How Classics Create an Aliterate Society
Author(s): Donald R. Gallo
Source: The English Journal, Vol. 90, No. 3, The Lure of Young Adult Literature (Jan., 2001),
pp. 33-39
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/821305 .
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How
Classics
ur
f
ougAdltLteatr
Create
anAliterate Society
DONALDR. GALLO
ere you an avid reader as a teenager? Did you love WutheringHeights and The
Scarlet Letter in high school? Good for you! At the same time, that could be a
problem foryou, because it maybe impossiblefor you to understandwhy so many
students in your school do not feel the same way about the classics. i It seems
to be part of human nature for us to think that everyone has had experiences similarto ours
and that they share our perspective on things. Thus, as a lover of classicalliterature,it seems
logicalforyou to concludethatthere is somethingwrongwith today'sstudentsif they don'tshare
yourpassion.Youmay never considerhow the requiredliteraturein yourschool'scurriculumaffects
kidswho are not likeyou.
I've been able to see thingsdifferently,for I
was not an avidreaderas a teenager.I read my assignments-I wasanobedientstudent.ButI almost
never read for pleasure. Books were dull. Adults
who are avid readerssay that readingis activebecause readersuse their imagination,as opposedto
watchingtelevision,whichis a passiveactivity.HA!
For me, playingbaseballand stickballand football
was active!Hikingandcampingwere active!Building forts in the woods, deep sea fishing,climbing
trees ... thosewere active!Sittingin a chairto read
a book,in comparison,was aboutas passiveas anyone could get!
Therewerealsono booksin myhome,except
for a dictionaryand a couple of Bibles. My father
read the New YorkDaily News every day,and my
familysubscribedto LIFE magazine.And when I
was a Boy Scout,I subscribedto Boy'sLife andread
it thoroughlyeach month.But thatwas aboutit.
Likemanyteenstoday,becauseI didnotread
much I had a weakvocabulary,and I did not write
very effectively.Thatwas doublybad, because not
onlywasI not interestedin readingbookslikeGreat
A Taleof TwoCities,Hamlet,andSilas
Expectations,
Marner,I hadto struggleto understandthemwhen
they were assigned.
Moreover,I did not see anyconnectionsbetweenmylife andthe livesof the charactersin those
novelsandplays.There'sa characterin Mel Glenn's
poetrybook,ClassDismissedII, whoseviewpointI
shared.In thatpoem,PaulHewittsayshe can'tidentifywithHuckFinnor careaboutWillieLoman.He
asksif the teacherhasanybooksthat"dealwithreal
life"(18).Whywas I supposedto careabouta Puritanwomanwho got pregnantfromhavingsexwitha
minister?Whatdid I havein commonwitha crazed
old kingwho alienatedthe onlydaughterwho really
loved him and then didn'thave enough sense to
come in out of the rain?I did enjoythe witchesand
bloodystuffin Macbeth,and I foundthe riotsand
beheadingsinA Taleof TwoCitiesinteresting,butall
thatknittingby MadameDeFargewas boring.
Manyof myclassmatesandI couldneverfigure out whatwe were supposedto get out of those
assignedstoriesandpoems. Likemoststudents,we
reliedon the teacherto tell us whattheymeant.One
of my formercollege studentsdefineda classicthis
way:a classicis a book that "requiresa teacherto
figureout a glimmerof whatit says."
EnGLISH
journal
Nevertheless,I did readthe requiredbooks,
as I said;I listenedin class most of the time, and I
passed quizzes and tests on the material,usually
with Bs andCs becauseI wasa fairlyintelligentkid.
(Asa matterof fact,I andmyparentswereoftentold
by school counselorsand teachersthat I was "not
workingup to my potential."Youknow the type.)
MyclassmatesMarjorieandElizabeth,on the other
hand,alwaysearnedAs-they were smartandthey
lovedto read.Myless intelligentclassmatesdid not
fareaswell:Roy,Richard,Vincent,Tony--the guys.
Like the irradiated marigolds in Paul Zindel's
PulitzerPrize-winningplay,The Effectof Gamma
Marigolds,Marjorieand
Rayson Man-in-the-Moon
Elizabethhad mutatedandflourished(theyprobablygrewup to becometeachers),whileRichardand
Tonyandotherslikethem,badlyburnedby theirexperiences,shriveledup andsworeneverto readanother book in their lives.
