Gove kills the mockingbird with ban on US classic novels ...what do you think?

[mrz]

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1414764.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2014_05_24

AQA will be sending out “guidance about a set act and a set chapter or chapters at the beginning of the Spring term before the exam. The extracts on the exam for both the Shakespeare play and the 19th century questions will be taken from the set act or chapter(s)”.

I think the above insults cover it very well, Gove is a dangerous dinosaur. Steinbeck received the Nobel prize for literature and this insignificant little idiot believes his books are not good enough for our youngsters. Of course Dickens and Shakespeare should be on offer, alongside To Kill A ....... and Of Mice And Men. What about The Grapes of Wrath for some mail biting horror guaranteed to keep the class wide awake? I am all for my beloved Great Expectations but primarily I want children to be engaged with the literary world of the English language irrespective of whether it was written in England, America, New Zealand, Australia etc.

I'm warming slightly to that idea.

You'd need to have taught the whole text by the time you knew the set section - which is good - but it'd be useful for directing last minute revision.

Initially I thought they were setting the sections from the outset, which would be horribly similar to the late unlamented year 9 SATs.

I'm not on Gove's side, but I do think people are somewhat missing the point that there HAVE been other books on offer yet teachers have still opted for OM&M such that 90% of kids have apparently studied this text. It does make sense that the only way to change this situation, rightly or wrongly, is to take it off the curriculum altogether.

The 29th century novel + Shakespeare play is on another paper so does not replace OM+M. Th Shakespeare element of this paper replaces the current controlled assessment on Shakespeare while the 19th century novel is an add on.

The reality is that many schools will watch the video, teach teach the set sections, look at some other bits/key quotations from the whole text and kids will still be able to do well.

Don't forget that they only have 20 minutes to write on the whole text!!

I agree - I can't see anyone attempting to read the whole texts in class.

'Great Expectations' takes about 18 hours to read (looking at unabridged audiobook) - just to read it, not discuss/annotate/plan essays - that's the best part of a term's Lit lessons.

Compare that with 3 1/2 hours for OM&M.

I imagine we'll be picking something with a good screen adaptation & setting the bulk of the reading as homework.

Perhaps look at it another way... Schools are judged by results. Teachers are judged by results. Perhaps sticking with OMAM was nothing to do with being lazy and everything to do with being able to feel confident that students were being taught to do the exam questions well. I've taught a totally new GCSE spec this year. I was incredibly nervous about the practical moderation as I was worried that I might have somehow got it wrong.

That too, although our endless recycling of OM&M has always been more to do with consistency across the Dept.

I've been badgering for years to teach LOTF or TKAM, & as a GCSE Lit examiner I'd be confident with either - I mark both most years.

But if I fell under a bus halfway through the course, someone would have to take over my GCSE group, & finding out that I'd been doing a different novel from everyone else would be a PITA; then there's students changing groups over the course of the two years.

OM&M has always been the simplest option on the list because everyone in the Dept. can teach it confidently & no-one particularly dislikes it, whereas my HOD reckons she'd rather eat her own eyeballs than teach LOTF...

When I was at school (admittedly in Scotland and in something approaching the dark ages) we all did different texts for both standard grade and higher depending on whose class we were in, with the exception of Shakespeare; I think everyone (at least in my school) did Macbeth for standard grade and Romeo and Juliet for higher. We'd all wish we'd been put in a different class because we'd rather have studied their books. I, for example, would rather have done animal farm instead of kes. None of the classes did OMAM though.

noblegiraffe Far more [stuff], but far more enjoyment? One of the common assertions throughout this kerfuffle is that Gove is denying the poor little mites access to 'joy of reading' and 'engagement' by banning the study of OM&M. Meanwhile I think my child would drive more pleasure and likely expand her horizons and critical facilities further by spending that study time reading a variety of books for pleasure.

Lazysummerdays But do these exams really test understanding? Is it about flair or regurgitating answers within exam score maximising constraints?

--

DfE English Lit. Mythbuster(!): www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315546/English_lit_mythbuster.pdf

As a level1/2 qualification (depending in what grade you achieve), GCSEs aren't really about 'flair' in any meaningful sense. They're about the basic building blocks and routine methods of the disciplines they cover.

Pique, the thing about OM&M is that most kids enjoy it. It's short, accessible but is clearly an 'adult' novel that does still offer challenge for the more able. Teaching OM&M does not prevent and has never prevented independent readers from reading other stuff for pleasure. OM&M tends not not put off either more or less able kids.

