Marjorie Writes a Book on Love

[nokidsmom]

12 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Kids need a balance between fun reading and reading that challenges them as readers. For kids who read pretty far above grade level, books at their reading level might not be relatable for them. And that's okay. But AR doesn't give them any choice to read down to their interest/maturity level. Nor does it allow a kid to choose something more challenging. 

I also think that if we want kids to read for pleasure, we can't turn doing so into a task with tests to take and goals to check off. That is the exact opposite of reading for pleasure. 

My 7th grade teacher was big on this.  He believed there should be fun reading but also encouraged reading that challenged the students.  However, he wouldn't push it if a student really wanted to read just for fun below grade level, as long as they continued reading.   The only goal was to read so many pages during the quarter.    It was during this year, my reading levels took off and was at 12 grade level by the end of the year.  

[HereticHick]

18 minutes ago, Ungodly Grandma said:

I did. Also Eight Cousins and Rose In Bloom. Thanks for the links.

I always liked Little Men better than Little Women!

[karen77]

12 hours ago, rainbowbabycakes said:

I read Little Women in elementary school. But I was always way above grade level, and a HUGE reader... Thankfully, my son is too. He loves the Harry Potter and Narnia movies, but I can't get him to read the books yet. He's 8, and right now, he's into the Magic Treehouse  and Dragon in the Sock Drawer series, and he just finished book 1 of The Elementia Chronicles  http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Justice-Unofficial-Minecraft-Fan-Chronicles/dp/0062416324 . He is seriously impressed that it was written by a 16 yr old.

I love that he's a reader, and if he's into minecraft and pokemon right now, that's fine... he'll read "better" books later, lol

This is my daughter too (7), can't get her to read HP yet, but she'll get there, she's just been reading Alice and Wonderland and finally discovered/admitted what I've been saying is true (the book is always better with more details!) So hopefully she'll crack open HP again in the near future. She's really into the fairy books by daisy meadows currently. only about 150 of them!! yikes!

[sophie10130]

3 hours ago, Thorns said:

I LOVE young adult! Not sure if everything I read can be defined as YA, but pretty close (the rest is light novels, cartoons and fantasy), and I don't care. Maybe I should broaden my horizons....but nah. Can't be bothered

Yeah I really love dystopian or post-apocalyptic type books and the adult ones I've read (The Road) are just TOO MUCH for me. Brave New World and 1984 got me into the genre when I was in the 8th grade, but young adult lit really keeps me there.

I've also read some Stephen King like Under the Dome and The Stand (the two really long ones!), but other than that, it's been YA since I graduated college.

I always tell me mom, who is a HUGE reader, "I finished another book." and she will kind of sigh and say "A grown up one this time?" and I always have to tell her no. lol

My husband is also a huge reader and he kind of thought it was silly that I was into YA. But then I told him about the UnWind series by Neal Shusterman and he was surprised at how dark it was.

[Bad Wolf]

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. 

[morri]

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

[FJismyheadship]

My favorites growing up were Sweet Valley and Babysitters Club. My mother hated those books. Despised them. My brother liked Captain Underpants and Animorphs... more books my mother despised. She was constantly lamenting over us not reading harder books, the books that were on our grade or emotional level were too young, etc. Dear Lord she had a fit every time I cracked open one of those books lmao. She was always trying to get me to read adult books. One time she handed me Christine by Steven King and I had nightmares for weeks. Another time she handed me a book about aliens and I couldn't get through it. I did read a Dean Koontz book once and was okay with that.  I am now 28 years old and still reading Young Adult books. I bought three books before a big trip, two adult books and one young adult book. I gave away one of the adult books because it bored me to death. I think it was the writing style. Kind of stilted.

My dad on the other hand, encouraged reading no matter how hard or easy the book was.

[Ungodly Grandma]

3 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

I read Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, all of them..... in elementary school. I read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre in 6th or so.. and was on to the adult section of the library when I was in 7th and 8th grades. I couldn't take the adult books out of the library on my card so I stole my mother's library card out of her wallet.... VERY interesting section on  "how your body works"  too, for a  young girl attending Catholic school.  VERRY interesting. I LOVE libraries.

