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.

But I'm pretty sure my DC did To Kill a Mocking Bird in KS3.

Post 1914 fiction/drama written in the British Isles. I think the clue is in the title "English Literature". They aren't doing a GCSE in "American Literature" or any other literature come to that.

I've been wracking my brains to remember what books we did for O level back in 1982 and I think there was only one - A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens). Apart from that we did what felt like the entire works of Robert Browning and Twelfth Night as the play. Perhaps we only did ATO2C and no other book because it was so long, I have no idea, but I do remember being jealous of the lower sets (we were in the top English group) when I saw them reading TKAMB and Shane. Mind you, ATO2C was a cracking read and covered so many different themes, I don't think Dickens is beyond a GCSE audience at all.

Having had to suffer the horror of OMAM in later life I wouldn't mind that being struck from the curriculum at all, but let's face it, it would be ridiculous to base an entire education system on one person's whims and personal dislikes, erm.... wouldn't it?

I think it's fair to say that studying any book for an exam is a good way to suck the life out of it and make you hate the author forever, unless you have a very good teacher. DH still won't read Hardy because of what A level study did to him.

Good post LeBearPoler! To limit the curriculum an exam board (and therefore schools) can choose for any other reason than the books are examples of great literature with poignant themes that provoke thought is very shallow thinking in my opinion.

And no, the clue 'English' in the subject title 'English literature' refers to the language they are written in, not the country England. otherwise the course would be better named 'British literature'.

Gosh shucks, LeBearPolar, I got one vowel wrong in your name! Sorry for the error.

Michael Gove has struck American books from the GCSE Eng Lit syllabus.

Is it ..

A) Because it doesn't conform to his 'short back and sides' notion of childhood?

B) Because of a mania for micro-managing ? Is it an Education Minister's job to decide which books children should read, based on personal preference?

C) Because he believes "British is Best? Does he honestly think Willy Russell trumps Arthur Miller? Will TS Eliot and Henry James fail the UK Border test? And what's going to happen to Joyce, Yeats and the rest of those rigorous, Irish upstarts?

D? Because American literature's great theme has always been freedom?

The books chosen for the axe include 'For Mice and Men' ( oppression of the working man), 'The Crucible' ( oppression by a proscriptive, right wing government -erk! ) and 'To Kill a Mocking Bird ' justice for racial minority) . You can see how these scarcely fit with the world view of Gove or his government , but if he's looking for books which reflect his own ideology, it's fairly slim pickings. Famous right wing authors , hmm, who have we got? There's Kipling of course, and Agatha Christie -- oh and of course, the Conservative Party's very own Jeffrey Archer! Let's do the syllabus right here!

Discuss with reference to context and character......

YABU - I read the thread title and thought Hooray, has has finally resigned! Disappointed now.

The spelling mistake wouldn't have elicited a response from me, had you not then decided to say:
'Some of you out there are completely missing the point of her novels by the way...'
Analysing many different interpretations of the same novel is often a key area when studying Eng Lit. Rather than a Sparknotes response.

shockingly I adore Ishiguro and would not see a problem with Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go for A level. So beautifully written. Murakami, too. Norwegian wood would be fabulous, as would Toni Morrison.

Windy Whilst the clue may well be in the name, I suspect this is a nod to UKIP. However, if you wanted to stick with English Literature, it really doesn't have to be all about dead white men. Literature, all literature is important in so many ways, not just important for the imagination, but for what it gives and what it removes. The lives of those involved are important too. We teach HG Wells, Gove would find his support of the Eugenics movement wonderfully attractive, I suspect. We could teach Pullman, but that too would be revolutionary, but beautifully written Literature is exactly what Northern Lights is, but a tad too revolutionary for Gove, if he even comprehends it. I don't say that as a dig, but his wanting to teach the romantics without comprehension of their alternative belief system is a tad odd.
Whilst I think we should be adding to the library of gcse suggested novels, I do think that government should not be interfering to the extent that they are. This is a jump on the UKIP bandwagon. It is ill thought out and really quite frightening.

Thank you WhereTheWildingsAre (great name!) for addressing the ridiculous comment about English Literature having to be books that are written in England If we exclude authors born elsewhere, that gets rid of Dylan Thomas, Yeats, Heaney, Iain Banks, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson...

Or maybe NearTheWindymill, you'd like to invent a new subject called British Isles Literature?

Of course you were, Goblin. And instead of saying that you tried to belittle me out of the debate.

