[etni] Re: literature
- From: judy <judyewc@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 12:43:33 +0200
One of us wrote: *Our aim is to get the students to understand literature
and appreciate the great works.
*What* *does that even mean?* *How do we know that someone "understands"
literature? When he agrees with our interpretation, or the one we learned in
high school? * *
And who really decides what is a "great work"?* * Jane Austen's work
reflected her times, and so does Douglas Adams', and Kurt Vonnegut's, and
Barbara Pym's Who knows which, if any, are truly great? I see some "works
of literature" in 3 and 4 point books that I think are a wase of time. On
the other hand, our older literature collections suggest that nothing of
worth has been written either in the last 50 years or in the Southern
hemisphere. And in English class, should we be teaching translated
literature (we have a few of those in the books)?
This is such a complex issue, and it deserves a process of thinking and
discussion that the kids could be part of. Instead both we and the Hebrew
literature departments just try to jazz up the lists once in a while. In
Hebrew literature the situation is worse: the teachers care less about the
kids' understanding or learning from the literature than they do about the
kids' knowing who the great writers are and loving them unconditionally (the
phrase* "*nichsei tzon barzel" is bandied about regularly by literature
teachers). Oh, and everyone should be able to reel off a list of genres to
you.
You wouild think that with such a wealth to choose from, we could carry on a
dynamic process of finding, testing, using and sharing age-appropriate
literature from which the students could actually learn about themselves,
their lives, their culture as opposed to other places and times, about the
experiences of being human that writers have undertaken to describe, clarify
and comment on for us. You would think that literature would be the most
fun of both teaching and learning English. Or at least, I would think so.
Apparently I'm wrong.
Judy Cohen
--
"Music will save the world." Pablo Casals
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