Unpopular Opinions

I never loved it, but I gave most of the texts a chance, at least... and the biggest difference I would say is that most students in my day (which wasn't that long ago!) understood that in order to pass, they would actually have to suck it up and read the book even if they hated it.

These days, the percentage of students who actually do the required reading is scarily low. Obviously, part of it is that Internet sources have become more and more rampant and more and more easily accessible in the past decade, and there are more recent and more accessible movie versions of many novels and plays that are studied, but part of it seems to me to be part of the culture of entitlement that many of today's students seem to be stuck in. I've actually had students get angry at me when they did badly on an essay, test or quiz after fully admitting that they didn't do the reading and only read the SparkNotes. They really seem to believe that the reading is optional and unfortunately, by the time they get to the higher secondary grades, most students have had at least a few bad teachers who have lent evidence to this belief by only assigning and marking work that would allow a surface-level Internet-source summary version understanding of the text to be more than sufficient.

Well, I've been teaching 25 years and have always had students who blamed me when they didn't do the work and got a bad grade. And in my day, students read Cliffs Notes and all my professors would gnash their teeth over it and try to find ways around that. Dr. M, for example, read all the Cliffs Notes for the works assigned in his classes looking for errors and watched all film versions of the same so he could catch students on quizzes. Dr. M is soooooooooo harrrrrrrrd, some of my classmates would whine. He wants you to read every little thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. He would often come into class and say, "Shall we have a group whine before we begin, so you can all get it out of your systems now?"

That was, I dunno, 30-odd years ago?

I always understood that when I didn't read something that was assigned, I was taking a risk and sometimes I paid for it, which I accepted as my due, but most of my students do that, too. But there's always a couple who consider it unreasonable to be asked to do work they don't want to do.

Which brings us to......

The iambic pentameter may be modern, but it is certainly not accessible to many of us. I sure as heck have no interest in reading it.

:huh:

As others have pointed out, meter is meter. When I teach introductory poetry, I teach students iambic pentameter by having them listen to The Proclaimers "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," as you can sing any poem written in strict iambic pentameter to the chorus ("Whose woods these are, I think I know/ His house is in the village, though/ He will not see me stopping here/ To watch his woods fill up with snow/ Da lat da.") We're not talking about anything sophisticated or difficult here.

Shakespeare wrote in unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is the meter most closely resembling the rhythm of normal human speech in English. The meter is easy. What most people complain about with Shakespeare is that the text is dense and the language is challenging. But since that doesn't appear to be your complaint, I will move on.

Um, I do understand that it is an academic discipline

Do you?

Could you provide a bit more detail about what you are interested in when you teach literature? What do you want your students to get out of your classes and out of the works you assign? What specific academic skills do you want them to cultivate?

There are many things, among them an understanding of culture, but since your objections seem to focus on analysis, I will also focus on that.

In my experience, they are analyzing meanings/motifs/contexts, which is fine,

Yes, we expect students to read works for meaning. Sometimes the texts are challenging. They are going to have to read a lot of things that are challenging as they go through college and they are going to have to figure out what those things mean. Some of them are going to go on to careers that require them to read difficult text and understand it.

except it can require rather a stretch of the imagination when a student doesn't care for a work, relate to it, or find anything of value in it.

Yes, we expect them to think and some of them find that very difficult.

But some of them also find math, biology, sociology, history, and just about anything else in the academic catalog to be difficult, irrelevant and lacking in value. And guess what? They have to do it all anyway. And while there are people who believe that they shouldn't have to do anything unless it is "relevant"--very popular idea, that--others see value in having students study those subjects whether they are relevant or not because they think those subjects by themselves have value--they help students understand the world, they teach students to think in disciplined, analytical ways, they open up new avenues of thought and understanding, etc.

As for what students care for, relate to, or value--that's very subjective. And since I can't read minds, I assign literature that reflects the pedagogical requirements of my courses. Since you appear to be complaining about introductory courses, my introductory lit classes focus on an overview of Western literature, which does indeed include Shakespeare; my purpose in the course as I see it is to introduce students to works that reflect the history and philosophy of Western culture and the human beings in it. Some introductory lit classes focus on elements of literature--plot, symbolism, theme, etc.--which teaches students (or attempts to teach them) how to break down a piece of text and analyze it logically, focusing on a particular element at a time. None of this requires a student to relate to a text; it requires a student to do academic work.

There are people who do not benefit from this at all. There are also students who do. Is there an academic discipline of which this is not true?

If they have to rely on other people's analyses to find meanings in seemingly meaningless works - meanings that seem always required to be 'hidden' or 'deep' - they are just copying rather than using their own mind.

They never have to plagiarize, although some of them think they do. Some of them do need some help finding meaning (which is never required to be all that deep or hidden in an introductory class, where we are generally grateful if students can figure out the most basic things). But the job of a tutor is to help the students find their own meanings, not to help them cheat.
 