Why was I supposed to care
about a Puritan woman
who got pregnant from
having sex with a minister?
Liketoo manystudents,I neverlearnedmuch
fromthose classicsthen, never developeda love of
reading from them. Fortunatelymy life turned
aroundhalfwaythroughcollegewhenmyroommates
StuWilsonandAl Fassler,who lovedto read,introducedme to HoldenCaulfieldandImmanualKant,
as well as to classicalmusic.I alsohad severalexcellent Englishteachers,especiallyDr. JimPrins,who
helpedme see the relevanceof the issuesin classical
literature.More significantly,my interest level caught
up with the level at which classical literature has always existed. What interested me in real life was suddenly what all those books were about!
When I look back at that phenomenon now, it
all makes perfect sense to me. I wasn't READY for
classicalliteraturewhen I was 13, 14... 17, 18. Even
though I was more physicallymaturethan most of my
peers (I was shavingweekly before my twelfth birthday), I was still a typical teenager interested in
teenage things. Theclassicsare not about TEENAGE
SJanuarY 2001
concerns!TheyareaboutADULTissues.Moreover,
theywere writtenfor EDUCATEDadultswho had
the LEISUREtime to readthem. Theywere also,
not incidentally,written to be ENJOYED-not
DISSECTED, not ANALYZED,andcertainlynot
TESTED. When I became an adult,I became interested in adultthings, and so the classicsfinally
had meaning for me, and I could finallyappreciate them.
Now you cansee whyI understandandsympathizewith the tenth gradeboy who told me that
hisrequiredliteraturebooks" ... havenothingto do
with me."And the tenth gradegirlwho definedliteratureas "keepingin touchwith the dead."Orthe
teenagerwho said,"I'mtiredof readingthis boring
stuff.I wantto readsomethingwitha pulse!"One of
myformergraduatestudentsputit thisway:"Myexperiencein high schoolwiththe classicswas similar
to dissectinga frog:it was tediousandit stunk."
Such negativeexperiencesand their resulthavecreatedoverthe lasthalfcentury
attitudes
ing
an aliteratesocietyin America.We area nationthat
teachesits childrenhow to readin the earlygrades,
then forcesthem duringtheirteenageyearsto read
literaryworksthatmostof themdislikeso muchthat
theyhaveno desirewhatsoeverto continuethoseexperiencesinto adulthood.Daniel Pennac,a French
author,in his bookBetterThanLife,firstpublished
in Frenchin 1992, describesthe role of the typical
schoolthisway:
... it looks as though school, no matter the age
or nation, has had only one role. And that'sto
teach the mastery of technique and critical commentary and to cut off spontaneous contact with
books by discouragingthe pleasure of reading.
It's written in stone in every land: pleasure has
no business in school, and knowledge gained
must be the fruit of deliberate suffering. A
defensible position, of course. No lack of arguments in its favor. School cannot be a place of
pleasure, with all the freedom that would imply.
School is a factory,and we need to know which
workers are up to snuff. (91-92)
Pennac continues the factory metaphor, with teachers as bosses, subjects as tools, and competition as
the model of the workadayworld. He concludes his
chapter with this:
It is the nature of living beings to love life...
But vitalityhas never been listed on a school
curriculum.Here, function is everything.Life
is elsewhere. Youlearn how to read at school.
But what about the love of reading?(92-93)
Whataboutthe Loveof Reading?
I'd like to see "the love of reading"listed as the number one goal of the English curriculumat every grade
in all school systems. What a revolutionaryidea! Of
course, those who advocate the teaching of classics
have always said that loving and appreciatingliterature is their goal. The opposite, however, has been
the result of those good intentions, as G. Robert
Carlsen and Anne Sherrill show clearly in Voices of
Readers: How We Come to Love Books. After studying the randomlyselected autobiographicalessays of
1,000 undergraduate and graduate students written
over a thirty-yeartime span, they conclude:
... [T]eachersprofessthatbypresentingthe classics,theyarereallyincreasingreadingenthusiasm
of greatworksorboth.It
orteachingappreciation
is disturbing
thatthe protocolsindicatethatexactly
the oppositeis happeningto manyof theyoung.
