anuszewski

= Kristel Anuszewski's Home Page  =  English teacher...see me in room 201

Should we stick to teaching the literary classics even though they seem to be turning kids away from reading---especially boys?
[|Article from Dallas News]

I currently teach the following literary classics....

The Great Gatsby  Fahrenheit 451  The Old Man and the Sea and other Hemingway short stories  Tuesdays With Morrie  The Red Pony  The Pearl  The Bell Jar The Good Earth

The question is, should we continue to teach the classics or find literature that the students can better relate to? Or, perhaps I should try to find a happy medium to integrate classics and modern day classics. What do you think?

JM: I think we could shorten the list of must reads... but leave Shakespeare in! If I could only choose two of the above, I'd chose  //Fahrenheit 451// and //The Old Man and the Sea// (I thought that Iranian graphic novel was cool, and we do need new stuff. But not new themes. On that, I am with Faulkner in his [|Nobel speech.)]

Of course, we have an important job to introduce young people to stuff they may have no context for, yet has value. There are many who would have us drop the humanities altogether. Check out this [|video] of our congress at work.