The Great Gatsby: I don't know why this book is so popular with English teachers

Submitted by knerled t3_yeibp7 in books

When I was in high school, I was assigned to read The Great Gatsby. I found it completely uninteresting. I just don't care about all that rich-people-high-society stuff. Now, years later, my sister is also reading GG for school and she says it's boring.

I was always a big bookworm since the first or second grade. But assigned reading in school was something I almost universally disliked. Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Mysterious Stranger, something about Malcolm X... none of them were anything I could take much interest in. It just seems strange that teachers seem to think that everyone ought to like the same books they like.

I'm now studying elementary education (off and on, when I have any money for tuition), and I really like the idea of taking a literature-based approach to teaching rather than textbooks and worksheets. But the students shouldn't have to all read Tolkien, Heinlein, Melville, and Paulsen just because that's what I'm into. In The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (about teaching kids to love reading) the author says that giving students a choice in what to read is important. Hear, hear!

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peppermintvalet t1_ityf6e7 wrote

English class in high school isn't about reading books you're personally interested in, it's about using books as teaching tools to learn about literature, themes, symbolism, parts of a novel, etc, at a more slightly more advanced level.

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impossiblevoyage t1_itym9qz wrote

As someone who understands that now, I do wish that had been made clear at the time. English lessons just felt like the teacher was somehow unable to get the class excited by a book which only their interpretations applied to, and which was entirely removed from its context.

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NunsNunchuck t1_itzaiz9 wrote

Which is why lots of kids hate reading. I never enjoyed reading until after graduating. My personal philosophy to get someone to read is find a movie that a kid likes that is based on a book and give them the book.

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impossiblevoyage t1_itzaq0e wrote

Idk I loved reading, I just liked the freedom of reading on my own terms rather than just what the teacher told us was 'the right way'. When we studied Latin literature, we were encouraged to come up with our own ideas, which made it interesting even if the text itself wasn't something we would normally choose to read.

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bigwilly311 t1_iufroik wrote

Yes, this is true, but students won’t read it if they aren’t interested in it, and there are plenty of other books from the time that teach those things and are also interesting to teenagers. I read something different to culminate my American Lit class, but I offer students Gatsby as extra credit so when they get to college they aren’t the only dipshit who didn’t read it in HS like I was.

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Pixel3r t1_ity89al wrote

My teacher had us focus on symbolism, because the symbolism is VERY obvious, so it's a good way to help people learn how to recognize and see symbolism in less obvious places.

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jefrye t1_ity9eyo wrote

Yeah, pretty sure this is the main draw. It's short and the characters are basically walking billboards for what they represent. Also, Fitzgerald leaves a lot unsaid (or, to put it less charitably, doesn't do much to develop his characters beyond a surface level), so there's a lot to discuss and debate.

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thisizmypornburner t1_ityjzcn wrote

I find it rather scary that you think you can teach but you seem to have completely missed the point of the great Gatsby...

It’s definitely not just about rich people and you are very shallow individual if that’s all you ever got from it

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HomoVulgaris t1_ityntw2 wrote

I think OP may be a living testament to the saying "Those who can't, teach."

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Walter-MarkItZero t1_ity80bj wrote

It’s a fantastic novel and has been recognized as such for almost a century. If you think it’s just about rich people and high society, you’re really missing quite a bit.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

One of the best lines in literature, has nothing to do with wealth.

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The_Grahf_Experiment t1_ity9hyy wrote

I concur. It is all but about wealthy people.

Also Lord of the Flies may deserve a second chance. It is a great book, very hard, violent and dark, but highly influential and relevant in nowadays society's approach to freedom and authority.

"Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us."

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wjbc t1_itya8ew wrote

Actually The Great Gatsby was not really appreciated by critics or the commercial market until after Fitzgerald's death in 1940. During WW2 the book was distributed to soldiers and they liked it. By 1944 critics recognized the revival in interest wasn't a fad, and scholars started to re-examine it. After that it became both a critical and commercial success, and is still both today -- but Fitzgerald never knew about it.

