A Give and Take on Caufield

This evening, while poking around my Google Reader, I came across this article in Good Magazine:

Anne Trubek on Why We Shouldn’t Still Be Learning Catcher in the Rye

Naturally, I was intrigued and so I read the piece and continued on to the comments where I found the following:

THE ORIGINAL COMMENT POSTED:

I first read Catcher in the Rye three years ago when I was a freshman in high school, and I honestly believe that Catcher in the Rye is far more appealing to adolescents than any of the books that you have listed.

No other book can resonate with so many adolescents. Look at the books in your "revised syllabus." The characters of these books are "Dominican adolescents," a "teenage outcast" who falls mute, "two eighth-graders in a Columbine-style school massacre," a daughter who must deal with "life on the road," "a scholarship boy with literary ambitions," etc. How could any of these characters be 'relatable' to a wide range of teenagers? Having experienced the displeasure of reading these books, and others like them, I can firmly state that none of the characters within them resonated with me, or the majority of my peers.

Holden's problem is simple. He isn't ready to accept the world for what it is. That is the essence of adolescence, and the reason for his timelessness.

As I moved on to the next article in my RSS Feed, I felt that gnawing little compulsion to respond and decided that I've let enough of these comments by in my life and I can spare the few moments to tell this commenter what I think. I am sensitive to the fact that he is an incoming high school senior.

MY RESPONSE:

I would like to comment on this statement:
The characters of these books are "Dominican adolescents", a "teenage outcast" who falls mute, "two eighth-graders in a Columbine-style school massacre," a daughter who must deal with "life on the road," "a scholarship boy with literary ambitions," etc. How could any of these characters be 'relatable' to a wide range of teenagers?

To respond, none of the identities listed are any more isolated or less relatable than that of a privileged white man. In fact, I would argue that the alienation felt across identities of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and even environment makes these characters more relatable and even challenges readers to connect with characters on a number of levels.

I appreciate that you spoke to your personal experience with these books and with Catcher in the Rye, but I would also say that the conflicts in these other books are no less universal than Caufield's.

I am grateful for a few suggested alternatives to Catcher in the Rye as - while I acknowledge its importance - I am also sensitive to the importance of having diversity among the authors and characters represented in any English literature curriculum.

Speaking of Inaccessible...

Today, I removed myself from the confines and distractions of my living room (normal work space) and hiked up to the library to work on annotating the MA Curriculum Frameworks. Before today, I have been making pencil notes in the margins for each of the Strands. Today I created a (rather) kick-ass template to document my curriculum notes and lesson plan ideas, which you can see here:So, as I'm working through this, I keep coming across pieces of information that are difficult to decipher. An example:

5.23 Identify simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. Forgive me, but I do not know how to do that... Another example:

5.24 Identify nominalized, adjectivial, and adverbial clauses.

or

5.25 Recognize the functions of verbals: participles, gerunds, and infinitives.

Now I am confident that I will be able to figure these things out (and they aren't all a complete mystery - I can identify a gerund in most circumstances), but how will I present this to the class without boring them to tears? With some help from the spouse, I have settled on two possible approaches. The first option is to divide the class into small groups, assigning each group one of these to research thoroughly, once they can tell you as much about a gerund as they can about last night's episode of Gossip Girl, then they will teach the class through some creative act (i.e. a skit). The second option, though really it's just part two of this lesson, is to have students bring in the lyrics to a favorite song or, if they prefer, a poem. In small groups, we will identify all of these things in their selected text and consider (in writing) the impact and function of said items. 

Now, there are also strands like:

5.30 Identify, describe, and apply all conventions of standard English. 

I don't want to be nit picky, but this seems vague. Maybe I've spent too much time with these today or maybe I'm approaching bitter, but this reads like a cop out. Aren't there hundreds of books written on this very thing? I understand that it is challenging to layout everything students should learn in a mere 130 pages, but there are some glaring issues here:

• The assumptions made about the prior knowledge that the teacher should have. (There are many readings referenced that I have never read nor heard of, in some cases. I am a more-rounded-than-average reader, or I thought I was.)
• The belief that being able to identify a gerund is a crucial component to a rounded English Language Arts education. 
• The language used to describe some of these Strands is often too vague to hammer down or too dense to crack open. (In defense of the Department of Education, I should also say that many of these are well worded and have explicative - if boring - examples of classroom activities.) 
  

My next step, after slogging through the second half of the curriculum, will be to find all the ways that these strands can overlap and to find engaging ways to teach them. I'll be digging my smoke and mirrors out of storage tomorrow.