books
Okay, it's been a bit since I wrote in this journal, but I really want to take a moment to give my congratulations to the good people who graduated this January from the Writing Popular Fiction Program. I'm very proud of you and very sorry I didn't get a chance to hear your thesis presentations. From what I hear, the presentations were wonderful. Best of luck with all your writing dreams!
I have been enjoying the daunting task of starting all over again with my second novel. Skill-wise, it's much easier to write a second novel than a first. Inspiration-wise, just as tough!
My primary goal these past months has been a teaching one--get my students to read. I am so sad when I hear them (high school seniors) say they used to love reading when they were little but now either hate reading or choose to make no time for it. The administration at our high school has taken the stance that the only literature worth studying is literature from the "canon." We are not being allowed to develop courses that count for English credit if they contain such "trashy" or "easy" books as those in the science fiction, fantasy, or children's genres. I am very disappointed that such curricular decisions are not left to the teachers who have to implement them.
So I've resorted to the "outside reading." Although I've always encouraged outside reading with a generous extra credit policy (one to ten points added to their term average for reading a book, keeping a journal, and writing an essay), this year I'm assigning fewer books from the school's British Literature syllabus and allowing students to replace these classics with books of their choice. The first semester of this year was the first big experiment.
Partly, the whole replacement idea troubles me because I love classic British books and find them very valuable, but my experience has been that these stories, especially the ones with difficult language, do not encourage reluctant readers to pick up the habit, and most of my students, even the college-bound ones, are reluctant readers. I think I'm doing the right thing, though, because today, two days into a new semester, a week since I last saw any of my students from semester one, I had a student write me an email saying she had never in her life enjoyed reading until this year. Although we are in semester two and I don't teach this student anymore, she came to my room today to borrow a book from me and has set a goal of reading one book every two weeks until the end of the school year. Then, at the end of the day, another former student unexpectedly asked me if she could borrow another of my books. And yet another student, one who read nothing for me first term except his replacement book (Ender's Game) and so is repeating the course, chose to read Ender's Shadow because he enjoyed reading Ender's Game so much. (A few other much-loved books students chose were The Secret Life of Bees, My Sister's Keeper, The Lovely Bones, and books by Dan Brown.)
Our department has been allowed to teach two new courses as electives (not for English credit) this year--Speculative Fiction (that's mine!) and Film and Literature. Since I've only had my Speculative Fiction students for two days, I can't comment on the quality of their reading or writing, but I can say that of all the classes I've taught in thirteen years, I have never had a group of students so excited to be in my classroom. The woman who taught Film and Literature in the first semester reported that her students said they worked harder in her class than any other and enjoyed it more than any other. They studied, among other things, Heart of Darkness, The Shining, and The Cider House Rules.
I respect the position of people who believe in the canon. I believe in the canon. My Advanced Placement students read almost exclusively from the canon. I only wish our administration could have spent the semester in a classroom, my classroom, to see what a difference it makes to a student's lifetime reading habit to be engaged by a book of their choice.
I have been enjoying the daunting task of starting all over again with my second novel. Skill-wise, it's much easier to write a second novel than a first. Inspiration-wise, just as tough!
My primary goal these past months has been a teaching one--get my students to read. I am so sad when I hear them (high school seniors) say they used to love reading when they were little but now either hate reading or choose to make no time for it. The administration at our high school has taken the stance that the only literature worth studying is literature from the "canon." We are not being allowed to develop courses that count for English credit if they contain such "trashy" or "easy" books as those in the science fiction, fantasy, or children's genres. I am very disappointed that such curricular decisions are not left to the teachers who have to implement them.
So I've resorted to the "outside reading." Although I've always encouraged outside reading with a generous extra credit policy (one to ten points added to their term average for reading a book, keeping a journal, and writing an essay), this year I'm assigning fewer books from the school's British Literature syllabus and allowing students to replace these classics with books of their choice. The first semester of this year was the first big experiment.
Partly, the whole replacement idea troubles me because I love classic British books and find them very valuable, but my experience has been that these stories, especially the ones with difficult language, do not encourage reluctant readers to pick up the habit, and most of my students, even the college-bound ones, are reluctant readers. I think I'm doing the right thing, though, because today, two days into a new semester, a week since I last saw any of my students from semester one, I had a student write me an email saying she had never in her life enjoyed reading until this year. Although we are in semester two and I don't teach this student anymore, she came to my room today to borrow a book from me and has set a goal of reading one book every two weeks until the end of the school year. Then, at the end of the day, another former student unexpectedly asked me if she could borrow another of my books. And yet another student, one who read nothing for me first term except his replacement book (Ender's Game) and so is repeating the course, chose to read Ender's Shadow because he enjoyed reading Ender's Game so much. (A few other much-loved books students chose were The Secret Life of Bees, My Sister's Keeper, The Lovely Bones, and books by Dan Brown.)
Our department has been allowed to teach two new courses as electives (not for English credit) this year--Speculative Fiction (that's mine!) and Film and Literature. Since I've only had my Speculative Fiction students for two days, I can't comment on the quality of their reading or writing, but I can say that of all the classes I've taught in thirteen years, I have never had a group of students so excited to be in my classroom. The woman who taught Film and Literature in the first semester reported that her students said they worked harder in her class than any other and enjoyed it more than any other. They studied, among other things, Heart of Darkness, The Shining, and The Cider House Rules.
I respect the position of people who believe in the canon. I believe in the canon. My Advanced Placement students read almost exclusively from the canon. I only wish our administration could have spent the semester in a classroom, my classroom, to see what a difference it makes to a student's lifetime reading habit to be engaged by a book of their choice.