(136)
In the early 1980s I asked students in a number of Connecticut schools how the books they chose
to read on their own compare with the assigned readings in their English classes. Several students wrote:
"Teacher books are boring." Several said the obvious: "The books I like are interesting.""Mine have a
lot of action . One student said:"Thebooks I read
.."
sometimes are the same as to what is going on around
me" (implyingthat assigned books are not connected
with the real life of teenagers). Similarly,another student wrote, "[My books] talk and use the same language as me." Another said, "Thebooks I read on my
own, you never want to put them down; the ones assigned, you never want to pick up" (Gallo "Reactions" 7-9).
In that same survey,40 percent of junior high
school boys and 35 percent of girls said they seldom
or never liked the books they were required to read
in school. In senior high schools, the percentages
were 41 for boys and 23 for girls. In contrast, only
20 percent of the students said they usually or always liked the assigned books (8).
So, what do most teenagers today want from
a book? Whatever the type of reading, almost all kids
will be more attracted to a book that grabs their attention immediately-which right away leaves out
most classical literature. Consider this opening from
George Eliot's Silas Marner:
In the dayswhenthe spinningwheelshummed
busilyin the farmhouses-andevengreatladies,
hadtheirtoyspinclothedin silkandthread-lace,
of
wheels
oak-there
polished
ning
mightbe seen
in districtsfarawayamongthe lanesordeepin the
bosomof the hills,certainpallidundersizedmen,
who,by the sideof the brawnycountryfolk,
lookedlikethe remnantsof a disinheritedrace.(1)
And that's only the first sentence! The first page of
Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, The Good
Earth, or The Scarlet Letter (if you consider "The
Custom-House"as the opening chapter) aren'tmuch
better, especially when you consider them from the
point of view of an Internet-savvy,TV-literate,MTVviewing contemporary teenager.
Compare the opening of Silas Marner quoted
above with this opening paragraph from Walter
Dean Myers'srecent award-winningMonster:
Thebesttimeto cryis atnight,whenthe lightsare
out andsomeoneis beingbeatenup andscreamingforhelp.Thatwayevenif yousnifflea little
theywon'thearyou.If anybodyknowsthatyouare
crying,they'llstarttalkingaboutit andsoonit'llbe
yourturnto getbeatupwhenthe lightsgo out.(1)
Or these opening sentences from a short story by
Will Weaver titled "The Photograph":
"Naked?"
"Yes."
"Ms.Jenson?Ourbelovedphysed teacher
andgirls'trackcoach?"
Shewasin the
"Skinny-dipping.
Absolutely.
laketotallynaked."(3)
I can't imagine any high school student not wanting
to read more of that story.
Middle school kids, especially boys, want action, adventure, suspense. A seventh grader writing
to his pen pal, one of my graduate students, a couple
years back explained his tastes bluntly: "I like horror
with a lot of killing and suspense." The writing also
has to be vivid so that readers, as one boy said, can
"get a clear picture of what is happening." Another
seventh grade boy, in a class taught by a friend of
mine, says he enjoyed a novel by Raymond Feist
called Shadow ofa Dark Queen because "ithad great
detail" so that "when he decapitated a guy because
he killed a girl that he liked, I could visualize the picture in my mind." Maybe that'snot quite the kind of
interest we would like to see, but these seventh
graders are very clear about their likes and dislikes.
What teens want more than anything else
from novels is entertainment. And that'sexactlywhat
I want-and what I suspect most readers wantENGLISH
JOUrnaIl
Oneof the mostvaluablequalitiesof contemporaryteenage fictionis that it helps studentsfeel
understood.In manyschoolsysnormal,comfortable,
tems, teenage fiction is limited to middle school
childrenhow to read in the early
classesor to remediallevelclassesin the highschool,
mainlybecausethose booksare easierto readthan
grades, then forces them during
classics. Older and more advanced readers can
handlethe classics-true. Butevenourbrighteststutheir teenage years to read literary dents are still teenagerswith typicalteenageproblemsandneeds,andbylimitingthosemoreadvanced
studentsto classics,our curriculafail to meet their
works that most of them dislike so
socialand emotionalneeds. Everyoneknowsthere
are easyteen novelsforyoungerandless able readmuch that they have no desire
ers, but there are also some superb novels in this
genrethataremorecomplex-sophisticatedenough
whatsoever to continue those
forevenAPreaders.(Onthattopic,checkout anarticle by PatriciaSpencer in the November 1989
EnglishJournal.)
experiences into adulthood.
