Set texts at school

[MillyR]

Sorry that this is a bit of a thread about a thread, but in education there is a thread discussing Of Mice and Men still being a set text at GCSE. Nobody has mentioned in that thread that it is a book about a man killing a woman. As Steinbeck wrote:

She is 'not a person, she's a symbol. She has no function, except to be a foil ? and a danger to Lennie.'

This is in addition to 'Atonement' and "To Kill A Mocking Bird' both being set texts. In both of these a woman makes false accusations about who is the rapist. So in all three books a woman is harmed but we are pushed towards sympathising with a male character.

I am just wondering if this has a bit of an impact. When I was at school we did 'The Color Purple' and it had a major impact on me. I know these books must be looked at critically in schools, but criticising the books doesn't really cancel out the impact of the stories. Of Mice and Men is particularly sentimental and melodramatic so designed to move the reader to care about the killer.

Did anybody study these books at school, or teach them?

We did Persuasion - yawnsome for a 15 year old - quite like it now - but to study it chapter by chapter is quite hard when bugger all happens.

We also did the Mayor of Casterbridge - who sells his wife in a card game but it's ok because he was drunk and he never touches the bottle again ....

Meanwhile at home i was reading Orlando - which i would love to have studied at school ....

I had amazing English teachers (I owe them a lot).

We did Wife of Bath, Duchess of Malfi, Antony and Cleopatra, the Colour Purple and Oranges are not the Only Fruit (and Snow Falling on Cedars, which I think we all agreed was crap). IMO it worked ok that there were more male than female authors because the female characters are so important and interesting and central.

I agree with UMS that Bronte, Austen, and Elliot are a bit dry at that age. I think it's important to do texts about women, as well as texts by women, especially if they're texts that are really good to study.

I was in tears in mice and men

tbh hes a severley mentally disabled man I felt more sorry for george having to kill him

what do yoiu think it has an impact on?

What do you think what has an impact on? (Sorry, I'm just not awake yet!).

For me - when I read that - we weren't taught to ask why Steinbeck wrote it like that, and I wish we had been. Later on we did texts where we were asking why you'd write texts they way they were, and I think that's a really good skill for a feminist to have. I think the fact Steinbeck writes Lenny and makes you sympathize with him far more than with Curly's wife is quite scary, in retrospect, but I didn't realize it when I was 13 or so.

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UMS, I'm confused about whether you are listing A level or GCsE texts.

NormanTebbit, I agree with LRD. I don't want DS to sit around reading sexist books and then study them from a feminist perspective. I just want him to get to read some books that are not sexist and some that are about women.

Not sure who posted about this, but 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' is already on the WJEC set text list for GCSE. Having said that, WJEC is known to be a more difficult exam board, and so is less popular with state schools in England. You might be right that it is too difficult for many pupils at GCSE.

Looks much improved from my A level days at least, UMS - IIRC we studied:

Conrad (Nostromo)
Milton
the Metaphysical poets (mainly Donne)
Ben Jonson (Volpone)
and Chaucer

can't get much more DWM that that.

To be slightly fair, because of timetable problems, I ended up studying English at the local boys' school, but you would think even 18 y/o boys could have coped with one female author.

(Actually, to be even more fair, I loved the selection apart from the Conrad, and as someone who spent most of her teen years reading feminist books was grateful to have read books I would never have come to on my own.)

Oh, and how could I forget, we also studied Marlowe (Dr Faustus)

I did Of Mice and Men in school for O-Grade, 30 or so years ago I suppose now. Even then, and with teachers who weren't particularly feminist, I can remember a discussion about why Curly's wife was described the way she was, why she didn't even get a name, what the author was doing by describing her the way he did.

I don't recall any discussion of the idea she was "asking for it", but we certainly looked at how authors choose to describe characters and events, and how that affects the overall story.

I thought that was the norm for studying English?

For AS and A2 we did: Shakespeare X 3 (Hamlet, Othello and The Tempest), Tennyson, Brian Friel (Translations), Tennessee Williams (Streetcar), Louis de Bernières (Captain Corelli) and finally Kate Chopin (Awakening and short stories).

But even with Kate Chopin I seem to recall we looked at it from a historical and racial/cultural perspective rather than a feminist one. The teacher even mocked the feminist aspects in passing. What a wasted opportunity amongst all the rest of that male dominated stuff.

I hated English Lit.

But I've just found the specification from the time and we could have done Aphra Behn, Caryl Churchill, Gillian Clarke, Elizabeth Jennings, Margaret Atwood, Iris Murdoch, Carol Ann Duffy, Carol Shields. Plus Austen, Shelley, Emily Bronte and Gaskell.

Now I know they're not all feminist writes per se, but at least it would have been better than just the one. And I had no idea we could even have done. The other two A level groups did nothing written by a woman. Unit 5 had 21 writers listed - only one woman. We also only had to done one Shakespeare play, there was a massive choice for the A2 module.

