To think Michael Gove has actually got something right for once?

[privitandpetunias]

Article in the guardian saying that Mr Gove wants to remove the American literature from the GCSE curriculum and replace it with English literature (sorry can't do links). This is something I have often thought that there are so many great novels out there that are part of our cultural heritage that it would be great for our children to study.

Gove has an English degree which apparently makes him a total expert on these matters. I studied Emma at A level. I never ever want to read another Jane Austen novel as long as I live. I read them all as read around the subject was important. I just found the themes so damn trivial " she had baddish ankles" so what, people are starving to death you stupid woman! TKAMB was something we did for fun at school at the end of lower 6th. it is all about prejudice overt and covert. give me it to read any day.

And there is no money to fund the new Primary Curriculum noblegiraffe. New texts for literacy, new resources for science, completely new KS2 history ...

I'm afraid I disagree,my DD(14) loves To Kill A Mocking Bird but dislikes Pride & Prejudice! She finds it ridiculous that some fantastic novels are being taken off the course and replaced with ones that many of her peers have no interest in! I'm stupidly patriotic but surely just because a particular book isn't British doesn't make it not worth studying.

Besides, what's a group of 15yr old boys going to be more engaged in? A love story or a book about (fairly recent history) which discusses issues such as persecution and revenge?

I'm not bashing Jane Austen ( I love pride and prejudice!) but I do feel that today's teens could learn just as much from American literature as well as British? Can there not be a middle ground to show contrast? Or has Mr Gove forgotten about who these exams are actually benefitting!

The issue is that so many of the texts Gove is suggesting are completely out of reach for so many of our teenagers, as sad as that might be. Dickens is actually not so bad, there are themes and characters that teenagers will be able to identify with but the others, I really don't think so. With the pressure that are on schools at the moment, giving dry texts to engage students with is truly ridiculous. He won't even consider the link between materials and behaviour.

American literature works for GCSE - it's irks me when people say they are relieved that OMAM has been removed, do they not think that this choice of text helped them to pass literature in the first place? Do they not want that for the next generation? American literature seems to be more easily transferable to today for teenagers, a lot of what Gove is suggesting just isn't.

If he's expecting teens to be able to relate to this kind of 'ideal' then he needs to do a hell of a lot more than change the texts on their GCSE English. Stupid man.

For my O Level, I studied Much Ado, Coriolanus, Pride and Prejudice, Death of a Salesman, Philip Larkin, the Metaphysical poets, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I think that was a great selection.
For A Level, it was Sylvia Plath, Keats, Macbeth, The Pardoners Tale, Mill On the Floss (ARRRGGGGH), Shirley, The Colour Purple, and Catcher in the Rye. A good mix of male / female and eras.

Out of all of them, the English stuff was the hardest work. The context is so dull. It's pretty hard getting kids worked up about the Luddites, whereas slavery has a bit more going on.

For me, the main problem was the bittiness of the curriculum. Nothing was linked, it was "This" then "this". Now, we have a marvellous opportunity to link in a cross curricular way. A student studying history and Literature should be studying texts that fit with the history. It makes total sense. Reading Post Napoleonic Europe in history? Madame Bovary. Germany? Gunter Grass. Slavery? Colour Purple. Victorian reform? Oliver Twist. And so on.

I am a (soon to be ex) teacher, and the way he's going, the curriculum will soon be very deliniated, very strict, and like something out of "Hard Times", which is what he wants.

He's one of the reasons i'm going. And am searching furiously for a non-academy school for my own kids.

One of the things I am finding amusing is his wanting to teach the romatics. They were revolutionaries, atheists in the main and offering a different kind of deism, communing with nature etc.
Govism - to dismantle an education service by being thick.

phlebas your O Level curriculum in particular sounds amazing. Coriolanus! I can't imagine modern GCSE students getting to do that. I did a year of joint Eng Lit and Eng Lang A level (a combined course) before running away from home and I remember us doing the first Harry Potter and Tom Brown's Schooldays (comparing children's literature) and Alan Bennett's monologues in the lit bit. Your A Level sounds much more interesting. Sylvia Plath is perfect late-teen girl stuff.

