can YA lit replace the canon?
April 10, 2007 at 10:28 pm | In Uncategorized | 5 CommentsIn the article “Dark Themes in Books Get Students Reading”, Kathleen Kennedy Manzo reports that Chanelle Brown, and English student in a Chicago high school, is glad her teacher has started implementing YA texts that contain themes that students relate to more readily. But the switch has caused controversy with “traditionalists” who are concerned that “it will dumb down the curriculum”, and with parents, who sometimes object to the content of the books.
While these books contain some dark themes– “Many young-adult novels, for example, feature violent scenes, topics such as death and abuse, or protagonists who purposely hurt themselves.”– these themes exist in traditional literature as well, it’s just that in a more modernized context, the students can actually understand what’s going on.
I think it’s crazy that in a world where TV and cinema (with as much dark content as they contain) are so popular, parents would be so concerned with their kids finding out about these themes in an educational environment.
Despite this new explosion of availability of such YA literature, there is still no noticeable trend in shifting away from the traditional approach to literature in secondary education. “‘I would be very pleased if it was a trend, but I don’t see it,” said Jeffrey D. Wilhelm,…’The classical, canonical literature, which I personally love, in fact was written for very sophisticated adult readers, … but the attitude [among English teachers and traditionalists] is, ‘”Let’s kick their butts with something they can’t possibly understand.”’ ” Wilhelm goes on to say that he found the general consensus to be that school reading “sucks” and students “hate it.”
This, along with the effective pairing of traditional and YA fiction, and the fact that Arthur Applebee has found that “the trend toward incorporating more diverse and recent works has generally had a positive impact on the curriculum” seems like ample weight to throw the trend towards more accessible, useful, current YA lit (while keeping some figures of that canon, such as Shakespeare of course) but I think it’s going to take two or three hundred researchers to do studies that agree with these ideas before schools will even begin to change en mass.
Dark Themes in Books Get Students Reading
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I think that YA texts are wonderful literature that connects to students at their different developmental level. I think along with you though that the traditional canon will never be disposed of, but I don’t think that it has to or that it should. To me, the idea of pairing literature together when you teach allows students to understand concepts/themes in the classic because they are able to connect to the YA novel. For example, if your teaching The Great Gatsby or Scarlet Letter they can be paired with Jake, Reinvented or Speak. This gives students “fun” literature to read while they delve into the hard topics presented in the books. I think too that YA lit in general is helpful on its own—maybe you can’t teach on it because of strict demands/curriculum put on you by the school board or parents. Then, you can assign YA novels as extra reading that they could discuss in reading groups. This way, they are still getting material that they can connect with, even if they aren’t being taught about it in class. After all our goal is to make life long readers which will not happen if students are not given texts that they can enjoy.
Comment by kooikema — April 14, 2007 #
I think that incorporating YA texts into the classroom is a great idea. Just because something is “a classic” doesn’t mean that it needs to be chosen every time over something that is not. Like Jeffrey Wilhelm said, it often seems that teachers want to stick to the hardest stuff possible. I think this may be because some teachers have a superiority complex – being able to explain difficult literature to their students gives them a power trip. In addition to the fact that the hardest reading is not always the best, I also believe that bringing YA literature into the classroom should not be thought of as “dumbing down” the curriculum. I’ve ready plenty of YA texts that I found more engaging and difficult to read than some of the classics that are thought to be so hard to understand. Now, I’m not proposing getting rid of every piece of classical literature in the classroom. I think that Shakespeare should probably stay too – besides the fact that his plays were written like poetry and had well developed characters, his writing was also simply funny – but that doesn’t mean that teachers shouldn’t bend the curricula a little to include a good YA book.
Comment by stephcj — April 15, 2007 #
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I love that you wrote about this! I personally struggle with this issue. On the one hand, I think YA texts are great and are a wonderful tool for reaching young kids. However, I do not think they ought to replace the so called ‘canon’. I think that a good teacher can make many of those ‘canon’ works accessible to young adults. I think there is a place for YA in the classroom but it in no way overshadows the ‘canon’. Besides that, in the present day system of standardized testing and NCLB how does a teacher even set aside time to read something like a YA text? But perhaps that is a completely different topic
). Anyhow, I would say that I fall more towards the ‘canon’ side of things than the YA text side; not that I don’t think YA has its place or that it isn’t a valuable teaching tool, but I think strongly that the ‘canon’ is the ‘canon’ for a reason and that it intails some great lessons and issues for our students to discuss and ‘chew on’. I don’t know… I am quite torn about this issue- good thing I have a while yet before entering the classroom, I suppose I ought to have a decision made on this one before then eah?
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