Did you ever come across Our Bodies, Ourselves? I found an adolescent version for one of my daughters that I thought was helpful. I have to say my Catholic schools, elementary and high, were rather liberal. At least after Vatican II. Surprising amount of sex ed.

2 hours ago, HereticHick said:

I always liked Little Men better than Little Women!

They sure had a lot more fun. And they didn't have to live with Amy!

[EmCatlyn]

7 hours ago, Ungodly Grandma said:

He was a minister, but the famioly was quite progressive, as I recall. Anti war, etc. I haven't read about the Alcotts in years, and of course the March family was based on the Alcott family.

The book was loosely based on the Alcott family, but it would have been impossible for Louisa to have portrayed Bronson (eccentric educator and philosopher) accurately and have the book accepted by the public, so she made the father a minister and had him away at war most of the first volume and in his library when he came back.  

Bronson Alcott was ahead of his time as an educator.  He expected students to have ideas, not just repeat facts.  He lost his school, however, because he insisted on enrolling a black pupil.  This was admirable, but it ruined his chances of supporting his family.  He also dragged the family into a Transcendentalist commune and had a breakdown when that didn't work out.  (Louisa's humorous account of the experience "Transcendental Wild Oats" written many years after the experience is a wonderful example of a failed commune/quasi-cult.)

We don't see much of this real father in Little Women but some of his ideas (anti wine, for example) and the occasional pedagogical moment (in one scene in the second volume he starts teaching his grandson the alphabet with gymnastics) show through.  In Little Men, the school at Plumfields shows Louisa's adaptation of some of her father's educational ideas and values.

She also has Rose's uncle and guardian in Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom articulate some of her father's ideas.  But only those that she could, as an adult, subscribe to herself.

To connect all this to the Duggars, the real-life Alcotts were a very odd family in their own day.  

Like you, I loved the Alcott novels as a kid.

[Fundie Bunny]

5 minutes ago, EmCatlyn said:

Bronson Alcott was ahead of his time as an educator.  He expected students to have ideas, not just repeat facts.  He lost his school, however, because he insisted on enrolling a black pupil.  This was admirable, but it ruined his chances of supporting his family.  He also dragged the family into a Transcendentalist commune and had a breakdown when that didn't work out.  (Louisa's humorous account of the experience "Transcendental Wild Oats" written many years after the experience is a wonderful example of a failed commune/quasi-cult.)

 

I think i saw that on a movie adaptation. I remember because i had to ask my mother what was a coloured girl. I had never heard anyone refering to a black person as coloured before

[Thorns]

1 hour ago, sophie10130 said:

Yeah I really love dystopian or post-apocalyptic type books and the adult ones I've read (The Road) are just TOO MUCH for me. Brave New World and 1984 got me into the genre when I was in the 8th grade, but young adult lit really keeps me there.

I've also read some Stephen King like Under the Dome and The Stand (the two really long ones!), but other than that, it's been YA since I graduated college.

I always tell me mom, who is a HUGE reader, "I finished another book." and she will kind of sigh and say "A grown up one this time?" and I always have to tell her no. lol

My husband is also a huge reader and he kind of thought it was silly that I was into YA. But then I told him about the UnWind series by Neal Shusterman and he was surprised at how dark it was.

Oh, I have to try those! I read a lot of Mercedes Lackey, Raymond E.Feist (esp the Empire -trilogy).

I work in health, and the last years I've gravitated away from everything that is emotially involving reading wise. When I'm not working I want everything to be light and fluffy  Not that YA always is light and fluffy, but you can always be reasonally sure that it more or less turns out allright in the end. 

(For the same reason I struggle with Ken Follet 's books, I really like everything he writes, but why does EVERYTHING have to go wrong ALL THE TIME until the very end?! It makes me very very frustrated. Rant over. )

[OldFadedStar]

I love Young Adult fiction! I tend to gravitate towards that section.. I think because I tend to find them easy reads and most of the time if I'm enjoying a book, I don't want to think too much..