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I
50 Shades of Grey - threw it at the wall;
DaVinci Code - liked the story, HATED his "writing";

ITA. I couldn't get through the first 10 pages of 50 Shades -- no interest whatsoever. And Dan Brown's writing is :scream:
 
When I was in college, I used to get into these really big arguments with people who seriously did not enjoy any class that required them to read literature and to analyze it. They felt that the professor only wanted them to regurgitate their opinions, but I never found that to be true in my experience. I think there is such a thing as off-base analysis, and even if you disagree with the meaning or intent of a work that the professor proffers (usually, it's analysis that has had some support in scholarly work even if other scholars disagree), I found that as long as you really did your reading and argue it well and find that support in the text, the professors tend to appreciate it. I think people mistake literature classes for classes where people can semi-read or read shallowly and can state whatever thought comes to them. I think initial reactions should be expressed and can be valid, but that in itself isn't enough.

It is not unlike when people would argue that professors that I had at my university promoted some "liberal" agenda and didn't welcome any conservative thought in my poli-sci or sociology courses. As a student who would observe such thought being expressed, it wasn't so much the fact that the opinion was more conservative that was the problem but it was their logic, argument, and lack of support in such things. I've seen more "lefty" opinions shot down for the same reason in my classes.
 
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I found that as long as you really did your reading and argue it well and find that support in the text, the professors tend to appreciate it.

Yep; no one expects students to have great original insights. Mostly we just want to see evidence that students read a text and thought about it.

My daughter struggled with interpretation in literature classes all through high school, so I taught her my down-and-dirty literature analysis 101, which covers common themes and symbols in Western lit. A couple of weeks ago, her People and Religion professor showed a clip of The Shawshank Redemption in class and asked them to identify something related to Christian baptism. And my daughter put her hand up and said, "When Andy stands in the rain and is washed clean, which means he is reborn outside the prison." Everyone was very impressed and the professor asked my daughter how she knew that. And Daughter said, "Because in Western literature, immersion in water usually means baptism and rebirth."

There was nothing at all original or particularly insightful about that (I mean, really, how could the rest of the class NOT see it?), but my daughter was able to take something she understood about literary analysis and apply it to a different work. She understood for the first time that Andy's struggle to escape prison, his crawl through the muck and sewage, and his cleansing in the rain was not just there because, but a plot line that demonstrates the influence of Christianity on Western culture. She was so impressed with this insight that she watched the whole movie last weekend and was surprised at all the Christian references she could see now that she had never noticed. As a child with an areligious upbringing, she had never truly understood that Christianity is so deeply imbedded in our culture that we don't even recognize it, which has given her a new perspective on many things.

She's not going to make any money from this sort of thing and she hasn't discovered something new to many of us, but I see value in that experience for her. And that would not have happened without Lit 101.

Is this going to happen to all students? Of course not. Is she ever going to use the differential equations she is now struggling through for math? Of course not. But somewhere along the way, she just might be able to take a problem she doesn't understand and break it down into steps and figure out a solution because she learned to approach problems that way. Or maybe she won't, but other students in her class will.

What else is education for?
 
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Well, here's what I've come up with. When it rains, I can't use an umbrella along with holding onto the walker. I usually have to wait until it stops raining before I can go to my mailbox or to town to a grocery store. By the time I get the walker unfolded out of the car, I'm drenched and totally wet. So I have to bring along a raincoat to keep the rain off of me. It still doesn't help with my walker getting soaked.

I've been in the process of thinking of an invention for the Walker of an umbrella holder. I've looked online several times, but there's nothing that will actually attach to the walker that will hold the umbrella the way I want it to. Then, I thought about the long cardboard tubes that gift wrapping paper come on. I would only need about a two foot length of the tube to secure on my walker. The end of my umbrella will actually fit in one of those tubes. Right now, all I can think of is to secure the other end with some strong adhesive tape like Gorilla tape. However, I would have to remove the long tube once I'm finished using it. If it works, though, I'll be tickled pink!

It would mean that I wouldn't have to wait anymore for it to stop raining to get out and do the things I need to do! If my idea works, I would definitely share it with others that have to use Walkers and wheelchairs! It's no fun getting soaked all the time.

That's my complaint, gripe for the day or whatever!
 
He would often come into class and say, "Shall we have a group whine before we begin, so you can all get it out of your systems now?"
OMG, he sounds awesome! :lol:

Here is my take on the whole "literature" thing...

Some people love to read and some don't. And some love to read only very specific stuff. As someone who loves to read, I have to say that I loved almost all the books I was assigned in HS and College English courses and even in the other classes with a lot of reading.

