Early this summer I was interviewed by Rose Horowitch, an editor for The Atlantic. She told me that she had heard from a university professor that incoming students were struggling to keep up with the reading load. She explained that she was working on
When I heard from a friend that the Atlantic article had referred to Percy Jackson as YA, I knew it was one that I could skip. But your terrific response should be required reading for all who had a hand in that piece.
Thank you so much. In a painfully ironic twist I spent the day teaching Julius Caesar and The Odyssey to different classes. Percy Jackson makes the odyssey more fun and IāM over any killjoy that says otherwise. š
You've given me so much to think about in this post! My brain is going all over the place.
I'm reflecting on what I ask my fifth-graders to read, and how I expect them to interact with me linguistically. I'm wondering if the reason I love Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote is because her translation makes the text more accessible than older, whiter translations.
I do agree that blaming standardized testing can appear to be a lazy argument. However, from my experiences in the classroom these last 20+ years, I can confidently state that teaching kids to decode isolated passages has atrophied students' stamina for reading short stories, poems, and novels. As a teacher, I acknowledge that I cannot compete with TikTok; I'm not an entertainer.
I love how you express a need to reframe our mindsets (I would argue for both teachers and students). What does it mean to engage with literature? What do I look for as a "successful" discussion? I think you are spot on: we must create a space for joy and curiosity, and do our best to help students to see the universal humanity in literature. I may not be able to convince them that Tuck Everlasting is better than TikTok, but I can provoke them into discussing the purpose of living.
Thank you for writing this! I really enjoyed reading your perspective.
Can I justā¦ so funny you mentioned Tuck Everlasting because I havenāt thought about that book in DECADES but literally last week I had a student ask me if I āhave any banned booksā and could I recommend one. I laughed and said the entire shelving unit would have to go if we were in Florida, so what type of banned story did he want. He said something like Tuck Everlasting. Ultimately after sifting through a curated stack I made him, he opted for They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera.
I love it when things like that happen! It makes me feel like weāre connected.
They Both Die At The End is a great book. And, it warms my fifth-grade teacher heart to hear that your student used Tuck Everlasting as a guide for what he should read next! š„°
LOVE "they both die at the end" and it was part of a curated YA and marginalized fiction section at a public university library where i worked! i know seeing people's recommendations like this really helped that librarian, who was a white leftist in his 30s, so just needed help getting into the ear of a younger and more diverse fiction audience. thanks for talking about books in this way!
Tuck Everlasting is incredible. You've probably already heard of her, but Lindsay Eagar's books have a similar feel to them. I would recommend Journey to the Bottom of the Sea or The Patron Thief of Bread to kids who enjoyed Tuck. š
Thatās a good point! Iām tired of Harold Bloom always being the go-to literary scholar. When Grossman came out with her translation of Quixote, I found it more approachable than Bloom. I felt like she translated for the reader, not the literary scholar.
YES YES YES!! I spent so much time in the high school English classes just trying to create spaces to experience the joy of literacy. Sounds like this article is yet another example of teachersā lived experience in the classroom being valued less than the insights of āexperts.ā I wonder how much could change if we actually started listening to teachers??
I think, part of it has always been that we donāt self-advocate. For fear or because weāre too busy or too burnt out or because we canāt support our argument without violating someoneās privacy or because the truth is so frustratingly, obviously weird that no one would believe us anywayā¦ we all know the truth but it stays within our profession. Like, we roll our eyes at trash like this article but ultimately how do you even begin to push back?
9 hrs agoĀ·edited 9 hrs agoLiked by Carrie M. Santo-Thomas
I can't like this enough. While after 20+ years of secondary teaching I may have assigned fewer pages or different books or provided more choice, I never stopped teaching full-length texts. Most of the teachers I know or have spoken with across the country do/have done the same.
Also, one of my greatest frustrations with articles like this is that they flatten everything to make sweeping claims about American schools (and children), ignoring the decentralization of our system and the remarkable differences between schools (and children).
This is brilliant and so true! As someone whose education school professors insisted we understand historical panics about youth and new technologies (Aristotle was worried written language would destroy their memory! Radio and comic books were supposedly letting the devil into American houses! Blackboard use instead of handheld slate use would lead to anarchy in the classroom!), I find it so important to remind everyone to un-clutch their pearls when faced with a new narrative like this. Absolutely dead smack on about code-switching, too--this is leading me to consider a brief reckoning with this topic in my college class soon. Thank you so much for this piece, and sorry the Atlantic used you as a straw man in their latest panic.
There was so much about that article that irritated me. Claim that a literacy problem is occurring in high school English courses--cite a study of third to eighth-grade educators, non-English-specific. Claim that students just aren't reading whole books--quote a teacher who says that when they ask what their first-years' favorite books are, they're books which aren't ones they would have read for school, meaning those kids are seeking out and reading entire books on their own. If this were an essay I had to edit for one of my own students, it would be severely marked-up.