I agree that it's a fantastic novel. But I would say it's only been recognized as such for about 80 years, maybe less.

I wonder why it appealed so much to WW2 soldiers, in particular. It may have had something to do with the waning power of the Eastern elites portrayed in the book. After all, the soldiers were picked from all walks of life. And then when they returned to civilian life they weren't content to go back to their previous roles. They formed the great middle class of the 1950s and 60s, and through the G.I. bill they filled colleges that formerly had been reserved for the rich and privileged.

Now we may have come full circle, with a much greater divide between the rich and the rest of us. But that would make the book more relevant than ever.

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Walter-MarkItZero t1_itybdxs wrote

Like I said, almost a century. Closer to 100 than 50, to be sure.

And be careful drawing broad strokes about critics - it wasn’t a commercial success, but a number of critics and colleague praised it quite highly. It wasn’t universally panned.

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wjbc t1_itycvml wrote

No, but Fitzgerald felt that even the favorable reviews missed the point of the story.

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peccavi26 t1_itybnl4 wrote

Indeed that quote made me stop reading for a moment the first time I picked this book up.

From the unreliability of the narrator—no doubt in part due to his ptsd from WWI—to the overt symbolism both in characters and time setting—which Gatsby emphasizes through his attempts to “fit in,” it really is an enjoyable read.

That said, I agree with OP wholeheartedly that it’s just harder to read—and enjoy—works that are assigned.

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mindbodyproblem t1_ityd193 wrote

I mean, the quote is the last sentence in the book, so yeah I guess you stopped reading at that point.

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Walter-MarkItZero t1_ityc04j wrote

Speaking of the unreliable narrator - I find this article fascinating.

I personally abhor when activists try to retroactively find social commentary in works the author never intended, but this article makes a fairly persuasive argument that Fitzgerald did intend it. I mean, Fitzgerald wrote each word, he included it in the book, it has to mean SOMETHING.

https://themillions.com/2018/04/the-queering-of-nick-carraway.html

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Upset_Philosophy_683 t1_itz7sm7 wrote

The problem with that line is that while 'older' people may appreciate it's meaning, most young people don't have a past to be borne back to. They have nothing to beat on against, no current pulling them back

It just doesn't resonante with a teenage audience, because the majority of them lack the experience nessesary to truly comprehend what it means. And that is precisely the reason why most students consider it boring. (I mean one of the comments here says it first got popular with soldiers. The overlap between children and soldiers should preferably be 0)

One can argue about the use of literature in class but you still have to keep in mind that teenagers have a very different outlook on life than adults do, so the same book can come across in entirely different ways. The skill of literally analysis is certainly valuable, but I'd wager more students may pay attention if they actually care about the characters, and that can be better accomplished with a book selection that keeps it's target audience in mind.

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McGilla_Gorilla t1_ity8jwh wrote

High school lit classes do not exist for the purpose of instilling a love of pleasure reading. It’s fine to not like Literature personally (just like algebra or history) but there are benefits to learning about it.

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jefrye t1_itya9se wrote

Which is honestly really sad. Teachers (of literature, algebra, history, or any other subject) can understand that not every student is going to love what they're teaching but still try to instill that love. When teaching literature specifically, it's obviously important to familiarize students with our shared cultural literary history, but one would think that it's equally important to try to teach them to be readers who will go on to continue to explore literature on their own.

Kids' interests are malleable, especially in K-12. I definitely had teachers who got me excited about subjects I wasn't initially interested in—and on the flip side, I also had teachers who completely and utterly squashed any interest I had in what they were teaching.

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Kianna9 t1_ityk6du wrote

You can appreciate the craft and artistry of a book without personally loving it. That’s one thing students should get out of Lit education.

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jefrye t1_itykkr6 wrote

Oh, of course. That's not inconsistent with anything in my comment. I only disagree with the perspective that literature classes shouldn't exist to instill a love of literature.