I do think there is something to be said for revisiting what is considered a classic every 10 years or so. And trying to pick books that are known to excite your target audience. But, the point of the class is to cover certain academic points and therefore there has to be assigned reading and any time you assign books, you know you aren't going engage everyone. Having students love the reading is a bonus, not the point.

Then, I thought about the long cardboard tubes that gift wrapping paper come on. I would only need about a two foot length of the tube to secure on my walker.
Won't cardboard turn to mush in the rain? You might want to look into clamps or PVC pipes instead.
 
OMG, he sounds awesome! :lol:

Here is my take on the whole "literature" thing...

Some people love to read and some don't. And some love to read only very specific stuff. As someone who loves to read, I have to say that I loved almost all the books I was assigned in HS and College English courses and even in the other classes with a lot of reading.

I do think there is something to be said for revisiting what is considered a classic every 10 years or so. And trying to pick books that are known to excite your target audience. But, the point of the class is to cover certain academic points and therefore there has to be assigned reading and any time you assign books, you know you aren't going engage everyone. Having students love the reading is a bonus, not the point.


Won't cardboard turn to mush in the rain? You might want to look into clamps or PVC pipes instead.
You're definitely correct if it gets wet. The tube would be underneath the umbrella when opened. I thought about also wrapping the tube with the gorilla tape or a tape that is waterproof. I guess I could get a piece of PVC pipe if I can find the right diameter and size that the umbrella will fit in. The tube is exactly the perfect size for my umbrella. The clamp sounds like a good idea, too. Thanks for that because I kept wondering how I would keep the pipe or tube in place. :)
 
History is the best subject ever.

I can not STAND Tom Cruise. Hate his acting, hate his voice blah. Only 2 movie worth a damn are Top Gun and Born on the 4th of July.

Can't stand talk shows. Any of them.

I am exceptionally impatient and sometimes really hate people and crowds. Which IMHO is a terrible trait for someone in social services to be so impatient.
 
That looks ideal, Angie
The price is reasonable enough for an "experiment."

Let us know if it works.
I'll definitely let you know. It's rained for the past two days here and still more rain to come. There was a break earlier and I was able to walk out to my mailbox with the walker before it started raining really heavy again. With that umbrella, I won't have to worry about waiting until it stops raining. At least that's what I'm hoping for! :)
 
I really dislike the term, "housewife.":yikes: I find it incredibly demeaning, especially to stay-at-home mothers.
I am not a house wife, I'm not married to my house. Together we make a home - not dependent on just me.

Sorry, I didn't know housewife/househusband is a term that is considered demeaning.

A homemaker.
From other posts here, it seems that this term has been used for a long time, but I'm actually not familiar it. Do some people dislike this word?
 
Dr. M, for example, read all the Cliffs Notes for the works assigned in his classes looking for errors and watched all film versions of the same so he could catch students on quizzes. Dr. M is soooooooooo harrrrrrrrd, some of my classmates would whine. He wants you to read every little thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. He would often come into class and say, "Shall we have a group whine before we begin, so you can all get it out of your systems now?"

Ha! I do the same thing, and some of my students whine in the same way about me. This is after I warn them that they will not be able to pass my quizzes by reading SparkNotes, and then they scoff on the inside and think they will get away with it anyway... until they fail the first quiz. :lol: I especially enjoy being able to pick out the ones who try to get away with just watching a movie version by putting a multiple choice question on a quiz which includes something that is only in the movie version and not in the novel.

But then it comes to the Shakespeare unit, and my students start bragging to their friends in other sections of the same course about how they know Macbeth well enough to ace the exam backwards and forwards, while the others are still staring at their teachers blankly when asked how a certain line relates to the motif of ambition in the play.
 
They never have to plagiarize, although some of them think they do. Some of them do need some help finding meaning (which is never required to be all that deep or hidden in an introductory class, where we are generally grateful if students can figure out the most basic things). But the job of a tutor is to help the students find their own meanings, not to help them cheat.

I don't mean copying in the sense of plagiarizing any words - I mean using others' interpretations to help make a sense of a work. And usually it is deep and hidden meanings that are sought in the introductory classes I've been exposed to, not just basic things. Not so 'somewhat obvious' as the insight your daughter had about The Shawshank Redemption.

Do you require/prefer your students to not do read any analyses of the works you assign? You mentioned about not liking Coles Notes.
 
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I don't mean copying in the sense of plagiarizing any words - I mean using others' interpretations to help make a sense of a work.

Plagiarism means using someone else's IDEAS as if they were your own, so if students are using interpretations you found on the web or your interpretations of works (which is, I believe, what you said earlier), that's plagiarism.

And usually it is deep and hidden meanings that are sought in the introductory classes I've been exposed to.

I have never heard of an introductory class being required to come up with deep and hidden meanings. In fact, I don't think I was ever instructed to find deep and hidden meanings at any time when I was taking literature classes until I was in grad school and was told "Not enough." Can you give me some specific examples?
 
