Don't study, just read.

[voluptuary_manque]

Literary would-be scholars . . . beware!

 

[noknife]

Very good article!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Seems he's making a point about the importance of literary studies, huh? And showing how easily a discipline can go off the rails.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Seems he's making a point about the importance of literary studies, huh? And showing how easily a discipline can go off the rails.

Not only 'can' . . . did! As many of us have said afore, nothing destroys a good book as fast as an English teacher. And, everything I was given to read in school, aside from Shakespeare and GB Shaw was a complete waste of that period of my life. So, yeah.

 

[cloudy]

Not only 'can' . . . did! As many of us have said afore, nothing destroys a good book as fast as an English teacher. And, everything I was given to read in school, aside from Shakespeare and GB Shaw was a complete waste of that period of my life. So, yeah.

...and it's corollary: nothing can instill a love of reading like a good English Lit teacher.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Not only 'can' . . . did! As many of us have said afore, nothing destroys a good book as fast as an English teacher. And, everything I was given to read in school, aside from Shakespeare and GB Shaw was a complete waste of that period of my life. So, yeah.

On the other hand, he seems to feel his jarhead students benefited from being forced to read, and think, about Madam Bovary.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

...and it's corollary: nothing can instill a love of reading like a good English Lit teacher.

Sure could have used one of those, coming up.

There's a pretty good book about teaching Eng. Lit to teenage boys entitled Readin' Don't Fix No Chevy's. The authors are both high school lit teachers who work with 'at risk' students. They point out that it isn't that boys don't read or don't like to read but that they don't read what lit teachers think they should. The male half of the population, in general, reads for information and sometimes for laughs. Certainly I would have fallen into that category if it weren't for Heinlein, Simak, and Tolkien. Today, we are begining, in the ed. biz, to understand that Stories aren't every thing and that most of what kids will actually need to read is informational text. They should learn how to read it well. Besides, there's a lot of wonderfully written non-fiction out there. Rachel Carson's early books on marine biology just sing. So Response to Grade Level Text must inevitably include what the boys want to read just as much as what the girls want to read. I'm pushing graphic novels, myself.