Reading in High School

[Lily]

Are there any public discussion groups here on Goodreads that focus on sacred texts?

[Gabriel]

Lily wrote: "Are there any public discussion groups here on Goodreads that focus on sacred texts?"

Yes, Christian Theological/Philosophical Book Club

[Gabriel]

Patrice wrote: "any jewish groups?"

I don't know, I'm only a member of this Western Canon and the Christian Theological/ Philosophical Book Club.

[Kerstin]

Lily wrote: "Are there any public discussion groups here on Goodreads that focus on sacred texts?"

Yes, Do a search on "Catholic" and you'll find a number of groups who read Christian spiritual classics from a Catholic perspective, including literary classics like The Divine Comedy, The Confessions, Don Quixote, etc., etc. I can't speak for Protestant Christians or Orthodox, but I wouldn't be surprised they are there.

[Lily]

Thanks for the responses!

[Zadignose]

I know that I'm replying to a really old post, but, regarding students who haven't learned to read well or to appreciate reading in the early years,

Hope wrote: "...Is there a point where it is "too late?"..."

No. There is never a time when it is too late. It is good to start early when possible, but there is no call for ever giving up hope for any student. That resignation is what is most harmful to the students who seem beyond help just when help could benefit them. Chris Tovani's book, I Read It, but I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers tackles this question quite well.

ETA: I observed a couple of ELA teachers in action. One taught his students some things about Shakespeare, and planned, perhaps, to tackle a few brief passages, but he told me directly that he didn't trust his students to be able to appreciate or understand Shakespeare or benefit from reading one of his plays together. He taught general and honors students in 10th and 12th grade. Another teacher I observed taught a co-taught class with a special-education partner teacher, with a class full of students with learning disabilities, ADHD, and other challenges. He held high standards, he trusted his students to read Shakespeare, he challenged them, he modeled critical thinking, and they performed very well with the task. I'm sure the teacher had his struggles, but a good teacher can do amazing things.

[Kirsten]

Good question. Lately, I have thought maybe classics were wasted on the young. Maybe there should be a free university system for seniors and then force them to read the classics.

Why do I think they're wasted on the young? I read Great Expectations when I was 14 and The Grapes of Wrath when I was 18 and hated them.

I re-read them at 50 and 52, respectively, and they were much more accessible and relevant to me.

[Michele]

Kirsten wrote: "Good question. Lately, I have thought maybe classics were wasted on the young..."

Ha! This may be true. Your perspective is certainly somewhat limited at 14 or 16 or 18.

[Tamara]

I think that classics can be appreciated at varying degrees no matter what age you are. You may not get as much out of them when you're 14 as when you're in your 50s, but you will still get some benefit from reading them.

A classic read at the age of 14 will not generate the same experience as the same classic read a decade later. In turn, that won't generate the same experience as a classic read a decade after that. And so on. But if it's a classic, different parts of it will resonate no matter your age. That's why we keep going back to them.

Classics withstand the test of time. I read and re-read a classic because I get something new from it each time I read it depending on what stage of life I'm in or what I'm currently experiencing.

So, no, I don't think classics are wasted on the young. I wish more young people read them. I would have to swallow hard each time I asked my first year college students whether they had read such and such a classic. Invariably they would reply, "No, but we watched the movie!"

Gulp!

[Lily]

Tamara wrote: "I think that classics can be appreciated at varying degrees no matter what age you are. You may not get as much out of them when you're 14 as when you're in your 50s, but you will still get some be..."

Thank you for weighing in on this discussion, Tamara!

Having come from a school system that didn't offer the "hard core" classics, I am still grateful for the ones I did read. In this day and age with widespread literary, our young people don't deserve to be so short-changed -- even if they do perhaps need support in realizing it is legitimate to mix it up. With our plethora of choices, the practice of re-reading is probably not taught broadly enough, whether in our homes or our schools.

[Tamara]

Patrice wrote: "interestingly, i read king lear at the age of 57 and thought no one should read it before middle age, how could they understand it? then, i discovered a copy i had read in college at 18. i had no m..."

That's wonderful!

[Monica]

I think there's also another aspect that is very important: the original version x "modern" versions. I prefer my children to start with the basics of the classics (and therefore I used kids versions, modern versions, comics versions, etc.) and let them choose a moment to read the original one which fortunately they have been doing now that they are teenagers. But many of my friends consider it wrong as they think children/teenagers will get used to the easy way and will never get used to long descriptions, slow action, inner dialogues, refined vocabulary, etc.
I guess it depends on your ability to guide your children into the classics in a slow or fast way, in a complete or partial way... At the end, I am pretty satisfied that they are regular readers and that they have been choosing a few classics now and then.

[Ian]

Monica wrote: "I think there's also another aspect that is very important: the original version x "modern" versions. I prefer my children to start with the basics of the classics (and therefore I used kids versio..."

Some observations in passing:

I'm a voracious reader, and have been from childhood, including both classics and comic books (I have fond memories of the early Spiderman, e.g, the first 'on-screen' appearance of Mary Jane Watson), a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and endless non-fiction.

Judging from my High School experience -- which means the 1960s -- and what friends then mentioned, the key is getting children to accept reading as a normal form of recreation, not a duty imposed at school. Being read to in early childhood helps.

Simplified versions, at least by making the subject less intimidating, may encourage revisiting the book later. Or other books. (From time to time I still discover something vaguely familiar, and trace the memory back to my pre-teen years.)

Of course, the versions for children vary in quality. I've seen some that I think would turn off a child's interest, possibly forever.

"Classic" adult novels re-packaged for children are sometimes so sanitized as to be almost unintelligible: an edition of "The Three Musketeers" without adultery, love affairs, and obvious religious persecution, comes to mind immediately.

On the other hand, the same series included an intelligently cut "Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" omitting all sorts of disquisitions on marine life, which I found interesting when I found another edition in High School, but probably would have defeated me some years earlier.

[David]

Some books are like retirement accounts. I have been forced to read a few things at a young age in school I could not quite relate to at the time. Then in later life an relatable experienced occurs that recalls the work to mind and I am sometimes inspired to re-read it. Then I usually enjoy work much more and I am grateful that I was exposed to story earlier.

[Lily]

Monica wrote: "I think there's also another aspect that is very important: the original version x "modern" versions...."

I thought of your comments as I was reading Melymbrosia and hoping that I might live long enough to sit with my teenaged granddaughter (she is an infant now) and discuss chapters 13 and 14 where Woolf introduces so many characters in rather conventional settings, but with the incisive, witty, plaintive conversations that reveal each as a unique, yet social, individual! The innuendos, the hidden meanings, the word choices, the (elite?) allusions... Working, I didn't find the time, nor perhaps have the knowledge myself, to do the same with my own son. But, now, I almost feel I am sitting among Virginia and her companions, at least as I understand the robust conversations that occurred in the Bloomsbury circle.

(And then create enough interest for a someday conversation contrasting with how Tolstoy develops characters... or Gogol in Dead Souls.)

[Michele]

I used to love (ok, still love) the Classic Comics versions of Three Musketeers, Black Beauty, etc.