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Original poster

Set texts at school

110 replies

MillyR · 08/09/2011 21:31

Sorry that this is a bit of a thread about a thread, but in education there is a thread discussing Of Mice and Men still being a set text at GCSE. Nobody has mentioned in that thread that it is a book about a man killing a woman. As Steinbeck wrote:

She is 'not a person, she's a symbol. She has no function, except to be a foil ? and a danger to Lennie.'

This is in addition to 'Atonement' and "To Kill A Mocking Bird' both being set texts. In both of these a woman makes false accusations about who is the rapist. So in all three books a woman is harmed but we are pushed towards sympathising with a male character.

I am just wondering if this has a bit of an impact. When I was at school we did 'The Color Purple' and it had a major impact on me. I know these books must be looked at critically in schools, but criticising the books doesn't really cancel out the impact of the stories. Of Mice and Men is particularly sentimental and melodramatic so designed to move the reader to care about the killer.

Did anybody study these books at school, or teach them?

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Original poster
MillyR · 12/09/2011 10:14

Mummytime, have you actually read the thread?

I am not talking about children having the opportunity for pupils to have the opportunity to discuss racism or feminism. If that was the point, they could do that through reading To Kill a Mocking Bird. People from minority ethnic groups and girls do not exist purely as some kind of talking point or social issue for boys to debate. They exist in their own right as people and ought to be able to read fiction about themselves. This is totally different to RE or History.

Nobody would think it was acceptable for schools to set multiple texts where underage boys are raped and then made false allegations about who raped them, or about men being murdered by women. Nobody would attempt to justify this by saying it was a really good opportunity to talk with boys about men's rights. Nobody would set a school curriculum that was entirely based on novels written by women about women and defend this by saying that a good teacher would use this as a basis for discussing men's rights, or defend the book choice by saying it was 'great literature' and girls had the right to read it.

I am aware that some sections of the GCSE English language paper can be answered based on books studied as part of the GCSE English literature syllabus, at least for some exam boards. I never said otherwise. And not all children have the opportunity to do both. I am also aware that children read other books in school, as I am not incredibly ignorant (who on earth is that ignorant?)

I don't mean to single you out, because your sentiment has been repeated by others in this thread. People seem entirely unable to see that discussing feminism in schools is not the same thing as women being represented in the curriculum. It would be rather like saying that schools will not hire any female teachers in future, but this will give schools the opportunity to discuss feminism and social issues with pupils. Wouldn't it be better for girls if schools simply hired female teachers and read some books by and about women? Or maybe girls shouldn't go to school at all, and that could give an even greater talking point about feminism and women's social issues for the boys to discuss.

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mummytime · 12/09/2011 08:14

MillyR I think you are a bit out of date, most schools have all pupils studying both Eng Lit and Eng Lang, and some of the Eng Lang assessment is based on their set books. So children of all levels are studying these texts, and being assessed on them. If you have a bottom set (or low set such as the one my son is in) which is mainly boys (as they are), who struggle to read, it is very hard to get them to read anything, which they need to for the exam. So teachers look for books which are short, they can relate to a bit, and are of some literary merit. The same boys will also have to study a Shakespeare, and a poetry anthology, so the book is the most easily adaptable to their needs.
However they don't just read during 2 years of GCSE, they read all through school, a wide variety of books. They also have PSE, RE, History etc. in which to discuss feminism, racism etc.

StewieGriffinsMom · 12/09/2011 08:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ChristinedePizan · 12/09/2011 07:57

Something I was wondering last night - I wonder if anyone would be concerned if it were girls who were performing significantly worse than boys?

Or would that be considered perfectly acceptable given the rubbish that's been spouted about male and female brains over the years?

mathanxiety · 11/09/2011 23:38

'Why should improving the achievement of boys be at odds with reading books that have positive, or at least neutral messages for girls? Surely schools can do both?'

I remember being utterly dismayed that my DCs were reading 'Little House on the Prairie' at about age 9/10 as a set text in school. The DDs hated its saccharine quality and DS did too. I couldn't understand why the school had picked it over 'Farmer Boy', also by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which was a better read imo as a child, even though it was about the life of a boy. They all loved 'Island of the Blue Dolphins' though.

