A long time ago, when I was applying to university, I was quite random about it. The basic criteria was that the university be a long way from home, which was London. I didn’t really look at the modules or courses very much, and I ended up at Aberdeen. In the first year, we pretty much read a book a week from the canon. Because I’d always been a reader, and English rather than Scottish, doing A levels rather than Highers, I discovered I’d read virtually all of the books on the list. The challenge came in the second year, which was the year that decided whether you were eligible to take English honours. The courses in Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Renaissance poets were compulsory, and they both opened up new worlds for me. I loathed the mechanics of learning Anglo-Saxon but the verse was a wonder.
As a teacher, when I’ve had the freedom, I’ve tried to introduce younger students to the canon - Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, a wonderful drama adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and exposure to at least one Shakespeare play each year, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, some Thomas Mallory to go with Kevin Crossley Holland’s books based on Arthurian legends - there are many ways to do this. One of the concerns I have is the serious underestimation of children’s reading power. You can build it up early and give them plenty of depth, and make sure that they engage, however briefly, with complex language as early as possible. Although I have been without faith for most of my life, the years of school prayers and readings from book of Common Prayer and King James Bible have built up both my listening and comprehension muscles. There are secular pathways to building that knowledge and understanding of rich, complex language, but it would require a concerted campaign to work out how to do it. I recently read a novel from the 1950s where a wide frame of reference of novels and poems was clearly standard, and that now seems like a lost world.
Well said. My English prof returned despite tenure highschool English teacher would probably have a tear in her eye right now. She went back to teaching in highschool because of what she was getting as supposedly ready for university, students.
All through school prior, I did most of my own choosing of what I was reading. Jules Verne, Whoever wrote King Solomons Mines, Plato and Homer and many other ancient authors, the list goes on. The schools I was going to between multiple moves, had us reading tripe like "The Outsiders" quite often. Why? I don't know. I was estatic when we got to read anything else after a few years. Of Mice and Men was one such thing I ended up reading due to the curriculum actually changing for once in one such school. And then we did The outsiders after. Different order this time I guess? I tell ya, I know more about Pony Boy than anyone ought to. We had to watch the movie too.
This teacher, she mostly did away with that book. Had to teach it she said, so she made it a weekend homework assignment. We focused more on short stories and old literature comparatively. One such book I read with her teaching in my final highschool was "The Concubines Children". I suggest others read it too if they want a better look at the history of the chinese migrants of the west coast, particularly what is now Vancouver Island and Vancouvee and BC itself. It was as she put it: "A well written period piece that should be kept for historical records."
Anyways. I may not be the most proficient writer of English, despite her best efforts and my own; but I did write this without any spellchecker or suggestors. So if you see an edit to this, it is because I found a typo I missed.
"You should make sure by hook or by crook that you spend your youth on the best books" should become a saying for literature students. Or for anyone for that matter.
But isn't that where the issue sits. Most of my own personal experience comes from the fact that most arts/humanities courses always tend at a theoretical level to be very Marxist based, even biased,. And yet no where at any point have I ever even come across a lecture or even a theorist who would teach in relation to all of this Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations as the foundation stone to everything they're trying to build a critique on, including the writings of Karl Marx. If there isn't this stone available then the whole edifice of modern theoretical criticism just falls apart, and being it's not even taught what comes after is nothing more than a negation of the whole project they have spent the last 170 years writing through. 😎
What drove me to reading the classics as a young teenager was running out of books aimed at my age. There weren’t that many around at that time (late 60s), and I was a fast, voracious reader. Once I’d read all the Alan Garners, CS Lewis’s, Arthur Ransomes, TH Whites, even Biggles, I was forced to raid my parents’ bookshelves. This led to me discovering to my astonishment that even 19th century writers could be very funny…
These days there is so much (excellent) YA fiction available there is far less incentive to move on to more complex and densely-written stuff. Not sure how we get round that.