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McGilla_Gorilla t1_itzrjt8 wrote

>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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bigwilly311 t1_iufs01y wrote

This is my favorite part of teaching Romeo and Juliet. I fuckin hate that play and all of the characters in it but there is no denying that it’s got some moments that leave me in awe that they came out of a man’s head.

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knerled OP t1_iu085v4 wrote

Students don’t get to “choose whether or not they learn algebra”
(as another commenter wrote) any more than they choose whether or not
to learn literature, but teachers have some leeway in how
they teach those subjects. I can think of some creative ways to make
algebra or geometry more engaging to students, but perhaps history
would make a better example of my point. Throughout
my schooling, history was all about textbooks and fill-in-the-blank
worksheets. If the teachers had been purposely trying
to convince me that history is the world’s dullest subject, they
could hardly have done it any better. I didn’t “learn history”
in school; I memorized a few facts, took the tests, and quickly
forgot about it. It was mostly after high school, and mostly on my
own, that I discovered how fascinating history really is. I’m sure
many people never make that leap and never
gain the benefits of knowing history. The same could be said of
literature.

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veriditas007 t1_iu9d4xu wrote

Learning a language? Vocabulary and grammar. Learning chemistry? Periodic table. Learning math? Addition and subtraction, and later proofs, graphs, and equations. Baseball? Throwing and catching. Music? Scales and arpeggios. Drawing? Lines.

And history? Yeah, those dates and facts and terms are foundational. If you don't have a baseline understanding of the timeline of human history, your thinking is going to be muddled at best. You can't do Regency historiography if you can't tell the difference between the Georges.

There is absolutely no field of human endeavor that doesn't have a steep learning curve full of dull and tedious tasks that need to be repeated and repeated and repeated.

This isn't subjective and does not rely on whether this or that person finds it "engaging" or "fascinating." What matters is if the baseline work gets done. That work is ultimately what the educator is being paid (and should be paid 4 or 5 times more) to facilitate.

The fact you keep coming back to personal likes and dislikes - it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanics of education. English teachers don't teach Gatsby because they personally love it and are trying to impose their tastes on everyone else, and history teachers aren't bad at their jobs when they make people memorize dates instead of do a Dead Poets' Society monologue about how cool history is. Pre-college education is about fundamentals, and there is absolutely no getting around the fact those fundamentals are not going to spark joy in every student every day.

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PartyPorpoise t1_iu752ku wrote

At the end of the day, you can't force people to like something, even if you try to make it super fun. Hot take, but I think it's more important to teach kids how to read than get them to enjoy it. They can't enjoy it anyway if they don't know how.

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veriditas007 t1_iu9dd0o wrote

if i had a dollar for every /r/books user i've seen who blames their lack of interest in reading on their high school teachers for "forcing" them to read "boring books," i'd be able to afford enough booze to make me tolerant of them

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PartyPorpoise t1_iua4q0j wrote

Lol for real. I think most people fall out of reading for other reasons but I guess it’s easier to just have one target, one where someone else is responsible.

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IamSithCats t1_ityea7q wrote

Perhaps not, but nor do they exist for the purpose of actively turning students away from the enjoyment of reading. Yet I can personally attest that this book has done that to several people I knew.

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csulasiris t1_itzwi4g wrote

>It just seems strange that teachers seem to think that everyone ought to like the same books they like.

That isn't how or why the literature you encounter in class is assigned.

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Averageplayerzac t1_itya985 wrote

I think there’s a pretty delicate balance to be struck between letting kids read what they’re already interested and pushing them to engage with material that’s outside of their comfort zone, having read many of those same books you listed I found them prettt important in broadening my conception of what literature was. I didn’t always love them but even the books I probably wouldn’t have picked myself and perhaps didn’t even really enjoy often had something valuable in terms of exposing me to different styles of prose, perspectives or historical contexts and I frankly think that’s just as important.

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veriditas007 t1_itz2xbu wrote

You have real ex gifted kid vibes.

