19th century novels for GCSE English....

[Hakluyt]

What do people think about this? In the new GCSE English syllabus, students will have to study a 19th Century novel. I think the choice is Great Expectations, The War of the Worlds, Jane Eyre, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Pride and Prejudice. (I might have missed a couple)

I suspect this is really going to stymie our school and our kids- they really need the C (or equivalent) for all sorts of things, but for the lower end of the ability range- which most of our kids are- are really going to struggle with the language.

I think studying whole books, rather than extracts is a fantastic idea, but there are so many wonderful books that are much more accessible. What's so special about the 19th century anyway?

If we stopped thinking of literature as something you have to care about, and identify with, and that the mark of its quality or worth is whether it is relatable (vomit) we might be able to get somewhere. We don't worry about whether kids can identify with Pythagoras, or whether Bunsen burners are relatable: why does English lit rise or fall on whether it has anything to say to the youth of today? It's not a fair measure.

^

Yes. In spades.

Hi piece - I think we need a new thread! How on earth will we get them through it?! We will, of course. Somehow ...

ilove - English Lit GCSE isn't mandatory, is it? When did that happen?!

officer - I bet. We were the same with Mice and Men.

I think they should read 'old' books because it genuinely is broadening - it's teaching you different lit crit skills from those you can exercise on a novel that's closer to you in language/culture.

But then, I think literature from other English-speaking cultures does an equally valuable (but different) thing in that respect, and the Scarlet Letter would be great.

TheOriginal ... 'relatable' gives me the shudders as a term, but I don't see why it's a bad thing to say you ought to learn to be interested in literature. Obviously you don't have to love every book you study, but if they all bore you to tears while seemingly imply you're just not intellectual enough to understand, that's not great either.

It strikes me this is a risk with a lot of these. Ok, Dickens could be called a popular writer, but Austen is writing stuff that is full of class snobberies. If you get them, fine. If you don't, you're just read an old book that's full of class in-jokes your teacher is telling you are funny and you don't get.

But it shouldn't be about whether you love them or whether you find them boring: it's not a book group! No other subject is asked to worry about this; why should English lit have to be the exception?

DD did To Kill a Mocking Bird in Y8, Great Expectations in Y9 and is doing The Crucible, Much Ado and various others for GCSE (Y11 now).

I remember doing Of Mice and Men, MacBeth, Far From the Madding Crowd and some others for O level. On the whole, I think it's pretty much of a muchness between her texts and mine.

Nothing in the list the op has given seems particularly out of it. I'd rather they read things like Gormenghast or Cold Comfort Farm, but they're not 19th century.

Yes, original, I did say you don't have to love them!

Are we not agreeing here?

I think all subjects worry about boring students, though. Have you ever met a teacher who grins and says 'well, my subject is very boring for them, and I could make it interesting, but I just tell them it's biology/geography/music and then, of course, they don't mind being bored!'

Literature as a subject rather than a pastime, is pretty niche. I bloody hated English Lit. I read voraciously as a child and as a teen, but having to analyse styles, identify themes and whatever it is you're meant to do for Eng Lit gcse left me cold, and ruined more than one book for me.

And as for 19th century 'classics'

I couldn't finish Heart of arsing Darkness, which is bloody short, years later as an undergrad.

Yes, I do see about the liking and not liking.

It's not just Eng Lit, btw. I asked a group of journalism students a while back to analyse various features. One bloke - admittedly not the sharpest tool in the box and heaven knows why he was doing the class at all - said "I read it but it didn't interest me much". Er, I didn't give it to you to entertain you, but to ask how it worked.

I know geographers don't think their subject is boring (though, to digress, I would massively disagree with them ): I don't think it's boring to analyse literary texts, it's just I don't have to actually like them to do it.

The equivalent would be more: pupils don't really identify with cliffs, because they mainly live in cities, so we shouldn't risk turning them off and losing their passion by studying coastal erosion.

If reading is a good hobby to have, and of personal benefit, and that's about the size of it, then it shouldn't have to be a compulsory GCSE any more than singing, or painting, or musical appreciation. If, on the other hand, it's an academic subject which is intellectually useful, it shouldn't have to justify itself on the basis of how much children like or can identify with the raw materials for study and analysis. I think the problem with English Lit though is that most people, reasonably enough, think of reading as a leisure activity you either enjoy or you don't, and of course it's one where you can, when doing it for your own pleasure, direct your interest based on your enjoyment. It's an odd and difficult overlap to manage.

Oh, no, sorry, that's not what I meant.

I meant, I think people teaching other subject do worry about how to make students feel engaged. Not by saying 'we shouldn't do coastal erosion,' but I constantly hear maths teachers worrying that students on a C level are struggling to see the real-world relevance of simultaneous equations and they need to be explained so it's clear how they relate to day-to-day life. Same with other subjects.

There is no problem with students disliking a text. I can write great lit crit on things I hate and, actually, I think that can be a way to help a student who is struggling. It can be very freeing to analyse why you think Dickens is writing turgid, sentimental prose clotted with lumpen syntax.

But being bored is a bit different, IMO. There are some books where you have to be very good to get much out of them - or, you can write really dull responses and get more bored. And I think some of the books on the list are like that.

Mind you, it could be worse. We had to do the godawful 'Snow falling on cedars' for A Level.

Yeah... I see that. I don't know, I just worry that teachers and exam setters have to worry too much about what is engaging, and the problem with that is that it usually second-guesses wrongly.

'Of Mice and Men' doesn't really 'speak' to year 10s either, I would think - though does have the advantage of being fairly easy to read. And it's not that I think that children should be forced to work on stuff just because people like Gove think it is A Good Thing. It's just if you're bound by what you think will fire them up, you're limited and a bit doomed, because you're unlikely to guess right.

I wouldn't mind if you studied characters in one book, plot in another and descriptive writing in a third and then, like DD1 did with poetry, used all these skills on an unseen text.

It's minutely dissecting one (usually awful) book that guaranteed to put DCs off reading for life.

It also makes the exam a pure test of boredom tolerance and memory.

I agree with elephants - the page by page, phrase by phrase dissection and rote learning around a set text must kill the joy of reading. DD did one novel, one poem and one play to death in a year at school. In the same year we did Hamlet, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, a selection of poems by DH Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, TS Elliot and short stories by George Orwell and others. Is it a coincidence that I love reading and she doesn't (and I did better in the equivalent exam)? I admit that we did not study our set novels in class because our teacher believed the novel was a second rate literary form and did not deserve class time (I said before he was eccentric, but also inspirational). Maybe the question is why novels at all?

Yes, I take that point original.

"it's a big ask for the 40% of our pupils who are low attainers."

It should be a big ask for your low attainers. If it isn't difficult even for low attainers it's not a qualification worth having except for those taking basic "life skills" exams at level 1 because GCSE is far too hard for them.

I don't think a child who isn't capable of reading and understanding The Sign Of Four or War of the Worlds should be given a GCSE grade C in Eng Lit. Not because I don't think low attainers are capable of anything at all, but because a GCSE at grade C and above should be a mark of having studied a subject for two years and reached a reasonably competent standard and someone who can't cope with a standard novella hasn't done that.

Of Mice And Men isn't exactly long and tedious either.

Well they shouldn't love OMAM: it's full of bloody rape myths!

What does that mean, coolas? Surely that's not a surprise to you?

Because of the rape myths. Yes.

But what was your response? Apart from 'right'