I would be respected the former but I am afraid the latter lost some of my respect for you as a poster because it was an attempt at a cheap shot.

My original comment was really aimed at the idea expressed earlier that Jane Austen (e, remember the e!) was all about ankles looking pretty. I find her far more subversive than that, don't you?? Or is subversive what you mean by key notes??

Any way...back to the actual point of the thread..

Thank you LeBearPolar!

And for liking my name. I aimed for two great works of literature in the name

This is unlikely to be a nod to UKIP seeing as it came out middle of last year. Previous English lit specs also emphasised the importance of the English literary heritage and to require GCSE students of English Lit to read a book written in the British Isles in the last 100 years isn't really that shocking, is it?

Incidentally, talking about UKIP, the new maths curriculum finally drops the requirement to teach imperial units. In your face Farage.

noble I love your last sentence.
And no I don't think it's too much to ask, and have indeed suggested some authors who would indeed fit your requirement.

'Incidentally, talking about UKIP, the new maths curriculum finally drops the requirement to teach imperial units. In your face Farage.'

New Primary curriculum, page 132. Statutory requirements for Y5:

'Understand and use approximate equivalences between metric units and common equivalent units such as inches, pounds and pints.'

Really, Goblin? It has definitely been dropped from GCSE. What an absurd lack of joined up thinking. That said, we don't need to teach Roman numerals at secondary either. It's a shame that what used to be a spiral curriculum in maths going all the way from level 1 to GCSE is now apparently a disconnected mish-mash.

I think the clue is in the title "English Literature". They aren't doing a GCSE in "American Literature" or any other literature come to that.

I would read that as literature written in English. If you're going to be as literal as that, you exclude massive swathes of Welsh, Scottish and Irish literature as well as American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand etc etc.

I assume Gove thinks this is a return to so-called "traditional values". Yet as far back as the 1960s I was studying things like The Crucible in English Lit. I can also remember doing "Robbery under Arms" which was written by an Australian. I have not seen anything remotely resembling a logical justification for this ludicrous plan.

For my English Literature O level hundreds of years ago,we read Silas Marner (Classic+ female author),Cider with Rosie (fairly contempory then!),and A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch,which I can't spell,by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - and Shakespeare of course,which actually seems pretty well balanced.
I can't see that it would have been possible to replace A day in the life.. with anything written in the British Isles,and to preserve that same balance in subject matter and relevance - so I think without it we would have learnt less.
Even though I hated it as a book.
Actually,presumably Solzhenitsyn wrote in Russian,so perhaps not English Literature by any standards - but that doesn't negate the value of studying it,or To Kill A Mocking Bird etc
Wonder what Michael Gove studied? Ooh,and I see I am older than he is,so will presume that whatever he studied ,what he has taken away from his education represents a sad decline in standards since my day...

For GCSE/A level I did Much Ado, Hamlet, Macbeth, To kill a Mocking Bird (has anyone not done this book?), Lord of the Flies which I hated hated, Wuthering Heights again which I hated, The Colour Purple and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

The last two I loved. If I'd been forced to read endless Dickens, Bronte and Austin it would have put me off reading for life. I've tried, I find them dull.

I'm struggling to find a meaningful distinction between classic English literature (or even translated) and classic literature written by British authors at GCSE level.

he is only saying it is not to be tested in GCSE Eng Lit.Students study texts all through their time at secondary school.They don't do the same book for 5 years!

Shockinglybadteacher: "I do see a lot of complaints about making BOYS read AUSTEN - there are some here - and it's actually fairly misogynistic at times."

Yes. I think Austen is probably a bit too hard for the average 15-year old, but that's another argument.

The thing that bothers me is that the current syllabus - or at least the books chosen by DD's teacher - are so girl-unfriendly. Lord of the Flies - no girls. OMAM - one female character, unsympathetic, not named.

I do think it's quite hard to choose books that will appeal to teenagers of both sexes and a wide range of abilities. A lot will find George Eliot, Dickens etc too difficult. But I don't think it's impossible, and I do find it faintly dispiriting that 90% of school-leavers come out of school having read the same book.

Well my school must be unusual in that we teach Mister Pip and Purple Hibiscus for the other cultures element but we still teach OMAM and TKAM in year 9 because they are brilliant, important novels. Personally I think it is more likely there will be Sherlock Holmes or The Time Machine than Middlemarch on the new syllabus. So I am not sure how much of an improvement that will be, personally I would rather teach Miller or O'Neil than Priestley or Pimter any day of the week.

You are unusual, good on you though. They're both great texts :)