Readicide Factor: The Overanalysis of Books Creates Instruction That Values the Trivial at the Expense of the Meaningful (Gallagher, 66)
Love, love, love this. Gallagher talks about the tendency for teachers to "chop up" novels, making certain that their students know every character's development, mood, tone, conflicts, and minor plot lines. However, the real value in reading many books is finding the cultural and social relevance that each book provides for the time period in which it was written as well as our current state of affairs. For instance, we should read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl as not only a Holocaust text, but also as a piece of writing for anyone who is struggling in his or her own living situation. I am reminded of the movie Freedom Writers in which the teacher has her students read this book and write in journals every day. Some of her students connected Frank's struggle with the SS and the Nazis with their own insecure and unsafe neighborhoods; both the student and Anne Frank lived in fear for their lives and were forced to deal with difficult, real-life survival issues at a young age. This is where real learning happens.
I started thinking about novels to read in a Government or History classroom in which I could find current issue connections. If I used Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, I could have lively discussions about theocracies and the tug-and-pull in Muslim and Christian nations towards and away from this threat. Animal Farm, of course, is a great way to teach socialism and communism while wrapping students up in a story about farm animals taking over their grassy farmland. Reading something like Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit might be a good way to discuss racial or other types of discriminatory violence.
The more I learn about teaching in our program, the more I believe in making relevant connections to every day life that is meaningful to the student. A good example of this is a current Hollywood movie called Easy A. While the film is slightly irreverent and not suitable for a school viewing, the movie connects Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter to a female student's suddenly-ruined reputation. Rumors spread about her, and she makes life connections to Hester Prynne's experience with public scorn and disapproval. Making personal connections with the students as well as social and cultural connections in the current state of affairs is a great way to help students remember and retain valuable information. This method also ensures analytical thinking and writing, which helps to combat readicide.
Making lessons relevant to students' lives is key. It never ceases to amaze me how attentive and excited students will be when they have an interest in what you are teaching. Even the smallest relations of math concepts to their daily lives perk their interests and engage them in the lesson for the day. I remember studying and paying attention because my parents told me I had to. Our students are different these days. They require material to matter in order to learn it. Our job as teachers is to make learning relevant on a daily basis. Otherwise, what is the point?
ReplyDeleteLove your suggestion about Handmaiden's Tale as a read aloud. What interesting discussion possibilities! I haven't heard of the Easy A, but a movie I will look into. You now have such powerful insights to engage your students in your history - and math classrooms.
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