations did not hamper my appreciation of the story at all and perhaps never would have hampered my appreciation had I not chosen to reread the book in its newer and better translation.

What if a students is moved by reading...

how do i ♥ thee? lt me count d ways.

i ♥ thee2 d depth & breadth & h8t

my soul cn reach, wen fEln out of site

4 d ends of bn & ideal grace.

He or she might be as moved as we were when we first read...

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I dunno why, but I think it might be easier for a student who loved the TEXT SPEAK version to transition to the traditional version and thereby find even more to appreciate (as I did moving from old Don Quixote to new Don Quixote translation) than it was for me to move the other direction as was the case when I moved from old Candide to new Candide.

We might be wary of how we express our opinion about what our kids read and enjoy and by doing so miss a great opportunity to move their existing appreciation to even higher levels by sharing the "better" translation.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

How many Literature teachers have secretly or otherwise contemplated a potential Pseudonym, Pen Name, or nom de plume?

I have one that I used when I was teaching and occasionally wanted to publish letters to the editors of my local newspaper.

Why? I did have opinions about community issues and felt that as a good citizen I ought to at least be a voice in community conversations. However, as a literature teacher, I always felt it was essential to teach the great questions, but unethical to express my own political and social "biases."

Those who know me beyond my classroom probably are quite aware of my various political opinions. But, in the classroom, my positions ran something to the effect of "I really don't care whether you might be a conservative or a progressive. I just care that you're well-informed about what intelligent conservatives AND progressives believe."

The essence... You can be one or the other. But, you're not well-informed unless you know the intelligent arguments expressed by both sides.

I'm not saying this practice was always successful. In fact, because I always sought an end of the year evaluation from my students, I was often amused that among those evaluations, there were always a couple of students who found me to be biased because I was such a liberal and simultaneously a couple of students who found me to be biased because I was such a conservative.

And, it doesn't take much to recognize that if students hear what they hear sometimes regardless of what was said, then it would probably also be true of the parent community who might be readers of the local letters to the editor. 

I didn't mind if they'd misunderstand the musings of my psuedonym writings. 

And, that's probably one of the reasons why for 25 years or so, I had the following quote by photographer Aaron Siskind running in large letters above my black>green>whiteboard...

"We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there."

 That nom de plume?  I'm not revealing that.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

Didn't anybody teach these people proper outlining formats???

I've noticed that the format of my notes often makes no difference at all. In fact, I frequently never reread my notes anyway; at least not thoroughly. Yet I take extensive notes. 

The value? The very pausing to capture an idea in the middle of a thought, abbreviating those thoughts, and scribbling those ideas frequently is enough to let those contemplations find a sticking place in my mind.

Ironically, traditional notetaking almost always never really worked for me. I'd spend so much time worrying about whether I was formatting my thoughts correctly that the contemplations and ideas I was trying to capture were fleeing in different directions while I was worrying about whether I was on a I., A., i, or a. level idea. And too often by the time I had decided whether a new thought ought to be enter as a I., B. level idea or whether it was a II., A level idea much of the idea had managed to successfully evade capture.

 I guess, Some things works wonders for some and Some things don't for others.

And, don't get me started on Robot Writing; you know the Five Paragraph Essay? The one that kids and college professors groan so much about.

Though in the case of the formal outline and the Five Paragraph Essay, they certainly have value in transitioning from chaos to the value of at least some level of ordered thinking. But, we should keep in mind and help our students come to understand that less chaos is not the only goal of ordered thinking. And, that Robot Thinking is only the lowest level of ordered OR Creative Thinking.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

Jerome is a lonely name. As a kid I never knew another Jerome. In my 38 year teaching career, I only had one student named Jerome. I never really liked the name and am still not at all fond of it. I just respond ala Pavlov's dogs when I hear it because that's what you do when you hear your name.

So for about the last 10 years of my teaching career, just above my black then green then white board, I framed and hung a collection of famous Jeromes. At least I wasn't alone.

