From: Leah Langby <langby>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:59:35 -0500

I know a young woman who never liked to read until the Twilight series. She devoured the first 3 and then got distracted by books like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and all of Jane Austen, Shakespeare...By the time she read the fourth book in the Twilight series she found it had lost a lot of its appeal for her.

I have two minds about the classics discussion. I think it is important to give people choices in what they read, validate people's taste, but I also think it is important to stretch students. There is a lot to be taught from some of the excellent YA books being written right now, many of which have been mentioned. There are also amazing rich language and themes to be enjoyed in the classics, and I'd hate to sell our kids short by not exposing them to some of the great works of literature in a way that is meaningful to them. Not all of the popular literature of the day survives as "classics." Not all popular materials written today are excellent, either, but many of them are, and some will become the "classics" of years to come.

So anyway, though, one thought for a follow-up to Twilight is to suggest other books with torrid passionate romance, and some of those are on the classics list.

Leah



******************************************** Leah Langby Library Development and Youth Services Coordinator Indianhead Federated Library System 1538 Truax Boulevard Eau Claire, WI 54703-1569 phone: 715-839-5082 ext.14 fax: 715-839-5151 email: langby at ifls.lib.wi.us www.ifls.lib.wi.us

********************************************

----- Original Message ----- From: "Cindy Dobrez" <dobrez at chartermi.net> To: <AAngel at aol.com>; "James Elliott" <libraryjim at embarqmail.com> Cc: <JaneYolen at aol.com>; <ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu>;
<Lbhcove at aol.com> Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 10:07 PM Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] VAMPIRE STUDIES


> Could be that some of the classics became high school curricular staples
> decades ago because YA Lit HADN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET? I wrote poetry in high
> school but didn't appreciate the "classic" poets until I was in college
> and older. I don't think Huck Finn is a 7th grade book, really, and I
> don't think that Walden Pond is a high school read. Not to say that some
> kids won't read them and love them and understand them at those ages, but
> I think that some of the important elements of literature can be taught
> with our Printz winners in high school and engage today's students better
> than The Great Gatsby or other classics that were written for adults. If a
> student studies Monster by Walter Dean Myers (the first Printz winner) and
> afterward can discuss plot, setting, character, theme, etc. is that a
> failing of an English teacher that she didn't use The Scarlet Letter? If
> the students learn how to understand what they read they will be able to
> apply it to anything they go on to read l
> ater. Better to me, that the whole class hangs on every word of Laurie
> Halse Anderson's SPEAK and understands what the curriculum needs them to
> while going away with a message about teen issues than they give up before
> they get started because they don't care about a Glass Menagerie or what
> have you. Tell me that the farming brutes in Laura Ingalls Wilder's one
> room school house wouldn't have responded better to Gary Paulsen than they
> probably did Pilgrim's Progress or whatever she was forced to teach them?
>
> And, Lee, I don't think anyone is teaching TWILIGHT in the curriculum, my
> teachers don't. That's what the students are reading for leisure reading.
> I've had 8th grade boys who had never read a book in its entirety until I
> gave them Eve Bunting's SOMEONE IS HIDING ON ALCATRAZ ISLAND for
> independent book reports. Those guys wouldn't have made it through
> TREASURE ISLAND and you can bet they aren't making it through FLOWERS FOR
> ALGERNON that's excerpted in their text book. But you should have seen
> their faces when they learned that they could finish a whole book. I
> wouldn't be so quick to dismiss YA literature for the classroom. Have you
> read the Octavian Nothing duet? These boys might eventually because they
> figured out they could finish a book thanks to YA lit (and a librarian who
> read widely and spent time to match them with the right book--not that
> public schools value that skill too widely these days.)
>
> Cindy Dobrez
> dobrez at chartermi.net
>
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Received on Fri 10 Jul 2009 11:59:35 AM CDT