GG is not being assigned because teachers "like" it and want to impose their taste on everyone else, it's assigned so that you can learn how to read literature. Scarlet Letter and anything Hemingway are also good for this; I "dislike" them all (except for some of their short stories!), but they're absolutely excellent for what their presence in the curriculum is designed to do. Which is, again, to teach teenagers how to read literature.

As for Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet - if you dislike them or think they're boring, you should just not be teaching English. Or you should read more mediocre American lit under the guidance of a high school English teacher until you learn how to appreciate them.

But as another person said, elementary school teachers don't get to choose what they teach.

Edit: a tangent. This attitude towards books really bothers me. Do you see anyone who is like "students should choose whether or not they learn algebra"? Or "geometry is so boring, let's throw it out and do more times tables"? Or "I don't like Spanish verbs, i should be able to just do more adjectives"? Would you trust a coach who didn't want to teach anyone how to pass and dribble and just focus on slam dunks? Come on. Literature is an extremely rich and rewarding field of human endeavor, and as wirh every single thing that people do, there are barriers to "getting" it. Books like Gatsby, however irritating, are necessary in order to get past that barrier. Which you don't seem to have done, OP.

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Pechvogal t1_ity9rcs wrote

Hmm. I agree yes, children should be able to read what they are interested in. But it also depends on how your teacher is teaching the class. I was taught on how to be a demanding reader, looking for things and asking myself things. I was taught to write my thoughts in books, highlight and underline, and look for major themes. I started reading serious topics young, so maybe that helped me in high school when reading literature. I personally loved Gatsby because I could relate to Nick and Gatsby. It's probably my favorite book honestly. We also took to learning about the authors themselves which helped. Learning the history of their eras a bit.

I believe children should read what they like, but also read the classics. Teachers help if they can inspire. Its about finding the good and being able to understand. I've always had excellent English teachers and to that I am grateful. I find value in books I used to dislike years on sometimes. Sometimes it's about growing up to be quite honest. To view the world in a... spectators view. To look in somebody else's shoes.

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yuanchosaan t1_ityguof wrote

I enjoy the model in NSW year 11-12 English, where there are modules with prescribed texts and then students have free choice for multiple "related texts" which they compare and contrast with the prescribed. I think that's a nice balance between the two approaches.

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Frequent_Jellyfish69 t1_itz1y5k wrote

I won’t launch into a long defense of many of books, and will just jump to this:

Teachers have to teach with the curriculum and state standards request, what the school board has approved, and what they have resources to buy/already have. Some schools provide more choice and money for books than others, sure, but in most places we can’t just go into a book store with a giant shopping cart and start loading em up with lots of contemporary books.

I have taught plenty of times (this year, even) when multiple classes have had to share one set of books bc we don’t have enough for each kid to take one home.

Sometimes we need everyone to read the same book so we can have discussions, projects, learn literary elements. Many kids don’t have the same taste in books.

There are ways to incorporate choice reading. On Wednesdays we have choice reading for 20 minutes and we all ready whatever we want for 20 minutes: a library book, a book from my classroom library, one from home. If you liked Book Whisperer, you would probably also like Book Love by Penny Kittle.

And finally, kids don’t hate all of the literary canon. My AP kids would go to the mat right now over Gatsby. Last year, my tenth graders loved Lord of the Flies. I don’t believe I have ever had a class that didn’t like Raisin in the Sun.

This comment may have sounded a little negative, but I just wanted to explain some of the reasons for literature choices. I would love for the world to be my oyster in choosing books, but there are a lot of factors at play.

Welcome to education! There is a teacher shortage, and we need you! Thank you for joining us. :)

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knerled OP t1_iu0cdvb wrote

Lord of the Flies was a whole-class read in my 6th grade class. Would I have liked it better if I had read it a few years later (and if I didn't have to listen as the slow, stumbling readers take their turns to read aloud)? Maybe. Would I find Gatsby more relatable now than I did in high school? Maybe. On the other hand, I did re-read The Mysterious Stranger a long time after high school and found it just as unrewarding as ever.