Steinbeck was one of the writers who opened the doors to grown up literature for me along with F Scott Fitzgerald. Admittedly I was much younger and started with 'The Pearl' and not OM&M but then worked through all of Steinbeck, all of Fitzgerald before moving on to Jane Austen and then Dickens.

The surest way to turn kids off literature (or at least school literature) is to plod through difficult texts where you have to explain the vocab and tone before the kids 'get it' at all. This is off putting for less able kids and for more able kids who hate the tedious stop start pace and just want to read.

In short, if Gove thinks Dickens and co will turn people on to literature and broaden their horizons, he's mistaken. Few kids are going to come away from their English lessons wanting to pick up another book by Dickens (sadly because I LOVE Dickens) whereas I think Steinbeck does encourage kids to move on to the next level.

pique why not get them to just read Twilight and FIFA magazine if it is about reading for pleasure?

They will not get much from a superficial reading of more difficult texts.

The surest way to turn kids off literature (or at least school literature) is to plod through difficult texts where you have to explain the vocab and tone before the kids 'get it' at all. This is off putting for less able kids and for more able kids who hate the tedious stop start pace and just want to read.

so do we simply have to dumb it all down to appeal to the less able?

I've posted about this before and will say the same thing again....
when I was at school myself, we read Dickens GE when we were 12- that was around 1967. Yes, some people were turned off it but others ( me) loved it and went on to become an English teacher.

There is no one-size fits all now that there is one exam (GCSE not GCE & CSE) but why do we have to adjust down, rather than up?

Perhaps you have a point noblegiraffe

I honestly don't know how children are going to gain a better vocab unless they are exposed to it. many certainly don't hear it or read it at home- that's supposed to the benefit of education.

Yes, there is always the disadvantage of stop-start with something that stretches the less-able, but one of the negatives of 'easier' novels like OM&M is that children are not exposed in the main to a rich and new vocabulary.

lazy LOADS of kids don't know what alfalfa is til they read OMAM

Yr 11s at my school did A Christmas Carol for Lit this year. That's also short and fairly lacking in plot (according to them) Why is it better than OMAM?

Playing Devil's advocate...

IME children's vocabulary varies wildly. Any attempt to identify a work of literature whose vocabulary is familiar to the bottom 20% is going to bore the top 50%.

At my (international) school OM&M was reserved for ESL...

Sense and Sensibility uses more common words than Harry Potter or Twilight

Of course knowing the meaning of a noun like alfalfa is terribly important. We all need to use it on a daily basis. It will also be highly useful when applying for jobs and communicating well at interviews.

There is a huge difference between learning the meaning of single nouns ( quick look in a dictionary sorts that one) and gradually absorbing rich vocabulary, complex sentence structure and use of imagery.

I'm all for British literature through the ages. I am. I've studied it at degree level, I read it, I love it, I make sure my kids have access to it.

But there are some amazing American novels, and poetry, and there are amazing Indian, African, European etc etc ones too.

As soon as anyone seeks to impose restrictions on schools' choice of literature, I feel suspicious. And if it's Gove to boot....well....

FWIW, I love Dickens. And Shakespeare. Not sure I've ever taught Dickens for GCSE, though I've done A Christmas Carol with Yr 7, and I teach Shakespeare to every year group (in drama) We do Shakespeare's stories in Yr 7 then whole plays in Yr 8 & 9.

I'm just sorting a new project for Yr 10 - duologues. I'm not including any pre-1900 but they have a lot of choice including modern plays like DNA and more classic plays like Journey's End. They will be choosing from a selection and I've given everything a star rating for difficulty. I know that's not practical for GCSE Lit, of course.

Point is that if you put kids off reading you're doing nobody any favours.

I have always loved reading. Would absolutely hate plodding through a brilliant but challenging and long novel e.g. by Dickens with a load of people who weren't getting or enjoying it.

You cannot but all your hopes into a couple of texts taught in year 10 or 11 ALONE to enrich vocabulary etc. But you do have to rely on those texts to be enjoyable and interesting and to open the door to reading.

Remember that there's now only 1 tier so you have to expect all the kids to work through Dickens and Shakespeare where some are struggling with basic literacy.

I've just looked at the first few pages of OM&M and come across 'morosely', 'anguished', 'pugnacious' and 'mollified'. It's not exactly Biff and Kipper.

Kids are much more likely to pick up new vocabulary if they are interested in the context and able to work out meanings from the context.

There comes a point where if the language is too obscure then kids simply give up and become bored.