Teaching people to hate literature.

Ave Sodalis · 21-10-2009 10:47pm #1

Hey everyone. For English the last day, we were to read and discuss an article entitled "Teaching People to Hate Literature".

It is about how the education system forces students to read too deeply into poems and more particularly, novels and how we have to tear them apart almost word for word rather than being let enjoy the writings.
As a result, it says, the natural enjoyment we get as children of books and nursery ryhmes is used up and except a select few, most adults do not enjoy reading.
Therefore secondary schools should focus more attention on introducing teenagers to the wonders of literature rather than them seeing it as a forced chore. Then, if they did want to analyze them in depth, they could in college.

I thought it was a very good topic and you would enjoy discussing it here too.

Permabear · 21-10-2009 11:29pm

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Plowman · 22-10-2009 10:34am

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Dades · 22-10-2009 10:53am

The hating literature idea has a point.

I have to say I did really enjoy most of what we were made read in school, though to this day I believe there was a huge amount of crap "read into" what the author was actually saying.

Fair enough something like Animal Farm, which is a political commentary, but stuff like Huckleberry Finn or Emma? Sure it refects the thinking of the day but does every nuance have to be scrutinised? Emma was a smart romantic comedy ffs!

As for poetry - any poetry sends me into convulsions. Can't stand it after they beat it to death with an iron bar in school.

So yeah! + 1 for book enjoyment appreciation !

You mean occasionally.

Plowman · 22-10-2009 11:06am

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Permabear · 22-10-2009 11:20am

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Plowman · 22-10-2009 11:34am

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Mark Hamill · 22-10-2009 12:32pm

Who says all literature must have some deeply hidden meaning? Who says that even if all literature does, that this meaning is going to be of great relevence to the reader? There comes a point where you have to just go along and enjoy the story being presented to you. A good writer will get his meaning across without either having it bashed over your head or hidden so deep you need an excavation crew to find it. Personally I'm of the opinion that most writers (particularly poets) who claim their work has hidden meanings are either just making it up to sound more deep (there is no hidden meaning) or the entire point of their prose was an exercise in seeing how well they can hide some "meaning" they aren't really interested in, behind flowery language just to make them feel clever.

Is that not as much a failure on the writer as the reader though? Like I said, a good writer can have his meaning seep into your brain without you even realising it, the reader doesn't need a dictionary, thesauras and Eng Lit degree to get it.

No it promotes actual enjoyment of literture and allows for the fact that if you have to beat some hidden meanings into someone, then the writer has failed to present the meanings in a realistic and meaningful way for the reader to actually pick up on. Then the question becomes is the reader reading out of his/her reading level or just so alien from their own experiences that they cant relate to it (ie most of the books teens are told to read in school) or was the writer more interested in clever writing than getting across his point (ie most of the poetry given to teens in schools).

Dades · 22-10-2009 1:02pm

I post about how poetry in school was over-analyzed, scrutinised and picked apart and you suggest I don't like poetry because I don't understand it? Maybe I'd like poetry if we'd been left to read it.

This suggests to me that you believe a book must be open to multi-layed scrutiny, and that unless the author has subtexts within every plot device it's shallow or simplistic.

There's a happy medium between having kids read a book and say if they liked it or not and double-guessing the author's motive behind every paragraph.

Permabear · 22-10-2009 1:32pm

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Earthhorse · 22-10-2009 2:00pm

I don't think it's a book; it's an article, isn't it?

OP, is this the article in question?

To be honest, I think most adults would enjoy reading if they gave it the time it deserves. But we have a million distractions in front of us that take a lot less concentration. Poor book choice is also a reason I think a lot of people give up on reading. You may not enjoy anything on the curriculum you followed but that doesn't mean there isn't something out there you will enjoy.

As for over scrutinising the works in question, I think that this is sometimes the case. I remember studying Philadelphia, Here I Come for the Leaving Cert. It was entertaining and I felt I understood it well but, for the life of me, I could never answer a question on it. It seemed everything that was in it was apparent in it. Sometimes we are being asked to shed light on something the author has already made clear and apparent. And at other times, yes, I think works are torn apart page by page and paragraph by paragraph but I have to say I don't think that really starts till college.