I'm aware that some teachers like to hit up garage sales and used-book stores, building up their own personal libraries (not school-funded) to share with their students. That's something that can be built up over time.

And I agree that sometimes it's worthwhile to have everyone read the same thing for some of the reasons you stated. I just feel that some teachers take it much too far, having multiple assigned readings followed by dry discussions on theme. FWIW, John Lennon wrote "I Am the Walrus" to poke fun at those who try to over-analyze his songs.

How about this instead: have students read "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes and then have them produce a short play.

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freyalorelei t1_iu0c678 wrote

If high school teachers taught only books that students read for pleasure, the curriculum would be all YA novels and comic books. Assigned reading isn't purely for fun; it's to expand literary horizons and teach critical thinking.

(Not denigrating comic books, many are truly literature, but there's a vast difference between something like Maus or Watchmen and Superman: At Earth's End.)

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knerled OP t1_iu0e6x3 wrote

>the curriculum would be all YA novels and comic books

I couldn't disagree more. I read much "true" literature on my own in high school and earlier. Even reluctant readers in high school could probably take an interest in Jack London, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, or whatever, if they have a chance to experiment a bit and find something they can relate to.

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PartyPorpoise t1_iu7597r wrote

Many people complain about those books too. Nothing has universal appeal. Hell, if my high school had only assigned YA in an attempt to engage kids I would have been pissed; I could read YA on my own, and I liked assigned reading as a way to expose me to new and important stuff and help me understand it.

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ApprenticePantyThief t1_itzfle9 wrote

Different strokes for different folks. Great Gatsby was one of my favorite assigned readings in high school. The Scarlet Letter, on the other hand, was absolutely unbearable for me.

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justdoinmynails t1_iu1m7wm wrote

Reading literature in an academic setting isn’t about teaching kids to love reading. I honestly don’t think that is a skill that is taught. You either like reading or you don’t. Reading books at school and analyzing them is about developing critical thinking skills, especially at the high school level.

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ActonofMAM t1_iu2fgo6 wrote

Shakespeare needs to be watched, not read. and the language has changed enough that it's best to be primed with some advance knowledge. From someone able to embrace the cheap and/or dirty jokes.

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blackeyedpeass t1_iu2h1tw wrote

The Great Gatsby is so good, school’s focus might’ve made it a boring read, I bet if you pick it up again you might have a different experience

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knerled OP t1_iu4tly0 wrote

That is entirely possible, and maybe I will do so. But that would be irrelevant to this thread. The point is what I thought of it as a high school student, whether the book (or the way in which it was taught) had any educational value to me at that time, and whether it might have turned me off to the idea of reading if I had not already been interested in reading. There are many books I’ve read post-high school (some enjoyable, some not so much) from which I’ve learned a lot, but which would have been meaningless to me as a teenager, and I never would have picked them up if I had learned in school that reading was just a dreary chore and an externally-imposed obligation.

In one of my college classes we read A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. I hated it, but I’m glad I read it because it gave me a chance to think about certain ideas and about WHY I disagree with them, based in part on my own knowledge and life experience as an older, returning student. But I’m glad I didn’t read A Small Place in high school. It would have accomplished nothing at that time, and furthermore, the prof wasn’t really interested in discussing alternative perspectives; his perspective (it’s a “wonderful” book, “let’s not tear it apart” with any different views) was the only one that mattered. This was generally my impression with regard to literary analysis in high school: that the teacher’s interpretation was the “right” one, and the students were expected to reach the same conclusion.

By contrast, I had one college class in which we discussed Beatles songs, and the prof was interested in each student’s ideas. She even made the point that the Beatles themselves thought that other peoples’ interpretations of their songs were perfectly valid. I learned a lot from that prof, and not just about the Beatles.

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blackeyedpeass t1_iu84dj5 wrote

I was just saying it’s fun to read also myrtle is the dog is the only thing I took from the school’s assignment lol

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a_stoic_swan t1_iu1kysj wrote

So many great points have already been made!