But,you mayask,if we stopteachingclassics,
or atleastdecreaseourrelianceon them,howwould
froma novel.That'salsoprimarilywhatwriterssay we teach the readingand analyticalskillswith less
they want readersto get fromtheirbooks.If read- challengingliteraryworks?Significantquestion.The
answeris easy:teach the newerbooksbasicallythe
ers learnsomethingalongthe way,that'seven better.Butonce the lessonbecomesthe primaryreason same way.Well, let me qualifythat. I mean teach
forusinga book,the actof readingbecomesa chore. the sameliteraryconceptsanddevelopthe sameanSo it makes good sense to find teachable novels alyticalskills,but perhapsin a betterway.Thereare
whosestoriesarelively,interesting,enjoyable,hope- stilltoo manyteacherswho killany bookby the way
fullyhumorous,too, fromwhichwe can also learn they teachit, askingstudentsto recallpickyandinsomething-about howpeopledealwiththeirprob- significantdetails,testingeveryday,removingwhatlems,how otherpeopleinteract,possiblyhow other everjoy a kidmighthavehadin readingthe bookin
culturesfunction(thoughyoungerteens, being ba- the firstplace.
Like classics, contemporary books for
sicallyself-centered,preferto readaboutpeople as
muchlike themselvesas possible),and so forth.
teenagershave plots that can be charted,settings
thatplaysignificantroles,andcharacterswhoseperOne of my former universitystudents rewith
books:
calledher earlyadolescentexperiences
sonalities,actions,andinteractionscanbe analyzed.
"Asa teenager,I was able to be myselfwhen I was Therearefigurativelanguage,foreshadowing,
irony,
in
of
the
best
the
newer
and
other
elements
of
time
I
was
the
rest
the
while
in.
literary
fitting
reading,
Because a lot of the novels I read dealt with works. The symbolism,however, usually isn't as
teenagerswithsimilarproblems,I felt comfortable." heavyas in mostclassics,andthe vocabularyis usuAnotherstudent, this one a seventh grade allyless difficult,but no youngadultreaderwill obwhen
askedto analyzewhat makesa book in- ject to those things; in fact, many teachers I know
girl,
will be relieved by that as well.
teresting,wrotethis:
We are a nation that teaches its
Most of my favoritebooks have all had one thing
in common. That is the main charactersin the
books were young kids, or teens. I think that
books with kids in them are very interesting
to me because I can sort of relate to them, and I
like reading about things that could happen to
people my age. Also, sometimes when I read
books that have older charactersin them, they
are dealing with problems that I can't relate to
or don't understand.
*
january
2001
The only two elements common in the classics that some contemporaryyoung adult novels lack
are plot complexity and dull, lengthy descriptions.
This doesn't mean that no contemporary novels
for teens have complex plots; the works of Robert
Cormier, M. E. Kerr, Chris Crutcher, and Chris
Lynch, for example, are quite complex. The most appealing characteristicof young adultnovels, of course,
is their high interest level. In short,we can teach high
school studentsliteraryskillswith YAbookswhile
everyoneenjoysthe readingactivity.(Ifyouwantresearchproof,go waybackto 1965 and readNathan
S. Blount'sreportin the Journalof EducationalResearchandBruceAppleby's1967dissertation.)
It bothersme a greatdealwhen high school
Englishteachersor universityprofessorscondemn
youngadultbooksbecausetheybelievetheyareshallow and poorlywritten.Those people are ignorant
elitists who haven'tdone their homework,haven't
readeven an adequatesamplingof the novels,short
stories,nonfiction,andpoetryforteens thatis available for classroomuse and independent reading.
Those criticsseem to thinkthatyoungadultbooks
mean shallowromances,Sweet ValleyHigh, transthrillerslikethose
parentmysteries,or supernatural
R.
L.