[clueliss]

I'm 52 and read YA fiction.  Not 100%.  And for me I enjoy the shorter/quicker read, especially when balanced out by giant Stephen King or Game Of Thrones tomes.

[twinmama]

16 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Kids need a balance between fun reading and reading that challenges them as readers. For kids who read pretty far above grade level, books at their reading level might not be relatable for them. And that's okay. But AR doesn't give them any choice to read down to their interest/maturity level. Nor does it allow a kid to choose something more challenging. 

I also think that if we want kids to read for pleasure, we can't turn doing so into a task with tests to take and goals to check off. That is the exact opposite of reading for pleasure. 

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!!

[sophie10130]

23 minutes ago, Thorns said:

Oh, I have to try those! I read a lot of Mercedes Lackey, Raymond E.Feist (esp the Empire -trilogy).

I work in health, and the last years I've gravitated away from everything that is emotially involving reading wise. When I'm not working I want everything to be light and fluffy  Not that YA always is light and fluffy, but you can always be reasonally sure that it more or less turns out allright in the end. 

(For the same reason I struggle with Ken Follet 's books, I really like everything he writes, but why does EVERYTHING have to go wrong ALL THE TIME until the very end?! It makes me very very frustrated. Rant over. )

If you like things light and fluffy, UnWind might not be the greatest. It is pretty dark and creepy. Just the way they normalize everything. Ugh it really creeps me out. But it was goooooooood. It's not super dark, but the subject matter can be pretty disturbing. It still sticks with me, but not in a way that I can't handle like some other books.

It was a new take on how everything's gonna go to shit in this country, and liked that about it.

[Nashville92]

I'm not a too adventurous reader. I mostly read Love Inspired Historical and Amish books. I also like Diana Palmer novels. I read a lot when I was younger but during middle/high school and college it didn't much interest me. 

[Bad Wolf]

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

[louisa05]

54 minutes 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!!

Please take no offense at this...but as a former English teacher, I get tired of the "everyone hates all the books from lit class" thing. There are a lot of problems with it. 

First of all, every student doesn't hate every piece of literature read in class. I always had students who liked stuff. Not the same students for every piece of literature. But I can't think of any major work I taught that every student ever in my room hated. 

Secondly, the reason it is a thing to make that announcement is that there is some misguided notion that everyone should love every book taught in class and that since you (generic you--not you personally) hated whichever book, well, gee aren't we getting that teaching literature thing all wrong! That is crazy. I actually had to teach books that I hated. 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. 

Also, incidentally, I also hate All Quiet on the Western Front. And I've had to read it multiple times in academic settings. Including in a graduate history course on Germany. And that is where seeing the difference between reading for pleasure and reading something because of its literary or historical merit comes in. And when English teachers gush about how great a book is and how much they love it and how much you are going to love it, too, (even when they don't love it at all), they actually send the false message that we aren't reading in school for curricular objectives or literary/historical merit. So kids (and the adults they become) get a completely screwed up message about why we read. 

 

 

[trisprefect]

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.

[bashfulpixie]

@louisa05  Wish I could upvote your post more than once.  Makes so much more sense that the crap my teachers used to pull with how much they adored every book.  I'm sorry, but there are several books I read (Billy Budd, Old Man and the Sea, and All Quiet on the Western Front off the top of my head) that I absolutely loathed in school.  I think it's important that students understand that not everyone is going to like every book.  I wish I would have realized that while in school.  Luckily I learned to love reading and being read to as a toddler, so I knew there were other books out there that were more my speed.

Sidenote: I worked at BN for more than a decade.  One of my most maddening memories was arguing with a teenage boy whose teacher gave them the option between Persuasion and Dracula for summer reading and he wanted Persuasion because it had fewer pages.

[theinvisiblegirl]

When it comes to YA, I don't think any age is too "old" for the genre. A book is a book, and some YA books are really good.

17 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

Please take no offense at this...but as a former English teacher, I get tired of the "everyone hates all the books from lit class" thing. There are a lot of problems with it. 