Sorry, I didn't know housewife/househusband is a term that is considered demeaning.


From other posts here, it seems that this term has been used for a long time, but I'm actually not familiar it. Do some people dislike this word?

I do - it is reminiscent of the 50's, 60's and to some extent the early 70's when numerous books, artclies, discussions gave women advice on keeping the home a place where the man was free of the worries and stresses of the workplace, be readily available for his sexual needs, keeping the children well behaved and generally without an identity or person hood herself.

I am not married to my house nor am I responsible to keep our home. Our home is both of our responsibility, we share chores, we do our own laundry. I respect his worth as a person, he respects my worth as a person. We respect what each of us does, whether for pay (his) or my community volunteerism.

Yes I find both words distasteful
 
I am not married to my house nor am I responsible to keep our home. Our home is both of our responsibility, we share chores, we do our own laundry. I respect his worth as a person, he respects my worth as a person. We respect what each of us does, whether for pay (his) or my community volunteerism

I'm not sure how this role can be described as community volunteer, though... Are you doing volunteer activities that are useful to your community, instead of just your home? :confused:
 
Yes, I do many volunteer things for the community. Whether I am paid or unpaid does not matter. But try to put that on a census form or when you need to provide a profession or job on any form.

I am not a homemaker. That is putting the responsibility on a single stay at home person.
If someone is comfortable defining themselves that way, OK. But my home is the responsibility of both of us.
 
I have never heard of an introductory class being required to come up with deep and hidden meanings. In fact, I don't think I was ever instructed to find deep and hidden meanings at any time when I was taking literature classes until I was in grad school and was told "Not enough." Can you give me some specific examples?

Charles Fraser's novel 'Cold Mountain' framed in terms of happiness envisioned (the character of Inman) versus day-to-day happiness (the character of Ada). This was not an obvious framework at all.

The short story 'Everything In this Country Must' by Colum McCann. I thought it was a coming-of-age story about a young Irish girl who had a crush on a British solider. The deeper meaning was that the story was about the British-Irish conflict.

The short story 'The Prospect from Silver Hill' by Jim Crace. I thought it was about a lonely, tormented man who was going mad. The apparent hidden theme was the abuse and destruction of nature.

The short story 'A Family Supper' by Kazuo Ishiguro is another.
 
I am not a homemaker. That is putting the responsibility on a single stay at home person.
If someone is comfortable defining themselves that way, OK. But my home is the responsibility of both of us.

I work full time but I'm still a homemaker. No one else makes it. I pay for it, I decorate it, I clean it.

Probably "stay at home" mom, wife, husband, works better IMO.
 
My Chinese literature teacher taught Chinese drama the dumb way too which is why I didn't get it.
I'm an English teacher, and I have to argue with this opinion. I hate the way most teachers teach Shakespeare, because as an actor who has acted in Shakespearean plays many times myself, I believe that Shakespeare is a living work and is best enjoyed and understood when seen on stage. One of my pet peeves in life is teachers who make students memorize Shakespeare and then give them marks for having the words perfect, without giving any thought to meaning, phrasing, emotional interpretation, etc.

However, I believe Shakespeare can be taught well without actually turning an English class into a drama class, and I think most, if not all, Shakespearean plays have universal themes that make them still relevant today. Also, I question the idea of current = relevant; we always try to introduce new novels and other current works of literature into the curriculum (when there is money to do so... don't get me started on that!), but the percentage of kids who actually read the whole book and don't whine about hating it is usually exactly the same as the percentage who read the book when it's an older classic. Most kids these days are automatically inclined to hate anything they're "forced" to read for school and read SparkNotes or other online sources rather than actually reading the book.
 
I was never graded on my ability to memorize Shakespeare lines. Not even in my English classes that were more drama classes. I think I got lucky.
 
Charles Fraser's novel 'Cold Mountain' framed in terms of happiness envisioned (the character of Inman) versus day-to-day happiness (the character of Ada). This was not an obvious framework at all.

That sounds fairly straightforward to me, but...

The short story 'Everything In this Country Must' by Colum McCann. I thought it was a coming-of-age story about a young Irish girl who had a crush on a British solider. The deeper meaning was that the story was about the British-Irish conflict.

The short story 'The Prospect from Silver Hill' by Jim Crace. I thought it was about a lonely, tormented man who was going mad. The apparent hidden theme was the abuse and destruction of nature.

The short story 'A Family Supper' by Kazuo Ishiguro is another.

According to whom? Were these interpretations you found on the web or what professors required the students to say in papers? What did the students think?

Let me rephrase my question--what assignments specifically asked students to find deep or hidden themes and in what way were the students required to find one specific theme?
 
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Dirty Dancing is dumb and the story seemed ridiculously serious and I never liked any music from Footloose.
 

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