Marjorie Writes a Book on Love

[defraudedbychipendales]

2 hours ago, trisprefect said:

My mother had to take a lot of my books away from me when I was a kid at the behest of my therapist. Apparently just because a kindergartener can read Goosebumps doesn't mean that she is emotionally ready to read Goosebumps.

It's funny, I recently had a conversation with my boyfriend about what book series we read in elementary school. Besides Animorphs he didn't know and I'm like HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT SHIT IS SUPPOSED TO BE INGRAINED IN YOUR SKULL.

I read very early and frequently above grade level, but I was also guilty of reading The Babysitters Club and Goosebumps and Sweet Valley Twins just because I enjoyed being able to finish a book in like a hour and then move onto other things.

The Harry Potter books didn't come out until I was in sixth or seventh grade, but I imagine I would have read so much more classic literature by this point if I hadn't been reading HP constantly from the ages of 12 to basically now.

Also a very early reader here. My Mother's philosophy of children reading is that a person will read what interests them. Anything "over their head" would just be ignore or skipped over. Thus me reading trashy romances for the story at 12.

 

[Mrs. Figg]

42 minutes ago, defraudedbychipendales said:

Also a very early reader here. My Mother's philosophy of children reading is that a person will read what interests them. Anything "over their head" would just be ignore or skipped over. Thus me reading trashy romances for the story at 12.

 

OMG! I was a trashy romance novel reader very early, too! Haha. I can't imagine my 11-year old reading them right now. 

[older than allosaurs]

4 hours ago, louisa05 said:

 I did the English teacher standard thing in my early years of teaching where I held up the book and gushed about how wonderful it was the day I passed it out. And that is part of the problem. Late in my career, it was more like this: "I personally am not a fan of this book, but some of you are going to love it. In my experience, those of you who didn't enjoy our last novel will probably enjoy this one. And those of you who loved the last one are probably going to be with me on this one. We'll talk about my issues with it as we read and if you like it, you can tell us why you disagree with me". And then, I also explained why it was in the curriculum and what learning objectives it would meet. 
 

 

Another former English teacher here, including several years of AP Lit. I also found that things went way better when I got real about the books I was assigning. Part of learning about literary analysis is learning there's a difference between "I loved this book" and "this is a worthwhile book." When I could tell kids that = I didn't love a book but I did understand why it's called a classic, we got off to a better start.

And even the standard groaners like Heart of Darkness always lit someone's fire. The first time I taught it, my Native American students totally got it because they knew in their bones what cultural exploitation was about, and why Conrad was so worked up. Most of the white kids had more trouble seeing any of this stuff that happened a long time ago in Africa as relevant.

One of the books I most loved teaching was The Scarlet Letter, which was my all-time most hated assignment in high school. God I despised that book, until I read it again 30 years later and realized it's brilliant, funny, poignant, a masterpiece.  I tried my level best to help my students see it in a different way then I did back then, but they also knew they had permission to hate it too.

 

 

[SwishySkirt]

2 hours ago, louisa05 said:

As for having more choice for students...I like that idea. I really do. Within our department at my last school, we toyed around with the idea.

 

I remember being given a list of 10 books to choose from, mind you this was in Australia 

[louisa05]

5 minutes ago, SwishySkirt said:

I remember being given a list of 10 books to choose from, mind you this was in Australia 

In what context of studying them? My seniors at my last school had to do a project on a book for a literature assessment (one I did not control in the least) and got to choose from a list of at least 75 and still had the freedom to choose something not on the list with my approval. 

This conversation has been about classroom study in the context of the general curriculum. Some schools (mostly on the middle level --ages 11-13 roughly) are trying having students choose from among two or three books and studying them together in smaller groupings within one class. Choosing from 10 would not work in that context. You'd have groups of one or two. Part of the idea of teaching a book in common is to have open discussion in the classroom. 

[trisprefect]

35 minutes ago, older than allosaurs said:

Another former English teacher here, including several years of AP Lit. I also found that things went way better when I got real about the books I was assigning. Part of learning about literary analysis is learning there's a difference between "I loved this book" and "this is a worthwhile book." When I could tell kids that = I didn't love a book but I did understand why it's called a classic, we got off to a better start.

And even the standard groaners like Heart of Darkness always lit someone's fire. The first time I taught it, my Native American students totally got it because they knew in their bones what cultural exploitation was about, and why Conrad was so worked up. Most of the white kids had more trouble seeing any of this stuff that happened a long time ago in Africa as relevant.

One of the books I most loved teaching was The Scarlet Letter, which was my all-time most hated assignment in high school. God I despised that book, until I read it again 30 years later and realized it's brilliant, funny, poignant, a masterpiece.  I tried my level best to help my students see it in a different way then I did back then, but they also knew they had permission to hate it too.

 

 

I always appreciated when my AP English teacher was honest about the books she didn't like -- it was sort of revolutionary to us that literature was not a zero sum game, that there would be books with literary merit you wouldn't necessarily like, and you could talk about the issues you had with it.

