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

'hat was around 1967. Yes, some people were turned off it but others ( me) loved it and went on to become an English teacher.'

People's reading habits and attitudes have changed since 1967!

In 1967 there were grammar schools and the cane.

It is not acceptable any more to just to accept that a significant number of kids are 'turned off' by what they are studying.

Do you think pupils today are less able to cope with English Literature because we don't have grammar schools and the cane bluestrawhat?

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the ultimate true classics to be read by anyone and everyone. I read it again and again when I was 14 and it really instilled and cemented a continual love of books. I'm horrified it could be banned and for what reason?? Just why?

It's not like people are forbidden from reading it, just whether it should be on the GCSE syllabus to the exclusion of other works!

Point spectacularly missed there mrz. The poster earlier acknowledged that pupils were put off Dickens et al in 1967. That simply wouldn't be acceptable now because a) all kids are expected to sit these exams and therefore required to follow the same curriculum as there are no secondary moderns or CSE or vocational route proposed by Gove unlike in 67 b) rightly or wrongly, kids expect to enjoy their learning and if they don't enjoy it or see the point of it they often misbehave.

Attitudes, expectations and aspirations were different in 67.

So you're expected to get through Shakespeare, Dickens and the Romantics with ALL your students in such a way that they still get their Cs at GCSE or grade 5s or whatever it will be and enjoy themselves and behave without the sanctions available in 67 (not that I want a return to them) and with the distractions of Xboxes, mobile phones and so on. You can't palm them off to other schools or let them sit at the back of the class playing cards which did happen in 67. And you're judged and school is judged on your results. The people who can't see the problem with that have probably not taught in a comprehensive school lately.

I studied Dickens et al around that time and wasn't put off neither were my classmates - but it was a grammar school with the cane.

For what it's worth I've taught Dickens in primary and the kids loved it.

Oh come on mrz, the primary school kids didn't read every page of a Dickens novel or study it in such a way that they could answer 2 essays on it in 45 minutes.

I'm sure the reality is that most schools will take a Dickens lite approach as they currently do with Shakespeare and show the video, study the key sections and do a bit of looking at extracts. The exam questions almost encourage that. So Gradgrind Grove still won't get his turn back the clock scenario.

Why are people apparently waiting till Y10/11 to attempt to instil a love of literature in these kids? As if because OMAM is off the GCSE menu there is no hope and all is lost. What on earth are they doing in the years leading up to GCSE if it all hinges on what the exam boards come up with?

Anyway, what is English Lit GCSE for? If it is to teach analysis skills and assessing themes etc, then if kids are barely literate then they could learn the same skills through some sort of Film Studies (is that media studies?).

If it's to inspire a love of literature then four books is a bit of a failure.

People's reading habits and attitudes have changed since 1967!

Reading habits may have changed- yes.
Fewer people read.

But human nature hasn't changed and the content of many of the 'classics' still has resonance today- otherwise those books wouldn't still be in print.

BTW Gove didn't 'ban' these books: he made a comment and OM&M, and the boards responded.

Did I say they did bluestrawhat? The point is they read Dickens and enjoyed it.

'Why are people apparently waiting till Y10/11 to attempt to instil a love of literature in these kids?'

Who ever suggested that was the case?

I'm sure the reality is that most schools will take a Dickens lite approach as they currently do with Shakespeare and show the video, study the key sections and do a bit of looking at extracts.

Perhaps this is the real issue rather than what books are read.

My daughter didn't study a whole text for her GCSEs just extracts and video - definitely didn't encourage her to read other works by the authors or any other author.

Then what is your point mrz? Gove's vision is that the GCSE students WILL read every page and write 2 essays on a 19th century novel and 2 on a Shakepeare text in an hour and a half.

Do you really think that's going to be the thing to encourage a love of literature?

If you read all the posts and blogs and newsreports you can see that OM&M and Mockingbird speaks to generations of kids in a way that realistically 19th century texts just won't.

Don't get me wrong, I love 19th century novels. But I also live and teach in the real world.

I think students should read every page bluestrawhat and rather than worrying about what pupils are studying maybe we should be more concerned with the how.

'But human nature hasn't changed and the content of many of the 'classics' still has resonance today- otherwise those books wouldn't still be in print.'

This I agree with.

What a lot of people are saying is that OM&M and TKAM have that resonance.

In a way that 19th century novels may not for the WHOLE cohort of GCSE kids. Remember there is no CSE route.

Eh? Please explain mrz.

Well if students aren't reading whole texts only extracts and are simply watching videos to fill in the gaps then perhaps we need to rethink.

Blue, because apparently if these kids get to Y11 and are faced with one. Dickens novel, they may be put off literature for life. One can only suppose that no attempts to get them to enjoy literature can possibly have been made up till then, if one novel really is make or break.

18 hours to read Great Expectations the poster earlier said.

You have not got time to read it all in class. You cannot expect the kids to read it on their own.

Seriously, how would you do it? I'd like to see Gove try.

A school might only have 3 hours a week for Eng Lit AND Eng Lang a week.

And by the way you really need to see the language papers.

Because they are much harder than the lit.

That's ridiculous noble. Of course they do study literature before beginning GCSE. They probably don't study many nineteenth century novels before the age of 13 though.

We opted for Of Mice and Men (AQA) because of the time constraints imposed by controlled assessments in the current specification. We had previously taught Lord of the Flies and Mockingbird on the old GCSE. Unfortunately the current GCSE eats up a very significant amount of curriculum time in administering CAs and we had to take the pragmatic Steinbeck route to fit all the other course requirements in. I am sure this is a very big influencing factor on why so many English teams are currently opting for this text. We are all delighted to see the back of CAs in our department.

In the meantime our Y9s are enjoying Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies which we simply moved down a year. We'll continue with Mockingbird in Y9 and recycle our OMMs in KS3 as well once this spec ends.

I haven't decided which texts we'll teach in 2015. I am pleased that we can return to individual teachers selecting the set text they think that suits the interests of their class best, rather than the one size fits all approach we've had to adopt over recent years. I wish we had free choice in the Shakespeare play but I can see that would be tricky in question setting.

And, historically, that's because they spend the whole of year 9 preparing for the SATS tests which include a play by Shakespeare.