LRDTheFeministDragon · 11/09/2011 16:56

noble - that's really interesting about Steinbeck having a real-life prompt for the book!

I have to say, I do wonder if girls don't do better at English partly because they have to do that much more work to 'read' a male-dominated world and to read texts chosen to appeal to boys.

Original poster
MillyR · 11/09/2011 14:16

I suspect one of the main issues is getting boys to pass English language at C, rather than English Literature. Pupils who aren't likely to pass English language (where even fewer books are part of the exam) are unlikely to study English literature GCSE. It is something I should be looking into in the next year before DS begins his GCSEs. My concern at the moment is the amount of the marks that are for the study of poetry, which I think he will find difficult regardless of the subject matter.

Although now it would seem I am derailing my own thread!

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noblegiraffe · 11/09/2011 14:09

Milly, I just used 'feminist literature' as a shorthand for literature with positive messages for girls, rather than meaning Germaine Greer or whatever.

The concern at GCSE will be with not turning off boys more than they already are, because grades are all.

Of course, what people think will turn off boys is not always the case. JK Rowling had to become JK so that boys wouldn't realise she was a female writer before getting hooked on Harry Potter. But boys were still reading even when it became apparent she was female and she is credited with bringing a lot of boys back to reading.

Original poster
MillyR · 11/09/2011 13:37

Noble giraffe, I never mentioned feminist literature at all. Why should improving the achievement of boys be at odds with reading books that have positive, or at least neutral messages for girls? Surely schools can do both?

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Original poster
MillyR · 11/09/2011 13:34

Because literature is not the same thing as history; it serves a different function. Most people have a far greater interest in imaginative story telling - be it through films, music, books or computer games than they have in history. History isn't even a compulsory subject after year 8.

Story telling is an important social experience and it is important to the inner lives of people; it is something that all cultures do. When people study that in an academic way, it isn't just to get a qualification; it is also to learn skills that enhance their engagement with those stories - that is something that will benefit them their whole lives.

And the inner lives of women is not generally about thinking about our lives as some sort of social commentary on men or on sexism; it is about us human beings, and I think that should be reflected in some of the texts that pupils engage with in a structured way in school.

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Tchootnika · 11/09/2011 13:23

I think girls getting to read about the lives of women is really important.

I agree, but why not in history classes?

I really don't think that the idea that there aren't enough texts by women still prevails at all.

I do think you're on slightly dodgy ground when you start to conflate the study of literature with social history, at schools level, though.

noblegiraffe · 11/09/2011 13:21

Girls getting to read about the lives of women is important, but 72.5% of girls and only 58.7% of boys gained a C or above in English this year. Given this discrepancy, I doubt many English departments are going to sit down, look at the figures, then select feminist literature over war poetry (or whatever).

Original poster
MillyR · 11/09/2011 13:13

I think girls getting to read about the lives of women is really important. Some intellectual argument about literary merit and politics is rather secondary to that. I don't feel as if the existence of female pupils is purely to serve as some sort of social commentary or teaching point.

Pupils read maybe 4 modern novels for GCSE, and only answer an exam question on one. Who would genuinely be concerned that there are so few decent books written by women that a school would struggle to find one or two with even literary merit to set for GCSE? They already exist on the GCSE set text lists; it is just a matter of schools choosing to teach them.

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Tchootnika · 11/09/2011 12:48

I totally agree with NormanTebbit on this one.

Of course I think it's great to have Toni Morrison books as A level set texts, not because I see them as 'women's writing' (I hate that concept), but because they're excellent literature, regardless of genre. I actually think that to include them in the syllabus with the primary or perceived intention of redressing a balance actually undermines their literary value by suggesting that they are there because of a political agenda, IYSWIM.

I know that a good teacher can use any text in an intelligent, humanistic, egalitarian (OK, feminist), and as Norm has already said... And I think this is a far more intelligent approach (and credits students with more intelligence) than does well intentioned efforts to create a 'fair' syllabus.

IHeartKingThistle · 11/09/2011 12:47

Also, I've asked this question on the other thread, but what do we think about one of the new set texts being 'About a Boy' by Nick Hornby? I'm a bit conflicted myself...

IHeartKingThistle · 11/09/2011 12:45

As an English teacher, the lack of positive female role models in set texts (Exhibit A, Lady Macbeth) does concern me.

