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McGilla_Gorilla t1_itzrjt8 wrote

Reply to comment by jefrye in The Great Gatsby: I don't know why this book is so popular with English teachers by knerled

>I only disagree with the perspective that literature classes shouldn't exist to instill a love of literature.

Pleasure reading is not the same as literature

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jefrye t1_iu07ls9 wrote

>Pleasure reading is not the same as literature

I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray right now for pleasure, so...

It's quite telling about the state of literature education that we're in a book sub and the majority of people seem to think that literature is a subject to be suffered through in school because teachers should not be making an effort to teach their students to love reading. That people here seemingly believe pleasure reading cannot mean reading literature, equally so.

I wonder how many people here had such negative experiences with English teachers in school (for example, being taught that classics are objects to be dissected under a microscope in order to find the "right" answers for a test rather than that they're entertaining pieces of art to be enjoyed and analyzed from a place of excitement) that it completely turned them off classic literature?

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McGilla_Gorilla t1_iu0cbk2 wrote

Sure and I read lit primarily for pleasure as well. But you don’t need a highschool course to teach you to read for pleasure, just like you don’t need teaching to watch Netflix or listen to a catchy song. You (generally) do need some guidance to learn to understand literature as an art form, to understand context and theme etc

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jefrye t1_iu0fq9p wrote

I guess I just fundamentally disagree that students can't/shouldn't be taught to understand, appreciate, and enjoy literature as art. I mean, I view every book I read as art. That doesn't mean I enjoy them any less (in fact, I probably enjoy them more).

And while many students may not need to be taught to read something like Harry Potter for pleasure, they do need to be taught to read classic literature for pleasure—or, at the very least, not be taught that art appreciation and enjoyment are inconsistent with one another. In fact, teaching kinds to read well, to love reading and appreciating literature as art, will transform their entire reading life. The false distinction between "literary" and "non-literary" books will disappear for them, and they'll begin evaluating everything they read from that perspective. They'll become a better reader. Surely that ought to be one of the long-term goals of teaching literature in schools?

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McGilla_Gorilla t1_iu0nj1a wrote

I just fundamentally don’t think you can force a love of something on a student. Like yes, if a teacher can help foster a love for lit while also teaching it, that’s great. And I think that will often be a natural by product of an educator who’s passionate about their subject and a student with a predisposed inclination to the subject. But it should be taught regardless, and instilling those skills is the higher priority. Not every student is going to love lit, and that’s totally fine.

What I dislike about post like this and the idea that kids need to “love” the subject, is it inevitably leads to changing the curriculum to allow for the path of least resistance. Yes, if kids just get to read their favorite Stephen King novel or Marvel comic book in a literature class I’m sure more of them would love it, because most kids (and people really) love entertainment more than education.

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Gwydden t1_iu04kvj wrote

Hot take: all books are literature. Bad books are literature just as much as good books. By the same token, bad art is art just as much as good art. Whether something is "literature" or "art" has absolutely nothing to do with its quality. That doesn't even get into how it is literally impossible to create an objective standard of what "good" and "bad" mean in this context.

Or into how all reading that isn't forced on you is ultimately for pleasure. Reading is a luxury some people get to enjoy in their free time. I love reading, but hate the hyperbolic sacralization of it: no book is going to unlock Nirvana for you or summon a heavenly host to bear you straight to St. Peter's pearly gates.

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jefrye t1_iu0dnp8 wrote

This is more or less what Lewis argues in An Experiment in Criticism. He basically says that we should spend less time arguing about whether a book is good or bad and more time considering what it means to read well, because if a person reads a book well and loves it then that book is good art to that person. The only truly bad book, he argues, is one that cannot be read well, which is a judgement that is almost impossible to make.

What Lewis means by "reading well" took him multiple fairly dense essays to get through, but I suppose it could be summarized as fully receiving, understanding, and appreciating the book as art—it certainly goes beyond mere enjoyment (though, for Lewis, so-called "mere" enjoyment is a crucial part of good literature).

That's what I think schools should be trying to teach: reading well. As you point out, this sub loves to act as if reading is by default superior to other hobbies, when that's clearly not the case. Reading well, though, is something special—not superior to any other form of art appreciation, but arguably "better for you" then other forms of art consumption. (And if people want to simply consume art, that's still fine. But we're specifically talking about education here, and I believe that teachers should be attempting to instill the higher form into their students.)

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Gwydden t1_iu0mh66 wrote

Well put. I agree that the primary purpose of literature classes should be to teach students to engage with texts—any texts—and language at more than a surface level, a useful skill not just when reading fiction but in their personal and professional lives.

Familiarizing them with culturally influential landmark works is still valuable but secondary to that. And there is no reason to make this process more onerous than it needs to be. Engaged students are better students. I read about an English teacher that had students read Shakespeare in comic book form; that sounds grand.

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McGilla_Gorilla t1_iu0dnj6 wrote

I don’t necessarily agree. Just going off a basic wiki definition: > Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.

There are plenty of books that don’t hit this standard of “art”. And even if it’s true, that any written work is “literature” then yes there is a distinction between art from which it benefits to have a formal education to understand / appreciate / learn and “art” which can be easily digested at face value. Like there’s no way anyone actually believes that The Great Gatsby is just as easy to understand as Star Wars: The Novel #23 or whatever. > no book is going to unlock Nirvana for you or summon a heavenly host to bear you straight to St. Peter's pearly gates.

I don’t really understand this weird straw man or how it’s relevant to the discussion. Learning the periodic table or WW1 history isn’t going to cause you to transcend either, but no one goes around arguing that those aren’t appropriate for a highschool student to learn. There is value in learning to understand literature regardless of whether you end up personally enjoying reading as a hobby, and that’s why it’s taught in school.

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Gwydden t1_iu0kdla wrote

The production of every book involves "creative or imaginative talent." Whether that talent is "expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas" is entirely subjective.

>I don’t really understand this weird straw man or how it’s relevant to the discussion.

And I don't understand how a distinction between "pleasure reading" and "literature," even if it isn't arbitrary as I firmly believe, is relevant to the post to which you were responding, which simply argued that literature classes should at least try to "instill a love of literature."

I teach history. Certainly, I think learning history is valuable even if you don't care for it, and I stress that to my students. But getting them to enjoy the class and, hopefully, instilling a passion for the subject among at least some of them, is definitely one of my educational goals and, when I achieve it, most cherished accomplishments.

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