A long time ago, when I was applying to university, I was quite random about it. The basic criteria was that the university be a long way from home, which was London. I didn’t really look at the modules or courses very much, and I ended up at Aberdeen. In the first year, we pretty much read a book a week from the canon. Because I’d always been a reader, and English rather than Scottish, doing A levels rather than Highers, I discovered I’d read virtually all of the books on the list. The challenge came in the second year, which was the year that decided whether you were eligible to take English honours. The courses in Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Renaissance poets were compulsory, and they both opened up new worlds for me. I loathed the mechanics of learning Anglo-Saxon but the verse was a wonder.
As a teacher, when I’ve had the freedom, I’ve tried to introduce younger students to the canon - Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, a wonderful drama adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and exposure to at least one Shakespeare play each year, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, some Thomas Mallory to go with Kevin Crossley Holland’s books based on Arthurian legends - there are many ways to do this. One of the concerns I have is the serious underestimation of children’s reading power. You can build it up early and give them plenty of depth, and make sure that they engage, however briefly, with complex language as early as possible. Although I have been without faith for most of my life, the years of school prayers and readings from book of Common Prayer and King James Bible have built up both my listening and comprehension muscles. There are secular pathways to building that knowledge and understanding of rich, complex language, but it would require a concerted campaign to work out how to do it. I recently read a novel from the 1950s where a wide frame of reference of novels and poems was clearly standard, and that now seems like a lost world.
I agree v. much about children's ability. I once worked as a TA with some eight year olds and we performed Shakespeare together and they loved it.
Well said. My English prof returned despite tenure highschool English teacher would probably have a tear in her eye right now. She went back to teaching in highschool because of what she was getting as supposedly ready for university, students.
All through school prior, I did most of my own choosing of what I was reading. Jules Verne, Whoever wrote King Solomons Mines, Plato and Homer and many other ancient authors, the list goes on. The schools I was going to between multiple moves, had us reading tripe like "The Outsiders" quite often. Why? I don't know. I was estatic when we got to read anything else after a few years. Of Mice and Men was one such thing I ended up reading due to the curriculum actually changing for once in one such school. And then we did The outsiders after. Different order this time I guess? I tell ya, I know more about Pony Boy than anyone ought to. We had to watch the movie too.
This teacher, she mostly did away with that book. Had to teach it she said, so she made it a weekend homework assignment. We focused more on short stories and old literature comparatively. One such book I read with her teaching in my final highschool was "The Concubines Children". I suggest others read it too if they want a better look at the history of the chinese migrants of the west coast, particularly what is now Vancouver Island and Vancouvee and BC itself. It was as she put it: "A well written period piece that should be kept for historical records."
Anyways. I may not be the most proficient writer of English, despite her best efforts and my own; but I did write this without any spellchecker or suggestors. So if you see an edit to this, it is because I found a typo I missed.
Incidentally, Apparently I cannot edit my comment. So, typos remain. Heh...
"You should make sure by hook or by crook that you spend your youth on the best books" should become a saying for literature students. Or for anyone for that matter.
'the syllabus has a lot of socialism...'
But isn't that where the issue sits. Most of my own personal experience comes from the fact that most arts/humanities courses always tend at a theoretical level to be very Marxist based, even biased,. And yet no where at any point have I ever even come across a lecture or even a theorist who would teach in relation to all of this Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations as the foundation stone to everything they're trying to build a critique on, including the writings of Karl Marx. If there isn't this stone available then the whole edifice of modern theoretical criticism just falls apart, and being it's not even taught what comes after is nothing more than a negation of the whole project they have spent the last 170 years writing through. 😎
What drove me to reading the classics as a young teenager was running out of books aimed at my age. There weren’t that many around at that time (late 60s), and I was a fast, voracious reader. Once I’d read all the Alan Garners, CS Lewis’s, Arthur Ransomes, TH Whites, even Biggles, I was forced to raid my parents’ bookshelves. This led to me discovering to my astonishment that even 19th century writers could be very funny…
These days there is so much (excellent) YA fiction available there is far less incentive to move on to more complex and densely-written stuff. Not sure how we get round that.