Connecting to Classic Literature

*Even though the class I was keeping this blog for is over, I decided that I love this subject too much to just give up on it. 

I love reading the classics: from Shakespeare to Dickinson, I revel in it. If I don't necessarily love a work, I can at least appreciate the work and effort that authors put into a work and their talent.

In high school, however, this was another story. My romance with classic literature did not begin until I started my first literature course as an English major. In high school I dreaded reading most of what was considered "classic."

For example, when I was a junior in high school, I had to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne by myself when I moved up to my new high school in Oregon. This was because my classmates were reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck which I had read the year before and had not read The Scarlet Letter yet. I had to trudge through Hawthorne's confusing style by myself, without anyone to discuss it with, and after about the fourth chapter, I gave up and started spark noting. To those in my grade that I talked to, none of them really liked The Scarlet Letter either.

Last year, I decided to try to read it again. This was because I needed to read a novel for my advanced analysis and research class for my final research paper. I thought that it would be good to read The Scarlet Letter because I would undoubtedly have to teach it someday.

I was surprised when I actually enjoyed reading the novel. I loved Hawthorne's writing style and I found it easy to analyze. But this was because I had learned how to analyze literature. As a high school student, I didn't know what I was doing, and I couldn't appreciate the novel.

I think this is a problem that we face in English classes in public schools today. The literature that we force upon our students isn't necessarily at their level, and they end up hating it because they don't understand it.

I think back to my freshman year of high school. I absolutely loved To Kill a Mockingbird, like many other high school students do, because Harper Lee's narrator Scout is easy to understand and the writing style is clear. However, later in the year we read Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Talk about a snooze fest (I did read Hard Times last year and enjoyed it, but again, I was considerably older and had been trained in how to analyze difficult literature).

Why do we ask our students to read classics that are difficult for even some college students to understand? It's ridiculous that we expect high school students to read literature that they may not appreciate or understand until they are older.

In my opinion, we need to teach classics that are age-appropriate, not that they can handle the certain situations that happen in the stories (for instance, adultery in The Scarlet Letter) but that the level and writing style can be understood.

I recently created a teaching unit for my American Literature class on Naturalism. I used short stories by Jack London and The Red Badge of Courage because I believe that the writing styles are simple, and it also made it possible to relate Naturalism to high school students. For instance, I compared Man vs. Wild and The Office "Survivorman" episode to "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. How awesome would it have been for you as a high school student to have your teacher compare classic literature to a television show you watch all the time?

Classic should be taught in high school or even junior high, but they should be taught at a certain time, when the students can understand the literature. If that means they don't read it until high school, then that's fine. In other words, those lists of novels that high school students should read to be ready for college are complete bull.

What I deem to be age appropriate classic literature:

-Peter Pan
-Alice's Adventures Through Wonderland
-To Kill a Mockingbird
-The Great Gatsby
-The Lord of the Flies
-The Red Badge of Courage
-Some Shakespeare plays (I say some, because some of the concepts and the language is hard to understand. Connect it to the students' lives, and it will help them understand it better)

There are plenty of other titles as well. The biggest thing in teaching classics I have learned so far is making it fun and interesting for students. Because otherwise it is just going to seem old and boring.