After 35 years in a range of literature classrooms, I can only bow to you in respect and honor. Thank you for not merely a rejoinder but a near-manifesto of how canons politicize, how educators work, and how kids think.
Even this Gen-Xer finds so much of the 19th century literary canon boring and uninteresting. It took the Lost Generation and 20th century masters to get me excited about literature. Though I plodded through some of the classics, I don't waste time on them now. Good for you for making this excellent argument.
Life is not all about entertainment. And work is not always fun. Absolutely, encourage the joy of reading. But also teach people how to read even when it is a chore, because it is necessary. Also, sometimes reading that seems to be a chore at first turns into enjoyment after an initial period of discomfort. And I don't like your put down of classic texts. Perhaps students should be exposed to some broader materials at times, but the classic texts are classics for very good reasons, and a lot of other literature refers to them in one way or another, so being familiar with material that serves as sources and inspiration is essential.
Horowitch had all of the information I included in my response. She chose to flatten a complex issue into clickbait and told an outdated trope that just scares people and makes them mad instead of highlighting specific things we can do as a society to better support a culture of literacy. She and I are not the same.
The independence you express to support readers is one Iāve seen systematically undermined to create the non-readers in the peace. I believe people should get to read what they desire (Iām presently pissed my school wonāt let kids read movies). But reading beyond desire is powerful and quite untrained despite a demand that doesnāt end. And waiting for the interested and talented few rather than investing in exposure under current conditions seems just as wrong as expecting everyone to read archaic west-guys. I envy your time and depth in planning. But saying people are doing it is directly ignoring tons of real systemic bs that makes it impossible for many to do or implement such and thereby hampers more learners caught in a net that happens to not include you. Also, I donāt get the sense itās students faultāthey certainly didnāt do any of it. And I tell mine often the world made them without their success accounted in precisely this capacity, and its adults fault. And we still need to learn.
And you can learn to read faster(in English) by putting your text in longer lines. Where oh where would the dominant reading experience involve shorter lines than smartphone. All mediums shape experience, none make the mind rot. But they do connect our world in different ways with varying leverage to power. And in it seems reading still has a lot of utility left in a buncha versions while wide populaces lose the literacies that enable reading its uses in the first place. And this undergirds deep literacy in many domains.
Glad I read youābest of luck. Stay doing good work seems like
Do you have any links about longer lines being better? Personally, I have to get out a sheet of paper to follow the entire line with anything wider than a paperback.
What you say with the paper makes me imagine something sensible, Iām talking about the root sheer through stacking concepts in the mind which can be held accountable b a finger in what I describe, or a paper it what I imagine for you. This really speed up my reading without me really needing to try in undergrad, and makes me recommend the attempt.
I never think any 1 thing is the thing, but I say as a try. Iād also say there should be more room to listen to texts to have phonetic or author connectionsāIliad mummered, maya angelou or Toni Morrison reading herself
Most wrap from typographies and e-commerce concerns wanting enagagement with a sweet spot from 40-75 characters. When my kids feel stressed about reading I like letting them know ways they can read faster. I recommend reading with a finger on the page or numbered lines to prevent losing place, which I think they call saccade in here.
It's pretty frigging ridiculous to characterize Melville's astounding classic as occupying " a very small, very old, very white, and very male box." There are still people who appreciate writing style and don't give a damn about identity politics. Teach that in a sociology class. My four-year-old son listened to and loved Moby Dick and Crime and Punishment. And given that The Odyssey is as important to the foundations of western culture as the Bible, I don't see the point of replacing it with those books that no one has ever heard of.
When I heard from a friend that the Atlantic article had referred to Percy Jackson as YA, I knew it was one that I could skip. But your terrific response should be required reading for all who had a hand in that piece.
Thank you so much. In a painfully ironic twist I spent the day teaching Julius Caesar and The Odyssey to different classes. Percy Jackson makes the odyssey more fun and IāM over any killjoy that says otherwise. š
Percy Jackson is for kids and teens.
Percy Jackson is not an author.
No one said he was.
See how that comment was edited? The original comment was "Percy Jackson writes for kids and teens."
You've given me so much to think about in this post! My brain is going all over the place.
I'm reflecting on what I ask my fifth-graders to read, and how I expect them to interact with me linguistically. I'm wondering if the reason I love Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote is because her translation makes the text more accessible than older, whiter translations.
I do agree that blaming standardized testing can appear to be a lazy argument. However, from my experiences in the classroom these last 20+ years, I can confidently state that teaching kids to decode isolated passages has atrophied students' stamina for reading short stories, poems, and novels. As a teacher, I acknowledge that I cannot compete with TikTok; I'm not an entertainer.
I love how you express a need to reframe our mindsets (I would argue for both teachers and students). What does it mean to engage with literature? What do I look for as a "successful" discussion? I think you are spot on: we must create a space for joy and curiosity, and do our best to help students to see the universal humanity in literature. I may not be able to convince them that Tuck Everlasting is better than TikTok, but I can provoke them into discussing the purpose of living.
Thank you for writing this! I really enjoyed reading your perspective.
