Readicide: Chapters Four and Five

(Page 92) "Hamlet isn’t the problem; the problem lies in how the work is taught.”
(Page 94) “I am a teacher, not an assigner, and my students need me most while they are reading.”

May I go back to high school and have Kelly Gallagher for my English teacher? For all four years? I have seen him present before, so I know he’s good at delivery. (I have seen a professional education author before who was horrible at presenting…she even made the comment that it was the norm to lose half the audience after lunch. Huh?!? That doesn’t happen if you’re good at what you’re doing.) If I had Mr. Gallagher as my English I, II, III, and IV teacher, I think there is a strong possibility that I may actually like the “classics.” I don’t think I’d necessarily become a classic literature a fan on Facebook, but I probably wouldn’t abhor most of it quite so much and would be able to get something from it.

I realize the two quotes I selected pretty much reiterate what I wrote in the final paragraph of my last post, but I suppose that’s because I think how the teacher approaches material is so important. When asked, can we even explain why we teach the particular texts or issues we choose? (I’m talking about things that we aren’t required to teach—the material that we select.) I recently asked a couple of teachers why they were teaching a particular book, asked what they wanted the students to get out of it. One teacher gave me a long answer and the other just basically said, “The same reasons she said.” The second teacher didn’t even try to add an additional thought. I wonder if the second teacher truly agrees with the first or if she didn’t have a clue why she uses the novel. There’s a strong possibility that the second teacher chooses to teach the book because she does think it’s a “good book” and “stuff” is already done for this particular novel—it’s been taught for years so there’s nothing to create for it. It’s so much easier when everything is already done!

The bottom line is good teaching is hard work. Dang hard work. And it takes time. Yes, there are many things that we can use from year to year, but we need to tweak them when necessary. How many times have you done the same lesson multiple times in a day when it went well for one class and bombed for another? We have to make material relevant to students’ lives so it sticks with them. Gallagher made a great point when he said he doesn’t expect every student to enjoy reading the books he uses (page 93), but he does want them to get something out of it. Just because we think a book is good doesn’t mean all of the students will, so we have to have a better reason for teaching something. What is it that we want students to get from it? And how are we going to deliver the lessons so that the students do get something from the material and don’t just “play school” with what we’re teaching?

Readicide: Chapter Three

(Page 65) “I am not advocating that we allow students to self-select everything they read. If I did that, none of my students would read Hamlet. Every student should read Hamlet.”
I was so thrilled when I read these words from Gallagher (the first sentence, not necessarily the last) because there seems to be some sort of movement by some for teachers not to use one novel with an entire class; the proverbial they think students should be able to choose what they want to read. The thought is that we choose what we want to read as adults, and if we want to develop lifelong readers, we should have them start the practice in school. There was an article on the front page of the New York Times back in August spotlighting a teacher who allowed students complete choice. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html?_r=1&emc=eta1)

Y’all know I’m all about some choice for students, but I had wondered if there wasn’t some benefit with kids reading the same text—and sometimes a text that students wouldn’t tackle otherwise. I think Gallagher makes the point when he writes that none of his students would read Hamlet if he didn’t have them read it. I read Hamlet my senior year of high school (in addition to Macbeth…I think my teacher was of the Gallagher thought that every student should read Hamlet, so we got to read two Shakespearan plays). The thing is I actually liked the play, but I certainly would not have read it otherwise. As students, we were even excited when the Mel Gibson version came out in theatres that year and we went to see it (for five bucks in the evening, I might add). And I was much better able to appreciate the Gilligan’s Island episode when producer Harold Hecuba is stranded on the island, so the castaways create and perform Hamlet: The Musical. It's absolutely one of the greatest episodes ever. (God help us all if any of you young chicks have never seen an episode of Gilligan's Island!)

I think the key to all of this (as is the key to most thing in teaching) is the delivery. If the teacher has a genuine interest in a text, I think she can get the students excited about it as well. I swear if the opportunity presented itself, my literacy coach friend Sonya could make me love The Scarlet Letter. On my own, I don’t see that happening. Was I supposed to read it in high school? Sure. Did my American Literature teacher do anything to make the text accessible or relevant to me? Absolutely not. Other than the general symbolism that “everyone” is supposed to know about the scarlet A on Hester’s chest, pretty much the only thing I remember about The Scarlet Letter is watching the movie in class and Pearl (Hester’s daughter) having a meltdown in the woods. So, if we choose to teach a difficult text (read: most classics), we must find that balance of making it understandable to students without beating it to death!