Over the last year, I have had to become acquainted with “young adult” fiction. I realized the hard way (teaching is just really trial and error) that my younger students are not quite ready for some of the classics. For instance, I tried reading Emma with a 7th grader and showed her a Marxist reading of the text (I know, I was rather ambitious). In the end, I did all the talking while she looked at me eyes glazed over, head nodding, etc. But I truly believed she could do it! And, it was not her fault that she couldn’t. Their teachers have told them it is too hard, they don’t have the vocabulary or the emotional maturity, and they don’t have any confidence in themselves. They think it’s above them, so they don’t try. They also don’t know how to search for ideas on their own---but enough about the failings of our school system…
Because of all this, I have had to search for challenging yet “age-appropriate” texts. While I have come to realize that the “young adult” title is rather superfluous, I think it makes students feel safe. It’s made for them, so they have more confidence that they can figure it out, even if they always don’t. And, I think the good books can be the door to more challenging books later on. I do want to qualify this with I don’t agree with any reading is good reading. There are some really awful YA books, just like there are really bad “adult” books. So, ultimately, I have decided I can remain an elitist even while reading YA fiction, which is really what this has been about.
It has been hard not letting this year feel like a waste because I haven’t spent it reading Dante and Shakespeare like I feel I should have been. Instead I sobbed through Bridge to Terabithia and sped through Fever 1793 in a day. I haven’t read a text from before 1900 in almost 5 months. My new favorite authors are Nancy Farmer and Markus Zusak; I bought all their novels, and now I am forcing my students to read them with me, just because I feel I need the excuse. Now, I seem to be in the most ridiculous existential crisis: am I still a scholar? I know, I know, I am being dramatic, but I still wonder, did Greenblatt ever read The Secret Garden? And what did he think? (Were Mary’s subversive outings in the garden and friendship with the servant boy really about containing her and making her a polite, good little girl? Is Fever really a study on how epidemics affect the class system? Is Terabithia really about the unfair binaries established by our culturally constructed gender roles? )
To say the least, I decided to read these books the way I was taught and try to teach my students to do the same while also teaching them how to evaluate what they read. In other words, I am creating a little a elitist army-- so far it has only worked with one, but I feel that is still a victory. [She and I have created our own evaluating system. I told her once reading a good book was like having the most amazing 6 course meal. Not only does it taste good, but it’s good for you and your soul. She has taken it a step further and created this system:
Soda: the easy, sugary books with which you can wash down the others. Having too much, however, will rot your teeth and make you sick.
Appetizer: More substantial books, but are usually fattened with cliché themes. Only a taste of a real meal.
Cabbage: The books we have to read and we know are good for us, but aren’t that pleasant going down.
Steak dinner with broccoli: These books are not only pleasant to devour, but also leave you with satisfaction.
And, it goes on and on. The analogy has helped her and my other students understand there is a rating system beyond what they read in school and what they want to read. For the most part, it has helped some to choose books to read on their own more successfully]
Anyways, it’s been fascinating teaching students how to read these texts with a critical eye. I do have to change the jargon, but when they are done reading and I tell them the “official” label, they feel accomplished--even my ten year olds.
For myself, I have found YA to be, well, fun. These books can be serious, yet they seem to have more hope for the world and humanity--they represent the time of life when we have become intelligent to the world around us, but have not yet become cynical. These books, even if they explore death and loss and pain, they still have a redemptive ending. I noticed that the older kids, after they have read Fountainhead and Lord of Flies, they are apathetic and skeptical to everyone and about everything. When exactly is that shift and how can we prevent it?
To end, I leave you with a suggested reading: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It is about a young German girl’s life during WW2 told from the point of Death:
“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race--that rarely do I simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”
[Just a note: Do not read the last 30 pages in the waiting area of the car wash. Other customers will turn and stare while you can’t stop crying. Then the man who gives you back you car will ask you if you are okay. Actually, just don‘t read it in public.]
Wollstonecraft
I just wanted to share one of my favorite pro-YA quotes.
ReplyDelete"You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for grown-ups, you write it for children." --Madeleine L'Engle
Thanks for all the info about YA fiction! I have had some sort of mental roadblock preventing me from getting into it, and I think you nailed it: I've had this (ill-informed) perception that I must read all of the "classics" before reading YA stuff, and that if I read anything else, I'm not fulfilling my self-inflicted duty to be scholarly. But you've thankfully shown me that reading YA literature is definitely worthwhile, and can almost be more "scholarly" in the sense that you've listened and assessed your students' needs, and are now appropriately paving the way for other little scholars to grow and blossom. Doing such is probably one of the best things you can do for literature, so thank you!
ReplyDeleteI am with you, too, in believing that some younger students (let's say junior high) ARE ready to study and analyze the classics on a deeper level. What's your approach when recognizing this potential? Do you think starting with YA fiction is always the way to go (cuz it builds confidence, etc.), or do you think you can ever go right in with the old stuff?
I think each student's level is so different you have to go slowly and make sure you assess correctly. I have gone with hard stuff first and then had to stop half way through. I say start with a challenging YA and then work to the classics. Knowing when their ready for the hard stuff is assessing their critical thinking skills. If all they do is repeat what you say or can't find any essential quotes on their own, then they are not ready. I think what we have to remember, what we think is obvious and easy is not going to be that way for them. They think Frankenstein is old English. A good test to see if their ready for a classic is to read a classic short story. If they can't do that they sure as hell can't do a whole novel. But I would start slowly and build confidence.
ReplyDeleteI always remind them that if I was teaching them 100 years ago they would be reading the Iliad in Greek by now ;). I also call them baby birds if they only regurgitate what I say. Pointing their flaws out to them stings at first but it helps them recognize more quickly what they need to do to improve.