Totally agree with linking in a cross-curricular way. I am very concerned with Gove's approach to history for much the same reasons - it's just so narrow and really misses opportunities for inspiring pupils beyond exam results. Then again, I'm not sure that's something Gove is interested in sadly.

Gove's curriculum reads like something written by someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

'These days it's all about getting the kids through English GCSE so you can improve your place in the league tables.'

Totally irrelevant to a discussion about English Literature GCSE, Hackmum.

League tables focus on Eng Lang/English & Maths.

Are you joking ? You couldn't be more unreasonable. Have you read either of the books?

Raven, it isn't irrelevant.

For one thing there's crossover between lit and lang in most specifications - students do a reading piece of coursework on a text studied that actually contributes to their Language grade.

Secondly, schools need the results from all subjects - and push for them.

English Lit will matter much more now, because of Progress 8.

It's irrelevant if we're discussing Hackmum's argument that schools are teaching 'safe' texts for Eng Lit simply in order to jostle for league table position.

As an English teacher, I'd agree that the true situation is somewhat more nuanced!

I'm not a huge fan of using a Lit text as the source for the Extended Reading controlled assessment (not coursework), although I've certainly done it in past years.

Again, though, the imminent demise of controlled assessment makes that consideration fairly moot re: proposed new specifications.

Well yes, but then by that point Lit will matter anyway :)

Sort of, whynow.

As the higher grade in English (assuming both Lang & Lit are taken) will be double weighted, there's scope for lower attaining students to simply be plonked, unprepared, in front of the Lit exam having actually spent all their time studying for Lang.

Since that's the one colleges require as a gateway qualification, you can see an argument in favour of schools doing just that. I'm aware of at least one school that is planning to.

For those bemoaning their lack... I studied Ishiguro, Atwood and Marvell at O level / A level.

Have never read Of Mice and Men though.

My great-grandfather said to my mother when she was a child, 'it doesn't matter what you read, so long as it's good'; the trouble with many texts studied today is that they are of inferior quality but are chosen to fit in with a theme, or to be 'relevant'. I don't know if pupils study 'literature' or English literature'; personally I believe they should have a grounding in good English literature at least up to GCSE. For once I find myself in the very unusual position of agreeing with Gove.

As the mother of two who have done eng lit at GCSE and one yet to get there I am so relieved to see the back of TKAMB and OMaM.Yes they are good books but there is so much more the the Eng Lit cannon , where is the Dickens, Austen, Hardy and Chaucer,Wilkie Collins, etc

I did O level in the 1980, my set studied Pride and Prejudice, Taming of the Shrew and the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales ( everyone did Chaucer) .The opposite set did Romeo and Juliet and Davis Copperfield , same Chaucer .

I was beyond frustrated by the fact that 90% studied the aforementioned two books to the exclusion of other things so if there is a focus on the classics that all to the good for me .

At A level we did a huge selection some of which admittedly my ds1 did at Alevel but it included , Hardy , Austin, Henry James , Mary Shelly,Matthew Arnold , Gerard Manley Hopkins etc

I don't want them to be taught something that will help them to pass the exam, as one poster said earlier, I want them to be EDUCATED.That is about opening their eyes to things which might not be so relevant and accessible , and I say this as someone who has one ds with severe spld who has found English very difficult .

It's canon, not cannon (and we're bemoaning standards of English amongst teens!).

Though the way Gove is treating texts he simply doesn't like personally as cannon-fodder, maybe people are right about the spelling after all

Sorry Ipad autocorrect ,I also took exams in 1980s not 1980.

I am not bemoaning teenage literacy standards I am bemoaning our low expectations of them and the fact that we are not giving many of them the chance to study a wider variety of texts .

I meant in the thread generally, outtolunch.