First of all, every student doesn't hate every piece of literature read in class. I always had students who liked stuff. Not the same students for every piece of literature. But I can't think of any major work I taught that every student ever in my room hated. 

Secondly, the reason it is a thing to make that announcement is that there is some misguided notion that everyone should love every book taught in class and that since you (generic you--not you personally) hated whichever book, well, gee aren't we getting that teaching literature thing all wrong! That is crazy. I actually had to teach books that I hated. 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. 

<snip> 

English was always my favorite subject in school because I love to read, but very few of the books I read in high school were ones I'd ever read again if I could help it. The only one I gave a second chance for was To Kill A Mockingbird for the sole purpose of comparing it to Go Set A Watchman when it came out. (My disdain for the sequel... Well, that's for a separate discussion in another area of FJ.) A Separate Peace, The Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet/Othello/MacBeth... They just didn't do anything for me. I didn't do a lot of independent reading in high school because I felt so drained by the books I was forced to read. (The only independent reading I did seem to do was for the two school book clubs that I was in/was president of senior year.)

That's not to say that I had four years of English classes without any books that I enjoyed or would read again because I did. I just think they need to diversify the books taught. Not everyone enjoys Shakespeare or wants to read certain types of books. I just can't help but think that, if English classes were taught even just a bit differently by allowing more freedom in the books chosen, it would make a difference in how many students go on to become big readers.

This is something I discuss frequently with one of my high school English teachers that I've kept in touch with since graduating. I'm seeing her this week, so I wonder if this topic will come up between us.

[louisa05]

48 minutes ago, theinvisiblegirl said:

When it comes to YA, I don't think any age is too "old" for the genre. A book is a book, and some YA books are really good.

English was always my favorite subject in school because I love to read, but very few of the books I read in high school were ones I'd ever read again if I could help it. The only one I gave a second chance for was To Kill A Mockingbird for the sole purpose of comparing it to Go Set A Watchman when it came out. (My disdain for the sequel... Well, that's for a separate discussion in another area of FJ.) A Separate Peace, The Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet/Othello/MacBeth... They just didn't do anything for me. I didn't do a lot of independent reading in high school because I felt so drained by the books I was forced to read. (The only independent reading I did seem to do was for the two school book clubs that I was in/was president of senior year.)

That's not to say that I had four years of English classes without any books that I enjoyed or would read again because I did. I just think they need to diversify the books taught. Not everyone enjoys Shakespeare or wants to read certain types of books. I just can't help but think that, if English classes were taught even just a bit differently by allowing more freedom in the books chosen, it would make a difference in how many students go on to become big readers.

This is something I discuss frequently with one of my high school English teachers that I've kept in touch with since graduating. I'm seeing her this week, so I wonder if this topic will come up between us.

The first thing you have to remember, before you filet all the English teachers, is that they have very little choice in what they teach. 

In 16 years of teaching, I was able to choose two major works to add to my curriculum. Two. In 16 years. And I taught all levels of English at two different schools. Plus, I taught in small private schools where I was the only person teaching on each grade level and had some personal control over my curriculum. And I still was able to choose only two books in sixteen years. So...if your English teacher made you read Great Expectations, it is quite possible that she secretly wanted to gouge her own eyes out every time she looked at it and was begging admins on a yearly basis to let her switch to something she liked better and felt was better suited to the needs of her classes. I spent six years doing just that. I never won that argument. 

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. However, to do so, you need smaller classes, more class time, and more money. Most of which is impossible to get. Why, you ask, would those three things matter? 

Class size: If I am teaching two or three books at once, I need to work with students in smaller groups and still be able to adequately supervise students I am not working with. If I have 32 kids in the room that is harder to do. I likely won't even have space in the classroom to configure those groups. If I have 21 kids in three  groups, it is possible to work with everyone. 

Class time: English teachers have to teach lit, grammar, writing and, often, communication. If I teach one class novel, then I do the novel on Mondays and Thursdays, grammar on Tuesday, writing and communication on Wednesday and Friday. If I'm teaching two or three class novels at once, then it becomes difficult to have class instruction and discussion time for everything with everyone in just two days--mind you, most schools have 40-45 minutes of class time. I was able, one year, in a 90 minute block with a student teacher, do two separate Shakespeare plays. I worked with one group while she worked with the other so that my high level kids did Hamlet while my lower level group did A Midsummer Night's Dream. I could have managed that on my own as well, due to the longer class time. In 45 minutes, not so much. It was also a class with only 19 kids total (groups of 12 and 7). 