Meeja Ireland · 22-10-2009 2:24pm

I think there are two fundamental flaws in the article. The first is in the assumption that there is anything previous to analysis. It's not as if you can ever read a book or a poem without analysing it. The process of reading involves uncovering the meaning of the sentences, and relating them to what you've already read and what you expect from what follows.

"A poem should not mean but be" is one of the stupidest things ever said, or would be if MacLeish had meant it.

The second flaw is to ignore the huge pleasure that analysis involves. He quotes Mark Twain's preface to Huckleberry Finn:

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

That's a pretty decent joke, and you could just read it and move on. But isn't it more interesting to wonder why Twain, at that time and in that place, would deny a motive or a moral to a story about a white child helping a slave to escape from the South? Or to reflect that the people most likely to be prosecuted, banished and shot in the book itself are Huck and Joe?

As soon as you start thinking about that, you have to involve all kinds of contextual issues. These don't make the book any less pleasurable, surely?

I would say that is where the article goes most wrong. It associates the boredom of certain methods of teaching with the process of analysis itself. The real goal of analysis, or one of the goals, should be to squeeze more and more pleasure out of what you're reading.

Good thread, OP. And I love the idea of exploring France's rich literary heritage by eating cheese.

Dades · 22-10-2009 2:41pm

Drawing comparisons between 'holiday reading' and Joyce is kind of pointless here. The OP was to do with books/poems that appear on the Irish curriculum which, in the view of some of us, were over-scrutinised to the point of ridiculousness - and also of removing any joy out of the actual reading of them.

For someone so vigorously defending the honour of analyzing literature, I would have hoped you might have given what I posted more than a cursory glance. That way you could have avoided misrepresenting my single-layered opinion.

lemon_sherbert · 22-10-2009 3:04pm

I always thought that one of the prevailing faults with the approach taken in teaching literature in school was the generalist approach. All the books we read were treated with the same standard approach; identify the theme, discuss the protagonist etc.

We never seemed to really dig into the books, discuss the relevance of the theme, examine the strengths of the moral/social message of the book. I think we spent so long looking at metaphors and similes, we lost the bigger picture. For me, enjoyment of literature comes from looking at the message of the book (a highly subjective thing), and using that as a springboard for a greater discussion of the issue. In school we rarely got past, Macbeth is ambitious, discuss. It could have been a more interesting examination of the dangers of ambition for personal gain in politics, something we could relate to in modern life, or a historical discussion. What it did instead was reward anyone who could remember enough quotes to back up their point, rather than people who came up with interesting insights.

That said, I think literature is difficult to teach. Coercing any but a small few to even read the book was difficult in my school. And I think that comes from the lack of enjoyment. I reject the notion that to enjoy a book you have to analyse every aspect of it. I always think the first reading of a book should be for pure enjoyment of the narrative, getting to know the characters, learning to inhabit their universe. I think the great majority of authors write their books for enjoyment, not to torture students in looking for meanings that are not always there.

Then again, I suppose other people have different concepts of what literature is than I do.

Permabear · 22-10-2009 3:44pm

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Mark Hamill · 22-10-2009 4:13pm

Maybe, its hard to tell. Whats certain is that as a playwriter he wanted it to sound good to his audience. His audience being 16 century countrymen, not modern school children so any meaning he does hide will be lost in translation.

I'm one of the readers who dont want to waste time reading it, so why would I bother deconstructing it for someone else?

I didn't say literature seeps into your brain, I said meaning does. And a good writer will do that. Reading is not meant to be a chore, if its a challenge to interpret meaning from something, then its either the reader or writer who is doing something wrong.

Reading quality literature is escapism, pure and simple. Its about constructing a story or a world which catches hold of peoples imaginations and bringing them places they have never been before. Deeper meanings are introduced with a balance between overt and subtle. I have read very well written stories that left me feeling as if they where a waste of paper after finishing them, and I have read poorly written stories that been some of teh most inventive and well realised (if poorly described) fantasy worlds I've ever come across. Quality literature is about the story not deeper meanings. Stories purely about deeper meanings are just propaganda pieces for the author and lack any true enjoyment value.

