The Sword and Laser discussion
Did you get to read fantasy in school?
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As far as grade school No I don't think we did much fantasy or scifi but I did on my own.In high school though I remember reading a lot of good stuff like Stranger in a Strange Land which was for a Sociology class. And The Odyssey, and horror classics by Poe, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Picture of Dorian Gray we had a really great English teacher
No! I wish. My best friend however went to a different high school, and a lot of his reading material was speculative fiction, particularly sci-fi and fantasy. I believe he studied: LotR, Alice In Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Dune and Ender's Game. Arg, I feel like I'm missing something in that list. Anyway, I thought it was cool. And he has seemed more interested in the genres since then. Pretty nifty in my opinion.
I think lucked out a lot in school. My fourth grade teacher had us reading A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the 6th grade we had Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Freshman year of high school I was REALLY lucky, my English teacher was really into SF having us read Ender's Game, The Martian Chronicles, and The Giver. I also found out a few month ago that she went to school with John Scalzi. Sophomore year had Animal Farm. Junior year had Cat's Cradle. My senior year we were reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
I'm almost glad I didn't read any in school. The way most schools teach literature sucks all the joy and indeed meaning from a work, all in the name of teaching appreciation. I think had I not been in a situation for a while where reading was the only form of entertainment, I may have never realized it can be entertainment. Even still it took me a long time to realize I liked some of what they thrust upon us, and had SF and F had been tarred with the same brush as Nathaniel Hawthorn so much of my life would have turned out so differently.
I seem to remember a number of Newbery award winners sneaking into some English classes, in particular:A Wrinkle in Time
Bridge to Terabithia
The High King
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbery_...
I can remember reading some during elementary school, but not so much in middle school-high school (other than Greek myths in 10th Grade).
It wasn't until I was an undergrad before I read SF or fantasy in an academic setting. I took a "Women in Science Fiction" course. It was pretty dang amazing.
Most were a pretty typical reading list stuff - the ones that are only marginally considered part of the genre.Brave New World, 1984, The Giver, A Christmas Carol, Beowulf, The Odyssey, Idylls of the King, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Metamorphosis, Inferno, etc.
The two real stand outs were Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man and the time I used The Mists of Avalon as a modern classic for a report.
Trike wrote: "Jenelle wrote: "Alas, probably won't happen. Book clubs would work, but you can never seem to find book clubs for those types of books, either. Most book clubs circle around genres I have no intere..."Trike - I will have to look into that at our library... thanks for the suggestion!
My 5th grade teacher read us The Eye of the Dragon by Stephen King. It wasn't until I read it as an adult that I realized what he had edited out for our young minds.
High school was a very strict English literature - no science fiction or fantasy.In junior high, we were encouraged to read across genre (probably realizing that it was more important for us to read than not).
Books I remember reading for class (by choice): Dandelion Wine, Fahrenheit 451.
We were required to read The Odyssey(which I loved) and Flowers for Algernon. Middle school also featured a number of short stories like All Summer in a Day.
In 4th grade, we had Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMHand A Wrinkle in Time.
Kenneth wrote: "Absolutely not.Fantasy and SF were not considered "literature" when I was in school. I did read many classic SF/F at that time in my life, but not in class. We were forced to slog through such bo..."
I think some of the YA out there is very well written and learning to analysis it is good for students. Teaching them how to discuss books. But it should be done as book discussions and persuasive essays and creative projects of their own choosing for the most part. Not like some of the old school ways some of may have learned before.
Trike wrote: "I can't recall ever reading anything SF/F beyond Shakespeare, who gets special dispensation in that regard.I don't think we even read A Christmas Carol, despite reading every other da..."
We didn't either but I read it on my own and found it better in original format to some of the kid friendly versions though I do still enjoy the muppet version best for movie versions.
Christopher wrote: "I'm almost glad I didn't read any in school. The way most schools teach literature sucks all the joy and indeed meaning from a work, all in the name of teaching appreciation. I think had I not been..."I think teachers just need to adapt how they teach it to make it more fun. Since kids today are all over facebook talking about books in our genres. they need to make it not seem so formal. Take a more relaxed approach to it in some ways. Make it more about creativity and exploring the books as fans and not critics.
I remember in Elementary School having teachers read me Roald Dahl and A Wrinkle In Time. In Fifth Grade I read Jurassic Park the original novel and understood it fairly well. Freaked my teacher out that I did. Middle School through High School was all about the classics and Shakespeare. Though we did get to see the Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo And Juliet. It gave me better appreciation for both and some of them I did end up liking.
Now starting out college so far I have done a paper on Dystopian Science fiction through the ages on the genre over the last 35 years. Which is a start. And all through my school years and in between I have read the genres in my free time.
Christopher wrote: "I think some of the YA out there is very well written and learning to analysis it is good for students. Teaching them how to discuss books. But it should be done as book discussions and persuasive essays and creative projects of their own choosing for the most part."I think that this is a very good point. A curriculum defined in terms of content - 'you should read these books' - is going to put people off learning and off that content, as well as not being great at developing what matters. One built around skills - 'you should learn to analyse the themes of fiction' - and that lets pupils pick their own books to analyse will foster enthusiasm for learning and for reading, as well as developing useful skills.