St. Jerome

Jerome K Jerome

Jerome Seinfeld

Jerome Garcia

Geronimo (yes that one)

Hieronymus Bosch (yep)

Jerome Bettis

Jerome Kern

and Jerome David Salinger

Most went by Jerry, I wasn't fond of that name either.

Salinger went by JD.

It's as if among the few, even fewer actually used the name.

Oh well, there are people with worse problems in the world aren't there?

When I taught Catcher in the Rye, I'd begin by assigning the first chapter as homework and asked my students to come to class the next day with a list of as many adjectives as they could that they'd use to describe their first impressions of Holden. 

"How many adjectives do you want?" asked a beaming "A" student, eager to please.

"I don't know the answer to that question. How can I know how many adjectives you'd use?" And then casually, I'd throw in, "But, I can't imagine that anyone would come up with fewer than, oh, I don't know, maybe ten or so." hoping they'd take the bait; which they pretty much always did.

They'd come in the next day and pretty much half the class would have a list of exactly 10 adjectives. Friends often had "very similar lists" having helped each other stretch their lists to ten. And then there were always a few of the "look-at-me-I'm-an-'A'-student" types who'd show up with at least 20 adjectives; half of whom had reached the magic "twice as many as you wanted" number via words they had had no previous knowledge of until they ran their short lists past Roget. I always was amused by the kid who would take on a well-practiced casualness, suggesting that he or she had found "Holden to be rather vexatious." 

You know words like... ""galling,'" "nettlesome," "irksome" or my all time favorite, "pestilential;" words they'd never used; never even heard. But, their lists were impressively long.

Anyway, first thing the next day, I'd ask them to take out their lists and to take a moment to put a "+" next to every adjective that was basically a positive characteristic and a "-" next to those that described what they would consider a negative characteristic. 

When everyone had finished I asked them to turn their paper over and make a simple drawing of one of those old-fashioned balance scales where they'd put all of their negative words on one side and all of their positive words on the other side. I explained that I wanted them to show the scale tipping downward on the side that had the most adjectives and to show the scale tipping just a little if they had only a small difference in the number of words on each side and tipping a lot if they had significantly more words on one side than on the other.

Then we'd discuss some of the adjectives, which in a sense are nothing more than abbreviated topic sentences.

Holden in annoying!

Holden is funny!

Holden is rude!

Holden is crazy!

Holden is depressed!

Holden is cool!

"So," I'd casually ask, "do you like Holden?"

Interestingly, adjective like "rude" would be the reason why some students disliked Holden and also the reason why other students liked Holden.

As we continued to read the book, perhaps at a rate of 2-3 chapters a night, I purposely began each class discussion with the same question, "So, in last night's reading, was there anything that either supported your original opinion about Holden or that kind of changed your original opinion even just a little bit?"

I was pretty careful not to show any favoritism towards one side or the other. I simply pointed out that, "Yeah, I can see why people would feel that way about Holden." 

There were few moderate opinions about Holden at first. And, the majority of students leaned heavily towards the negative. But, along about the time Holden drops a tear on the red square of the checker board, even some of the most "annoyed by Holden" kids would think there was something sort of sweet about the guy.

And, of course, it was never long after doing or saying something nice enough to shake negative opinions just a bit, Holden would do or say something else that provided fuel for irritation again.

He's just a tough guy to pigeonhole. And, as we progressed through the story he became more and more difficult to pigeonhole. His sister, the baseball glove, his naive wish to be a catcher in the rye all tempered opinions, whether they "won" the tug-of-war of opinions or not.

We'd have some interesting discussions and I could just see the kids really thinking about Holden's complex nature.

So we'd eventually get to the end of the story. And I'd offer three optional thesis statements for a final essay.

1. Although Holden can be annoying, he still deserves some compassion.

2. Although Holden deserves some compassion, he still can be really annoying.

3. Starting with one of the previous thesis statements, change as many words as you like to whatever words you'd like and write that essay.