Then, if poetry is about the figurative language and not the meaning, why is examined and thought in such a way as if it is? In my school days, a large part of poetry classes was in trying to figure out hdden meanings in the poems by deciphering the figurative language

Why is that a good thing? Why is being a massively inefficent writer, whose books need dozens of rereadings to be truely understood a good thing? Either they dont care enough about their meanings to want them appreciated by the masses, or they aren't capable enough to explain them in a way that a large amount of people have a chance in understanding them.

Dades · 22-10-2009 4:20pm

The fact that teens spend no time reading for pleasure isn't going to be helped by forcing interminable discussion over the minutiae of books that as far removed from real life as can be envisaged aged 16. I had to do "Emma" in school, and whilst it was a fine read, the time spent preparing for "stock" questions, remembering oft-asked "key" metaphors would really have been better served reading another book. Instead of reading a dozen books, students are forced to read two or three repeatedly with list of past-papers questions to hand.

You know what - that's probably true. In your teens you're either going to like it or not. But as mentioned above, you don't just read Shakespeare - you have learn great big bloody excerpts of it off by heart. It's the same with poetry. That's a surefire way to cause resentment to the subject material.

Drop the idea of having two or three books to concentrate on for one exam. Student could care less about the books - the analyses they are going to spew out in 99% of cases is going to be what they got from study guides or answers to past questions. It's all about getting a grade any way possible. Why not give students an obscure passage from a random novel and have them dissect that? That way at least it's less about memory and more about ability. That and a much stronger emphasis on creative or technical writing would be a start.

Dades · 22-10-2009 4:23pm

@ Mark Hamill - I really like that passage in your sig!

Permabear · 22-10-2009 4:35pm

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Permabear · 22-10-2009 4:50pm

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Dades · 22-10-2009 4:59pm

Although I haven't finalised my masterplan to overhaul the curriculum, I'd envisage the random material should ideally have been written in 20th/21st century English!

And this may seem like sacrilege, but I think The Bard might best be left for those who have some wish to appreciate him. Be they 3rd level English students, or curious casual readers.

Permabear · 22-10-2009 5:08pm

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Dades · 22-10-2009 5:16pm

Are they dropping him for Ross O'Carroll Kelly, or something?

I would have thought given all that's been written in the intervening 400-odd years since Shakespeare we could lose him from the leaving cert without necessarily dumbing it down.

Plowman · 22-10-2009 5:22pm

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Permabear · 22-10-2009 5:37pm

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Meeja Ireland · 22-10-2009 5:45pm

To be fair, most literary critics would be equally nonplussed when faced with video games, TV, etc. On the face of it, there is no reason why being stupid about Shakespeare is more valuable to anyone than being intelligent about Coronation Street or Street Fighter II.

Dades · 22-10-2009 5:47pm

Suggesting dropping a single (albeit famous) playwright from the LC indicates a narrow view?

You have to be pragmatic - this isn't an exam in English literature - this is an English exam. The idea should not be to educate 17 yr olds on the nuances of 15th century wit (i.e. decipher with the aid of a textbook) - but to enable them to communicate in the vernacular. There were people in my 6th year in school who could barely write - never mind memorise reams of prose.

By all means introduce them to literature throughout the centuries, but don't take up a vast chunk of the curriculum on writings that seem written in a language that bears no resemblance to the one referred to on the top of the exam paper.

Perhaps there should be a separate English Literature subject, in the same way there is an Applied Maths?

Meeja Ireland · 22-10-2009 5:56pm

That's a really good idea. Maybe we could have one good searching paper on functional literacy - writng letters, understanding listings and forms and so forth - and a different subject for cultural studies.

Even if you love poetry it is hard to see why answering questions on it should be an obligatory skill for everyone who wants a university place or a chance at most jobs.

Permabear · 22-10-2009 5:57pm

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Dades · 22-10-2009 6:01pm

And it's my contention that there is too much emphasis on the "literature" aspect - which primarily involves memorising stuff - and not enough on real life communication skills.

Meeja Ireland · 22-10-2009 6:01pm

Would you rather a conversation about Shakespeare with an idiot, or a coversation about The Sopranos with someone bright?

Teaching people to hate literature.

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