Andrew wrote: "Christopher wrote: "I think some of the YA out there is very well written and learning to analysis it is good for students. Teaching them how to discuss books. But it should be done as book discuss..."Exactly and I have friends that I use these skills with all the time for fun. But the way they do it in schools makes it seem so dreary and no fun at all to do. We see people of all ages using them all over facebook now in book groups and even here. I think not only is it important to have the curriculum be about skills but also be enjoyable.
Nope, only "serious" literature in my classes in Germany i'm afraid. Students of Germanistik(german language university course) can be such pretentious twats. That was early to mid nineties though.
Only once. My 7th-grade English teacher assigned us to read THE HOBBIT. I'd already read it, but reading it again with my class was a phenomenal experience.
I'm surprised no one else got to read Redwall. I think that was Fifth grade? Maybe fourth? That became one of the only fantasy series I had access to growing up, other than Lewis and Tolkien. So thanks, whichever grade school teacher made that decision!
Rob wrote: "I'm surprised no one else got to read Redwall. I think that was Fifth grade? Maybe fourth? That became one of the only fantasy series I had access to growing up, other than Lewis and Tolkien. So ..."
I may not have gotten to read Redwall in school but I enjoy it a lot to this day and still have to finish the series.
I didn't have any official school sanctioned F/SF reading in school, but my 9th grade English teacher saw that I read a lot of it, so she loaned me copies of the first 2 Wheel of Time books and a heavily noted copy of Nova by Samuel R Delany. I owe her a lot for that!
7th or 8th grade- so that takes the wayback machine to the early 70's.The Hobbit - we even got to perform part of it in class i was dwarf.
there was not much around then- worm orobours, gormenghast,
we'd already read wrinkle in time, tame stuff for me was already reading the golden age greats
@Trike my 4th grade teacher went on a major A Christmas Carol bender. We went to the play as a class, read the book AND were assigned to watch the new tv movie version w/George C. Scott in late 1984.That's the only fantasy I remember reading all through K-12th grade. This may be partly because I went to Lutheran schools the whole time. We weren't taught that fantasy/sci-fi were the devil's work or anything goofy like that, but I can see them simply not thinking those types of stories were a viable choice to educate kids.
I mostly stayed away from fantasy in my free-time reading as a kid. My mom had a serious horror fixation, so I was constantly trying not to think about werewolves/vampires/ghosts/etc. when she wasn't talking about them or making me watch stuff like Salem's Lot on tv!
No, I was actually turned off from reading while in school.
Rejo wrote: "I didn't have any official school sanctioned F/SF reading in school, but my 9th grade English teacher saw that I read a lot of it, so she loaned me copies of the first 2 Wheel of Time books and a h..."Wow! Talk about an awesome teacher!
@AdrienneIn my experiences with American Protestant culture, fantasy and scifi aren't *completely* rejected *unanimously* but there is a great amount of unease towards them. A vague puritanical "reading is good only if it's improving yourself, not just for pleasure" notion has survived, so reading either has to teach you something or make you a better person ethically. All fiction is kind of looked at as "if it's not true, how can it be worth anything. Also, isn't that LYING?" And then fantasy and scifi get this in spades.
The only crusaded-against things were Harry potter, Pokemon, and dnd (though the more radical segments spoke out against lord of the rings) but yeah, in general it's not a thing a American Protestantism is comfortable with.
Rob wrote: "@AdrienneIn my experiences with American Protestant culture, fantasy and scifi aren't *completely* rejected *unanimously* but there is a great amount of unease towards them. A vague puritanical "..."
That's a really interesting point. I recognise that part of the snobbery comes from an idea that fantasy and sf somehow aren't 'real' literature, but I hadn't thought about how that connected into valuing hard work over enjoyment.
While I sometimes like to read a book that challenges me and forces me to think, sometimes there's as much skill in writing a book that easily engages and excites the reader. It seems like some people undervalue that skill because it's not forcing the reader to work as hard as the writer.
Don't forget that the reverses is also true. Not all works by 'real' authors are works of literature. Notably some Hemingway is only considered to be about 4th or 5th grade reading.
I don't think I had read any sci-fi/fantasy until my senior year when I had to read 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 as part of an essay comparing the books while also contrasting them. The overall theme though was to create an argument on how our world might evolve to represent one of the three. I chose 1984, everyone else pretty much chose Brave New World. Considering how the world has unfolded since then, especially in America, I feel that I was more accurate in my choice, and that brings a slight smile across face –not because I love oppression– but because some of the people in that class were annoying.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
A Christmas Carol (other topics)The Odyssey (other topics)
A Wrinkle in Time (other topics)
Flowers for Algernon (other topics)
A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories (other topics)
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I love the idea of reading sci-fi in science class. My science teachers were a bit too serious for that, but it might have got me to stick with the sciences for longer, showing their potential for the future, not just all the stuff that you need for exams.