But it is totally possible to use this as a teaching point. The treatment of Curley's wife, and the fact that she is never given a name, ENRAGES a lot of teenage girls, and that can only be a good thing!

Oh and some of the poetry on the new syllabus is a feminist's dream. 'A Woman to her Lover' by Christina Walsh(e) says it all.

noblegiraffe · 11/09/2011 12:31

I remember having a discussion at school about why she was called 'Curley's wife', and not given her own name. Because she wasn't important, but the fact that she was Curley's wife was important. It is because she was Curley's wife that her death caused a problem for Lennie. She had no station of her own.

Original poster
MillyR · 11/09/2011 12:22

NG, thanks for writing that; it is exactly what I was trying to get at. What kind of person could write, or read about, a female character being murdered and think that was such a triviality that they could reduce her to a plot device rather than a person? That is what really disturbs me about the book,but it seems implicit in the book that this is what the reader is meant to do.

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ChristinedePizan · 11/09/2011 10:27

Me too aye Blush

I'm really disappointed to hear that the set texts haven't moved on since I was at school 20 years ago :(

jenniec79 · 11/09/2011 10:27

I read To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men at school pre-GCSE. I hated both, but think that might be my general hatred of "Class Readers" that put me off. I don't even remember TKAM being about rape - wonder if we were just too young for the teacher to emphasise that to the class (we'd have been 13ish), and glossing over/leaving out chunks would certainly explain why the book came over as clunky and imopssible to "get into". We only had the books out in class, so it'd have been easy enough to do.

Other books ruined by school were Carrie's war, Secret Garden, Romeo & Juliet (although not my fave Shakespeare anyway, but repeated class-reading of it in an all girls' class without being allowed to ask why she wouldn't just elope with him in the first place Hmm). For GCSE we also had "I'm The King Of The Castle"; a horrid little book about bullying, which I never quite forgave for the crime of not being Great Expectations which the other group were doing Angry

noblegiraffe · 11/09/2011 10:24

There are a lot of concerns educationally about boys' literacy levels and how little they read compared to girls. To make English accessible to them books are chosen which are thought to appeal to boys particularly, so that they don't get put off.

Girls, of course, are expected to like it or lump it.

AyeBelieveInTheHumanityOfMen · 11/09/2011 10:18

I keep reading the thread title as "Sex Texts at School"

noblegiraffe · 11/09/2011 10:15

I think the fact Steinbeck writes Lenny and makes you sympathize with him far more than with Curly's wife is quite scary, in retrospect, but I didn't realize it when I was 13 or so.

The reason that Steinbeck makes you sympathise with Lenny is because he was writing about a real person who he worked with who killed someone. The person that was actually killed was male, so Curley's wife isn't a real person, merely a plot device.

"I was a bindlestiff myself for quite a spell. I worked in the same country that the story is laid in. The characters are composites to a certain extent. Lennie was a real person. He's in an insane asylum in California right now. I worked alongside him for many weeks. He didn't kill a girl. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the boss had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his stomach. I hate to tell you how many times I saw him do it. We couldn't stop him until it was too late." (Steinbeck, 1937)

TanteAC · 10/09/2011 13:52

I teach both 'Of Mice and Men' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - the first one is perfect for lower ability as it is a short book! [bursts bubble about how texts are chosen]

'To Kill a Mockingbird' has a female narrator who struggles to understand why some people don't want her to be educated or have an opinion, and using a child as a narrator points out how very plain and simple the effects of snobbishness, racism and sexism are, when the adults make things seem more complicated than they should be.

FWIW, I had a student write an A* grade essay on the theme of loneliness using Curley's wife and her treatment at the hands of the author, as well as the charaters, to depict a woman's place in the historical context

Feminist teacher, enlightened students. Should be one of the QTS standards Grin

mathanxiety · 10/09/2011 00:15

From the Irish Leaving Cert in the early 80s I remember Bacon's 'Of Youth and Age' and other deadly prose, 'The Portrait of a Lady', 'Coriolanus', lots of Yeats, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', Gerald Manley Hopkins. I'm sure there was a lot more but a good deal of water has gone under the bridge since then.

One current Leaving cert novel is 'Amongst Women' which could lend itself to much feminist leaning discussion.