My teacher once actually assigned us a Hemingway short story and then apologized a week later, saying that she did it because she was in a bad mood. She hated Hemingway.

[xlurker]

On 5/22/2016 at 4:14 PM, FJismyheadship said:

This topic is reminding me of this one time in fourth or fifth grade I wanted to read Little Women. I was at school and went to get it, but was told I couldn't check  it out because it was "Above my reading level" (Does anyone remember the Accelerated Reading program?) They had me on a blue or green dot (probably about my grade level, maybe one above) and Little Women was a black or white dot which was 11th grade? Anyway, the librarian said no, and I had never been told no to a book before! I went home and told my mom, and she went out and bought me that book. I read it at home, I read it at school. When I was done with it, I went to the librarian and said "My mom bought me Little Women and I read it. I would like to take the test for it." She went ahead and let me take the test, I passed, and after that the librarian never told me what I was or was not allowed to read lol. For the record, that librarian was a wonderful person, but now that I'm older I wonder why she would tell anyone they couldn't read something. I haven't read Little Women in ages, are there themes in it that would be inappropriate for a fourth or fifth grader?

I fought with my kids' teachers all thru elementary school.  They were readers, good readers, yet I consistantly had teachers saying they should not be reading the books they were as they were "too far advanced".  Huh?  I would always read a book (say Nancy Drew) before I let the kids start a series.  While they read it we would talk about it so that I knew they understood what they read.  I believe the teachers actually wanted them to "read down" to the level of the majority of the rest of the class.  I felt if they were capable of reading/understanding something more challenging they would have been bored with "Sally got a new puppy"     

No Child Left Behind at it's finest.  No one should ever discourage reading, or quelch a love of learning....

s

[SwishySkirt]

@louisa05

I honestly couldn't tell you, I only recall reading the same thing as the rest of the class about 3 times, whereas we always had book lists and various assessments associated with our chosen book. Perhaps our curriculum has a different approach?

[Emme]

7 hours ago, twinmama said:

Every book I read when I was school age was one of two things, the books we had to read for class which I hated at least 95% of, or the books I read from the library or that I bought, which I loved almost all of. I hope things have changed in schools by now because while they are classics and blah blah, The Good Earth and All Quiet On the Western Front will make you hate reading. At least they made me hate it. Thankfully I'm an adult and can read whatever I want now!!

All Quiet is the first book I remember actively disliking. 

I love books. I've always loved to read, and like some others here, I was allowed to read whatever interested me. Read a lot about slavery and the Holocaust at a decently young age. Made me acutely aware of the injustices in the world. I appreciated reading stories about people nothing like me. And yes, I also read romance novels in my teens. I liked them because the girl always got the hot guy and that appealed to my single 16 year old self. And lord knows the romance scenes  were.. ahem.. engaging. heh. 

[PennySycamore]

9 hours ago, morri said:

i read the diary of a juguslavian teenager in the balkans war . at 9 years.

Was it Zlata's Diary?  I still have the copy that one of girls had in elementary school.

[CorruptionInc.]

I was an advanced reader and my parents encouraged me to read so much.

I read plenty of books that were above my age level - I didn't get defrauded... I'm fine!

[Bbfamteam]

I read early and way above grade level. I would read anything I could get my hands on. They let me check out my first babysitters club book in first grade because the normal books for first graders were done in 5 min. I didn't mind the novel assignments and enjoyed Beowulf and the odyssey and Shakespeare but Emily Dickinson.....Junior year....I hated her and made it clear in every written assignment that I loathed her poetry lol.

[older than allosaurs]

1 hour ago, xlurker said:

I fought with my kids' teachers all thru elementary school.  They were readers, good readers, yet I consistantly had teachers saying they should not be reading the books they were as they were "too far advanced". 

One of my few vivid primary school memories is from 3rd grade, when I wanted to check out something from the older elementary shelves at the school library and the librarian wouldn't let me. I pitched a fit, evidently (that's not the part I remember), and a sweet little classmate handed me her copy of Bambi's Children and said I could read that. I yelled "to hell with Bambi's Children," and it all went south from there.

My explanation that my dad said hell all the time did not go over well, and my folks had to come to school and promise to make me clean up my language. At home I could read whatever I wanted, though swearing wasn't encouraged, so it all worked out.

[AlysonRR]

10 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

I read a lot of YA, too, and other things. I just finished The Boys in the Boat about Washington University's 8 man crew who won gold at the 1936 Olympics. It was fascinating, and I'm not into sports at all. 

I'm another who reads a lot of YA, but I read "The Boys in the Boat" last fall and really found it interesting as well. I live within an hour or so of the locations they describe, so it was interesting to read what they were like in the 20s and 30s.

PS It was University of Washington in Seattle, not Washington University (which I think is in St Louis?).

[AlysonRR]

Tamora Pierce is another great YA author. She's been quoted as being grateful to JK Rowling because Rowling opened the YA fiction market to longer books.

[theinvisiblegirl]

2 hours ago, SwishySkirt said:

@louisa05

I honestly couldn't tell you, I only recall reading the same thing as the rest of the class about 3 times, whereas we always had book lists and various assessments associated with our chosen book. Perhaps our curriculum has a different approach?