I will add to this that, as someone alluded to below, people don't typically say the purpose of a math class is to get kids to love math, yet this responsibility is laid at the feet of English teachers when it comes to literature (and is also espoused by many teachers who have internalized that message). The purpose of English classes has much more to do with learning analysis, critical thinking, writing, discussion/speaking, and research skills. Furthermore, as many have already mentioned, standards and curriculum are outside of teachers' control, as well, along with physical materials.

Another issue is the impact on students' learning. Using the same standardized texts that are rich in literary elements and grade appropriate are better suited for the goals of English/Language Arts classes than having kids read whatever they want. Most kids, if given free rein to select texts, do not choose literature that is grade-level, and if they do, even more kids can't fully understand an entire novel without support from the teacher. In fact, a major issue when considering independent reading is that it tends to support further reading development for kids who are already good readers but does not help struggling readers. There is a very real reading problem in the U.S., and right now, total freedom of choice would cater to the kids who are already proficient while leaving the others-- who are already struggling-- in the dust. Timothy Shanahan has written extensively about this issue in a very down-to-earth, conversational way (Example: https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-literacy/isnt-independent-reading-research-based-practice).

There is, of course, a place for choice reading, and teachers should try to find access points to all literature that can help students get engaged in the works they read. This is more a pedagogy issue than a text selection issue, though.

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No-Reception3727 t1_iu4tb0x wrote

I had to read the English and Swedish version, fml.

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IsThisNameTakenThen t1_iu5bdn5 wrote

Because it's a good book?

I love it though I didn't read it at school. We got stuck with "Of Mice and Men" which I hate.

Maybe that's the problem. Does excessive studying of a good book make you more likely to dislike it?

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IamSithCats t1_itye7w5 wrote

Gatsby is either my 2nd or 3rd least favorite book I've ever read (behind The Catcher in the Rye and maybe also The Elegance of the Hedgehog I can't decide).

We read Gatsby in my AP English class in high school and analyzed it to death. I hated it then and my opinion has not changed in the last couple decades. Sure, it's packed full of symbolism and all that, but I think it's frightfully dull and doesn't have anywhere near as many interesting things to say as critics and English teachers would have me believe.

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Olorin_Ever-Young t1_iu0dpvw wrote

Out of curiosity, have you seen the Leonardo DiCaprio movie? Because I completely agree with your assessment of the book, but think the movie conversely nailed everything the book was awkwardly trying and failing to convey. The themes absolutely glow in the movie, radiant and mesmerizing, while the book plods along, tripping over its own plot and glossing over everything important.

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Olorin_Ever-Young t1_iu0c2ey wrote

Agreed. But, probably for different reasons.

My first exposure to the story was via the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, which is breathtakingly beautiful and stunning. I was so enraptured by it that I read the book post-haste, only to find it falling flat on virtually every plot point which the movie had conversely handled so perfectly. The only reason I managed to actually derive any enjoyment from the book is because it simply reminded me of the movie.

I think it's probably the only case where I think the movie is actually better than the book. And by a flatout mile. Perhaps also Life of Pi, though I've not read that yet, just seen the movie.

And that's coming from someone who thinks the Lord of the Ring movies are an utter butchering of the source material. I'm generally not one to like book-to-movie-adaptations.

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knerled OP t1_iu0eg87 wrote

I've read Life of Pi and found it very interesting. Have not seen the movie.

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Olorin_Ever-Young t1_iu0goi9 wrote

The movie is so astoundingly good that I can't really imagine the book being better. Much like the Great Gatsby movie, it fully embraces the visual and auditory medium of film to embellish and extrapolate upon the story's themes in ways literature simply isn't able to. The opening scene alone, displaying the raw beauty of nature, is impossible to convey solely through words.

Still, definitely wanna give Life of Pi a read. Who knows? Odds are, it actually will somehow be better than the movie, as these things usually are.

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