Money: More choices means purchasing more copies of everything. A friend still teaching English recently started a gofundme page to replace worn out copies of the novels she teaches because the school (public, mind you) will not budget to replace them. Getting two or three other books for kids to choose from is absolutely not going to happen. And any supplemental materials for those extra books are not going to be bought by school districts either. And that brings us back to the first issue: a lot of the books I was stuck with, I was stuck with because ditching them and spending money for something new just wasn't going to happen. 

And, on top of that, you are always going to have the kid mentioned above who chooses Persuasion over Dracula because it is shorter. Then hates Persuasion and bitches about the teacher. 

 

[theinvisiblegirl]

I agree with all of what you're saying, @louisa05. A lot of it has to do with districts understanding the value of a solid education in English and knowing that anyone can benefit for a lifetime from a love of reading. So much emphasis is put on S.T.E.M. subjects that anything outside of that seems to get the shaft, and it's truly unfortunate.

[louisa05]

46 minutes ago, theinvisiblegirl said:

I agree with all of what you're saying, @louisa05. A lot of it has to do with districts understanding the value of a solid education in English and knowing that anyone can benefit for a lifetime from a love of reading. So much emphasis is put on S.T.E.M. subjects that anything outside of that seems to get the shaft, and it's truly unfortunate.

The point of teaching literature is not only (or even primarily) to make kids love reading. That is the first misconception in the whole discussion. It is great if they walk out enjoying reading, but in my experience, if they get to ninth grade and don't like to read, it doesn't matter what we do or don't do in English class--we aren't going to change that. 

Reading has different purposes. We all read for different purposes on a regular basis. Just because someone doesn't read for pleasure, doesn't mean they don't read. Reading for entertainment/pleasure/fun is only one reason we read. And it is not generally the reason we read in literature courses. 

[twinmama]

2 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Please take no offense at this...but as a former English teacher, I get tired of the "everyone hates all the books from lit class" thing. There are a lot of problems with it. 

First of all, every student doesn't hate every piece of literature read in class. I always had students who liked stuff. Not the same students for every piece of literature. But I can't think of any major work I taught that every student ever in my room hated. 

Secondly, the reason it is a thing to make that announcement is that there is some misguided notion that everyone should love every book taught in class and that since you (generic you--not you personally) hated whichever book, well, gee aren't we getting that teaching literature thing all wrong! That is crazy. I actually had to teach books that I hated. 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. 

Also, incidentally, I also hate All Quiet on the Western Front. And I've had to read it multiple times in academic settings. Including in a graduate history course on Germany. And that is where seeing the difference between reading for pleasure and reading something because of its literary or historical merit comes in. And when English teachers gush about how great a book is and how much they love it and how much you are going to love it, too, (even when they don't love it at all), they actually send the false message that we aren't reading in school for curricular objectives or literary/historical merit. So kids (and the adults they become) get a completely screwed up message about why we read. 

 

 

First, I definitely take no offense so no worries  I am crazy stubborn and the more someone "requires" something, the less I want to do it, so I'm sure that has a huge part in disliking the stuff I had to read in school. 

I think the part I have a big problem with personally is the difference between reading for pleasure and reading for cultural or historical significance. The books I didn't enjoy but were significant in those ways, I "read for the test" meaning I skimmed the chapters, figured out what the teacher would ask on the quiz and went no deeper. In all of middle and high school English classes (and I was in honors stuff, not an english major by any means, but I didn't do too awful), I recall liking Catcher in the Rye, Night by Elie Wiesel, and A Separate Peace. I'm sure all the books I didn't enjoy that I skimmed did teach me things about either life or reading or whatever. Thankfully now I loooooove reading and have like 5 books or more waiting on my Kindle at all times.