Stine.
by
They equate simplicitywith lackof
And
quality. theyarepartlyright,becausethosekinds
of booksarepartof whatsomekidsareinterestedin,
especiallyin middle school. But there is so much
more. No thoughtfulreadercan ever accuseAfter
the FirstDeathby RobertCormier,Dancingon the
Edge by Han Nolan,Speakby LaurieHalseAnderson, or Whitechurchby ChrisLynchof being simplistic. Spend a couple of hours readingI Hadn't
Meantto TellYouThisby JacquelineWoodsonand
then try to tell me it's shallow.Read Ironmanby
ChrisCrutcherandyou'lleatyourwords.ReadGary
Paulsen'sSoldier'sHeartandyou'llwonderwhyanyone wouldwantto strugglethroughCrane'sTheRed
Badgeof Courage.
If youwantto hookyourstudentswitha mysthere
are none betterthanTheKiller'sCousin
tery,
and LockedInside, both by Nancy Werlin.If you
want multiculturalperspectives,check out Go and
ComeBackby JoanAbelove.If you are lookingfor
books with strong female characters,try Annette
CurtisKlause'sBloodand Chocolate,Joan Bauer's
Rulesof theRoad,LaurieHalseAnderson's
Speak,or
For
JerrySpinelli'sStargirl. superbsportsnovelsthat
are about more than sports, read Thomas Cochran's
Roughnecksor Rich Wallace'sPlayingWithoutthe
Ball. For historical fiction, you'll find nothing better
thanJason's Gold by Will Hobbs. If you want to have
top-notch discussions in your classes, you can't miss
with Rob Thomas's Doing Time, Ellen Wittlinger's
Hard Love, Will Hobbs's The Maze, Joyce McDon-
ald'sSwallowingStones,ChrisLynch'sWhitechurch,
or one of the many short story collections published
recently, such as Twelve Shots, edited by Harry
Mazer, or Time Capsule, which I edited.
There are literallyhundredsof greatbooks
like these, writtenby sensitive,knowledgeable,and
insightfulwriterswho understandteenage readers.
writersin this field,
Alongwith the well-established
such as RichardPeck, RobertCormier,ChrisCrutcher, Norma Fox Mazer,CarolineCooney,Bruce
Brooks,M. E. Kerr,AldenR. Carter,WillHobbs,and
WalterDean Myers,therearemanytalentednewer
writerssuch as EllenWittlinger,Rob Thomas,Han
Peterson
Nolan,AdamRapp,TrudyKrisher,
Margaret
and
Laurie
Halse
Anderson.
Youneed to
Haddix,
readtheirworksandexperiencethemforyourselves.
Then,youneedto tellyourstudentsaboutthem,even
if youneverteachthesebooksin yourclassroom,because there is no otherwayyourstudentswill ever
hearaboutthese booksor otherslikethem.
It bothers me a great deal when
high school English teachers or
university professors condemn
young adult books because
they believe they are
shallowand poorlywritten.
How else will your kids knowabout them?
don't
see ads for these books on television.
They
They don'thearthem discussedon the radio.Their
parentsand grandparentscan'trecommendthese
booksbecause most of them weren'twrittenwhen
thoseolderfolkswereteenagers.In toomanyschools,
library/media
specialistsdo not get a chanceto recommendthesebooksto kidsbecausemostteachers,
especially in high school, never invite the librarians
to their classrooms.Worse, many librarianswho work
with teenagers-in both school libraries and public
libraries -were never trained in the field of books
for young people, so they don't know as much about
these books as they should.
Who is left? The only people in the whole
universe who can talk to students about booksother than their peers-is us! Unfortunately, the
evidence shows that most teachers DON'T talkwith
ENGLISH
JOUrnaRL
their teenage students about books that will interest
them. In fact, 35 percent of the seventh grade students in a surveythat one of my former students conducted said that they couldn't recall a single teacher
ever recommending a book of any kind to them, and
60 percent recalled only one teacher who had ever
done so (Cararini).And if their teachers did recommend books, it was usually classics that the teachers
had read in college, books that were written for welleducated, leisured adults and that don't have a single
teenage characterin them. In that same surveyof kids
in a medium size city middle school, only three out of
the fifty-seven eighth graders surveyed checked the
statement, "Teachersknowwhat books students like."