I know you can study anything from a feminist perspective, but I think it's a disgrace that in 2003 we had to study 8 texts and only one was by a woman, and 2/3 of my year had 8 men.

AmuminScotland, yes, discussing the text is the norm for English. I'm not disputing that. My point is that I think schools can (and frequently do) select a combination of sexist books, and rather than spend discussion after discussion talking about that sexism with the pupils, I'd rather they just selected fewer sexist books from the choices available!

An analogy would be to set Mao's Little Red Book and the Communist Manifesto as the core set texts for History. Of course it is a History course and the pupils will be taught to be critical of sources, but I'd rather they just chose a balanced range of sources to begin with.

Greythorne I think it is entirely possible tonliok at feminist themes in Mice and Men, but am not a teacher.

I studied GCSE eng lit 20 years ago and chose Grace Nicholls' poetry and Margaret Atwood the edible woman for an extended essay.

We also considered the race dynamics in a Paul Theroux short story, religious themes in Lord of the Flies and the female characters in A Taste of Honey

Our school eng lit department was erm progressive though

At GCSE we were marginally better off. We did at least compare and contrast "The Seduction" by Eileen McAuley and "Cousin Kate" by Christina Rosetti.

Other than that I remember Of Mice and Men, An Inspector Calls and Macbeth.

Oh, I have remembered that for AS/A2 we also had a poetry anthology: 8/29 were by women in the Post-1770 section, and (unsurprisingly) only 2:25 for Pre-1770. And I just looked through it and none of my notes seem to deal with women's issues/feminism. It's all stuff like "use of naturalistic imagery", "emphasis on vowels". There's one small note on Christina Rosetti's "Remember" - he will no longer control her - I think that was it. :(

I agree, 3 sexist texts seems lacking in variety! But do schools often choose such a narrow range from the overall selection? That seems like a bad idea from the point of view of answering exam questions, never mind the sexism which the children are absorbing from a constant dripfeed.

Apologies for rubbish typing!

amd LRD - you think you Shouldn't critically analyse a text because as a feminist you don't agree with it's themes? Even though it is situated in a certain time and expresses those values? Even though it is a work of great literature?
Of course you can examine it from a feminist perspective?

If you pursue the line that literature must adhere to a certain set of modern values or be banned then I guess Heart of Darkness is out, Merchant of Venice too.

I don't know how common it is. I am getting the impression it is common. DS will certainly be doing both Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mocking Bird in year 10.

Part of it will be due to the expense of books, and schools will want to buy books that they know will remain as set texts for many years to come.

I could nit pick about lots of it. Touching the Void is now a set text choice for GCSE as it 'appeals to boys.' It is an entertaining book but I wouldn't consider it to be of a quality worth studying.

Perhaps all of this just means that students have to take responsibility to read more widely themselves, but as DS mainly reads Robert Muchamore, he could do with some variety at school!

You're so right, OP.

I think it's made worse by the fact that, IMO, Mice and Men has been chosen because its 'key themes' are pretty clear - certainly in terms of what Steinbeck wants the reader to take from the book. And from what I can see, GCSE English is very much about 'what does the writer want the reader to learn, and how does the writer go about making the reader understand this'.

(It then comes as a shock for anyone who does Eng Lit at degree level, that we are NOT just interested in writer-message/moral-reader, and there might be a bit more you can say about a text than that, but I digress.....)

I think if you had a group of lower ability students in year 11, you would really struggle to get them to think about a text in terms of what the writer didn't say, or didn't mean to say, if that makes sense. It is obviously going to be easier to focus on how Steinbeck makes the reader feel sympathy with Lennie/George.

But the more I think about it, the worse it is. And yet that book has only ever been controversial because it has been thought to encourage euthanasia .

All the endless prefiguring about how much Lennie likes to pet things and he pets them too much and they die..... dodgy stuff.

Normantebbit, nobody has suggested it should be banned! It is a question of balance across the curriculum.

I'm not convinced Of Mice and Men is a work of great literature anyway. It is just a more polished version of internet fanfic angst, which is probably why it appeals to the teenager in all of us.

I don't think OMAM is especially great lit either - it's very crass and point-hammered-home stuff. Which, as I say, is why I think it was probably chosen.

'sexist books'

Bloody hell. Children deserve to read great literature and to be challenged to think critically about it. And they are capable of it and tackling these situated assumptions of 'sexism of rape, unwanted pregnancy, racism etc
It is not beyond them. These issues are as salient to teens as they were when these books were written

So was Joseph Conrad a racist?

Yes, but they also deserve to read great literature that genuinely reflects the experiences of most of the population, rather than just constantly hearing what some white men think about the rest of the population.