I wish I had gone to your school for the sole purposes of devouring every English class of that type that I could get my hands on.

[morri]

we dont have reading levels here. libraries have a kids section and adults section.school libraries if there borrow any book.

[jas]

13 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

I grew up in England, and loved Enid Blyton. Greatly frowned upon in schools.

My son has been flying through the famous five books and loves them. I didn't introduce them though until he was old enough to have a discussion about the sexism, racism etc that is presented as normal in the books. 

[Naga Viper]

I haven't made an active campaign of it, but in recent years I've gone back and reread some of the books I was assigned in school; it's interesting to see how/if my perspective has changed. There weren't many things I'd say I disliked as a kid—not even All Quiet!—but as an adult, Dickens is somehow a bit of a slog and I'm more ambivalent about Hemingway. And I don't know if I'm up for tackling Lord of the Flies or Thomas Hardy again anytime soon.

Gatsby, though, clicked with me better the second time around; the first time, I didn't quite understand the hype. To Kill a Mockingbird stays in the pantheon. And I still enjoy Sister Carrie, although this time I found myself wondering how different the book might've been if Carrie had simply been better at getting off her ass and making friends. 

[OnceUponATime]

12 hours ago, louisa05 said:

: "I personally am not a fan of this book, but some of you are going to love it. In my experience, those of you who didn't enjoy our last novel will probably enjoy this one. And those of you who loved the last one are probably going to be with me on this one. We'll talk about my issues with it as we read and if you like it, you can tell us why you disagree with me".

I wish I had teachers who would say this. We were expected to gush over all the books we read. Saying I disliked studying Shakespeare got me a place on my English teacher's disliked kids list (I had to do three plays (instead of one) that year because of moving, I wasn't very happy).

I don't remember most of the books we read. I do remember that as a class (in younger grades) we often got to vote on which of three books we would read that year.

 

11 hours ago, louisa05 said:

As for having more choice for students...I like that idea. I really do. Within our department at my last school, we toyed around with the idea.

We were expected to read our own choices outside of class. We also had to hand in at least two book reviews every year that were based on non-assigned books from about age 11. When I was 12 we had a goal of at least 20 books, and they had to be from at least four different genres. I think that's the year we did some sort of study on genres. I enjoyed that, because it got me reading outside my normal book range

I think in one school (we had a class of 29) we got to pick which novel we wanted to read out of a selection. We ended up in 4 groups based on the book we each wanted to read (someone had to pick a different book because they were the only one wanting to do that one). We were all assigned the same sort of task each class time, things like pick a main character and show how the author fleshes them out, or how is the theme poverty addressed in the book. We were expected to do that in small groups pretty independently (we were 15/16 and the teacher would float between the groups to check in on us and give ideas). IIRC we had to do a presentation at the end of the book to explain the outline and themes etc for the other groups. That presentation meant you did need to understand what you were talking about, because people had to ask questions. While that worked for older students quite well, I don't know that it would for younger ones.

 

[xlurker]

11 hours ago, older than allosaurs said:

One of the books I most loved teaching was The Scarlet Letter, which was my all-time most hated assignment in high school. God I despised that book, until I read it again 30 years later and realized it's brilliant, funny, poignant, a masterpiece.  I tried my level best to help my students see it in a different way then I did back then, but they also knew they had permission to hate it too.

My all time "most hated" book assignment was The Grapes of Wrath.  Enjoyed Shakespeare, loved Orwell, tolerated Hemmingway and Bronte but loathed  the Grapes of Wrath. Made it quite evident to the teacher also, but as I backed up my argument he still gave me an A on the paper.  I told my kids they didn't have to like all the books, but always had to back up the reasons for their feelings.  They both not only devour books to this day, but are also pretty good debaters!  LOL
 

[TShirtsLongSkirts]

16 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

I grew up in England, and loved Enid Blyton. Greatly frowned upon in schools.

I also loved Enid Blyton. Mallory Towers was my favourite as a teen, and The Faraway Tree as a kid. Apparently now they have updated the Faraway Tree characters' names to Rick and Franny instead of Dick and Fanny, which I think is a great loss

[Wenny]

I've always mentally picture internet forms in real life settings. Tumbler = dark cafe or a hotel room, Facebook and mommy forms = Large parks with lots people and now Freejinger = Belle's library. 

Right now I can't really finish a book because my 2 year old comes over and wants to have it read out loud. 

[twinmama]

10 hours ago, Emme said:

And yes, I also read romance novels in my teens. I liked them because the girl always got the hot guy and that appealed to my single 16 year old self. And lord knows the romance scenes  were.. ahem.. engaging. heh. 

Totally remember sneaking my mom's copy of The Thornbirds when I was a young teenager. Haha!

[HarleyQuinn]

For some reason I can't find the post I wanted to quote, but yeah. An 18 year old writing a book on love is laughable. Especfially the fundie type of "love" IE arranged marriage and sexual oppression.