How sad. In fact, that'salmost criminal.
One of the best ways I've found to introduce
teens to good books is to have an extensive classroom library--mostly paperbacks because they are
easier for kids to handle and carry.Every classroom
should contain dozens of them, nonfiction as well as
fiction, and poetry too. Even picture books. Add to
your collection frequently. Booktalk a few of them
each week. (Of course, to do that, you will need to
read them first.)
If you can't completely change the curriculum so that you can replace some of the classics with
contemporary books, especially books with teenage
main characters, then consider pairing teen novels
with one or more of your classics. In From Hinton
to Hamlet, SarahHerz and I explain how you can do
that quite efficiently. In four separate volumes of
Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics, edited by Joan Kaywell, you can find teaching
ideas and even some daily lesson plans for doing that
with several classics.
Another way to incorporatemore teen lit into
classroom
is to introduce your students to some
your
of the numerous short stories with teenage characters that are now available. Twenty years ago there
were five collections of stories written for teenagers.
Today there are more than 100 collections. You can
find an extensive list of many of those short story titles and how to use them in a text called Into Focus:
Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers, edited by Kyleen Beers and Barbara Samuels
(340-45).
Providing a block of time each week, or even
each day, when kids can read whatever they choose
for pleasure will increase reading interest and experience. Consider it practice. Athletes practice; musicians practice;our students need to practice reading,
January zool1
too. It would be even better if the entire school set
aside 15-20 minutes every day for silent reading.
School reading assignments are not allowed. No
homework. Just pleasure reading. And you get to
read as well.
You might even start your program by readto
ing your classes. Read the opening chapter or a
particularlyvivid scene from a novel and then stop.
If the story and your lively reading of it have done
their job, at least one of the students in your class
will ask to borrow the book so she or he can read the
whole thing. Don't be surprised if they do so in one
night. And if one student is enthused about a book,
that will influence others to try it. Good experiences
are addictive.
You say you don't know where to find information about good books for teenagers? There's a
young adult literaturecolumn that appearsregularly
in this journal. And there are two journals devoted
exclusively to books for teenagers: The ALAN Review and VOYA-you can subscribe. The National
Council of Teachers of English publishes two volumes every three years or so that are just pages and
pages of annotations of new books for teens, organized by topic and genre: for middle schools it'sYour
Reading; for high schools it's Booksfor You. Every
libraryin your system should have a copy of the current and back issues of those books, and you should
have a copy on your desk for easy reference.
Do I need to remind you that you can find reviews of these books on the Amazon or Barnes &
Noble Web sites? If you want biographicalinformation about authors,one of the best recentlypublished
sources is a four volume set called Writersfor Young
Adults, edited by Ted Hipple. And by the time you
read this, a new Web site called Authors4Teens.com
should be up and running, featuring extensive interviews with top authors in the field, though it is a restricted site. (For access, contact Greenwood Press.)
The most inspiringplace to learn about books
like those I've been discussing is at the yearly ALAN
Workshop that follows the NCTE convention each
November, where for two full days you will hear
more than a dozen authors and an equal number of
educators talk about books for teens. Youwill also go
home with a shopping bag full of autographedbooks
to enjoy and sharewith your students and colleagues.
One final word: please do not conclude that I
am against reading and teaching classics. But knowing that our traditional classical literature curricula
have done more harm than good to so many students
overthe years,I urgeyouto alsoconsiderusingsome
booksthatareavailof the wonderfulcontemporary
ableto meetthe readingneedsandinterestsof today's
students. Not only will your students appreciate
them,but I guaranteethatYOUalsowillenjoythem.
Here'sto the joy of reading!
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Giroux, 1999.
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Bauer,Joan.Rules of the Road. New York:Putnam, 1998.
Beers, Kylene,and BarbaraG. Samuels,eds. Into Focus:Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers.
Norwood, MA:Christopher-Gordon,1998.
Blount, NathanS. "TheEffect of Selected JuniorNovels and
Selected Adult Novels on StudentAttitudesToward
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. The Maze. New York:Morrow,1998.
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DONALDR. GALLO,a former professorof English, writes
and edits books for teachers and teenagers.
ENGLISH
journa