And, I would assure them that it was absolutely possible to get an "A" on their essay regardless of which of the three topics they chose to write about.

Not infrequently, a student or two would ask if he or she could change the word "Holden." 

"Sure."

"Can I write about this kid that everybody hated in my 8th grade class?"

"Well, I guess that would be a Number 3, wouldn't it?" I'd reply.

Regardless of whether students chose Assignment 1, 2, or 3, that was some of the most gratifying essay reading I ever received.

But I digress! (see Chapter 24 for a defense of digression)

This scoop is about the Salinger movie. Given Salinger's avoidance of all things Hollywood, I'm intrigued to say the least.

I'll be in the theatre on the day of release for this one.

By they way, is there anybody out there who found it ironic that Baz Lurhman used the "narrator as psychiatric patient" motif to tell the story of the recently released movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby?

I'm Just sayin'

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

EXACTLY!

Another serendipity! No sooner did I scoop and "defend" ThugNotes take on The Great Gatsby, than I came across this article addressing the very same concerns.

Perhaps this article's presentation of the points I tried to make are more palatable than my expression of the issues.

I'd really encourage the reading of this article that begins...

_____

"Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? It’s a common condition, but a highly problematic one. The compulsion to quell that unease can inspire snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making.

Fortunately, new research suggests a simple antidote for this affliction: Read more literary fiction.

A trio of University of Toronto scholars, led by psychologist Maja Djikic, report that people who have just read a short story have less need for what psychologists call “cognitive closure.” Compared with peers who have just read an essay, they expressed more comfort with disorder and uncertainty—attitudes that allow for both sophisticated thinking and greater creativity."

_____

And, it gets better and better. Lectures and Informational Reading certainly have their significant benefits; but literature can accomplish what is much more rarely accomplished in other expressions of wisdom.

That is unless "snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making" and the insistence for "cognitive closure" aren't personal and therefore social problems that need serious attention.

 ~ http://www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

interesting.

When reading becomes self-assigned, discoveries are more welcome than ever.

 ~ http:www.GoogleLitTrips.com ~

 Why Scoop an article that i found more annoying than interesting?

_____

But, first a concession. The "voice" of this article is not intended to be the voice of an educator. The intention of this article is not to engage reluctant readers. The intended audience for this article is probably those already engaged in a life-long reading habit. And, my criticism is probably more about the importance of considering one's audience than about the intentions of the author and receptiveness of her audience.

______

Okay, so why did I find the article annoying?

It wasn't the inclusion of a word too rude to share with students. It's easy enough to begin a scoopit comment with a warning in that regard.

It wasn't the use of the word "addicted" in the title. Though using words like "addicted" and "obsessed" as if they referenced something admirable is annoying to me.

It had more to do with portraying readers...

as weak

primarily women

choosing reading over responsibility

ridiculously emotional

incapable of reading without being emotionally wounded

snobs

mean

out of touch

snobs

afraid of the real world

snobs

lost in the real world

snobs

snobs

and did I mention snobs?

This is NOT a list of reasons to encourage young people to become readers.

DISCLAIMER: It's not that I can't take a joke or see an attempt to be humorous. But, with few exceptions, I can't help but see most of these as more similar to "dumb blond" jokes or "racist jokes." They do little to counter negative stereotypes.

And defending these self-deprecating attempts at literary humor as "just jokes" seems pretty much as irritating as those who defend racist and sexist jokes as "just jokes."

"Can't you take a joke?"

Not always.

As book lovers, of course, self-deprecating humor of this sort is easy to accept and even find amusing. And, perhaps that is a significant difference between we who are bibliophiles and our students who have not yet discovered adequate reasons to makee a committment to life-long reading.

What percentage of your students would find these "jokes" to be encouraging a love of reading? 

My guess is a higher percentage would be encouraged to ridicule their classmates who do like reading.

 ~ http://GoogleLitTrips.com ~