Can I justā¦ so funny you mentioned Tuck Everlasting because I havenāt thought about that book in DECADES but literally last week I had a student ask me if I āhave any banned booksā and could I recommend one. I laughed and said the entire shelving unit would have to go if we were in Florida, so what type of banned story did he want. He said something like Tuck Everlasting. Ultimately after sifting through a curated stack I made him, he opted for They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera.
I love it when things like that happen! It makes me feel like weāre connected.
They Both Die At The End is a great book. And, it warms my fifth-grade teacher heart to hear that your student used Tuck Everlasting as a guide for what he should read next! š„°
LOVE "they both die at the end" and it was part of a curated YA and marginalized fiction section at a public university library where i worked! i know seeing people's recommendations like this really helped that librarian, who was a white leftist in his 30s, so just needed help getting into the ear of a younger and more diverse fiction audience. thanks for talking about books in this way!
Tuck Everlasting is incredible. You've probably already heard of her, but Lindsay Eagar's books have a similar feel to them. I would recommend Journey to the Bottom of the Sea or The Patron Thief of Bread to kids who enjoyed Tuck. š
... also to adults who enjoyed Tuck. Me! I'm the adult who reads kid lit. š
How is Edith Grossman less white as a translator?
Thatās a good point! Iām tired of Harold Bloom always being the go-to literary scholar. When Grossman came out with her translation of Quixote, I found it more approachable than Bloom. I felt like she translated for the reader, not the literary scholar.
YES YES YES!! I spent so much time in the high school English classes just trying to create spaces to experience the joy of literacy. Sounds like this article is yet another example of teachersā lived experience in the classroom being valued less than the insights of āexperts.ā I wonder how much could change if we actually started listening to teachers??
I think, part of it has always been that we donāt self-advocate. For fear or because weāre too busy or too burnt out or because we canāt support our argument without violating someoneās privacy or because the truth is so frustratingly, obviously weird that no one would believe us anywayā¦ we all know the truth but it stays within our profession. Like, we roll our eyes at trash like this article but ultimately how do you even begin to push back?
I can't like this enough. While after 20+ years of secondary teaching I may have assigned fewer pages or different books or provided more choice, I never stopped teaching full-length texts. Most of the teachers I know or have spoken with across the country do/have done the same.
Also, one of my greatest frustrations with articles like this is that they flatten everything to make sweeping claims about American schools (and children), ignoring the decentralization of our system and the remarkable differences between schools (and children).
A related piece I wrote about why it's so easy to lie or mislead or misinform about schools: https://annelutzfernandez.substack.com/p/truth-telling-about-schools-is-hard
Perfection! Itās exactly what Iāve been unable to articulate for decades thank you! Bookmarking to find it later!
This is brilliant and so true! As someone whose education school professors insisted we understand historical panics about youth and new technologies (Aristotle was worried written language would destroy their memory! Radio and comic books were supposedly letting the devil into American houses! Blackboard use instead of handheld slate use would lead to anarchy in the classroom!), I find it so important to remind everyone to un-clutch their pearls when faced with a new narrative like this. Absolutely dead smack on about code-switching, too--this is leading me to consider a brief reckoning with this topic in my college class soon. Thank you so much for this piece, and sorry the Atlantic used you as a straw man in their latest panic.
Amazing piece.
There was so much about that article that irritated me. Claim that a literacy problem is occurring in high school English courses--cite a study of third to eighth-grade educators, non-English-specific. Claim that students just aren't reading whole books--quote a teacher who says that when they ask what their first-years' favorite books are, they're books which aren't ones they would have read for school, meaning those kids are seeking out and reading entire books on their own. If this were an essay I had to edit for one of my own students, it would be severely marked-up.
After 35 years in a range of literature classrooms, I can only bow to you in respect and honor. Thank you for not merely a rejoinder but a near-manifesto of how canons politicize, how educators work, and how kids think.
Even this Gen-Xer finds so much of the 19th century literary canon boring and uninteresting. It took the Lost Generation and 20th century masters to get me excited about literature. Though I plodded through some of the classics, I don't waste time on them now. Good for you for making this excellent argument.
Life is not all about entertainment. And work is not always fun. Absolutely, encourage the joy of reading. But also teach people how to read even when it is a chore, because it is necessary. Also, sometimes reading that seems to be a chore at first turns into enjoyment after an initial period of discomfort. And I don't like your put down of classic texts. Perhaps students should be exposed to some broader materials at times, but the classic texts are classics for very good reasons, and a lot of other literature refers to them in one way or another, so being familiar with material that serves as sources and inspiration is essential.
It's always the way in education. You and Horowitch are both right. To what degree depends on demographics, economics, and area.
Horowitch had all of the information I included in my response. She chose to flatten a complex issue into clickbait and told an outdated trope that just scares people and makes them mad instead of highlighting specific things we can do as a society to better support a culture of literacy. She and I are not the same.
She may not have acknowledged your side, but youāre not acknowledging hers. You were right to defend your view, but hers isnāt completely invalid.
Thanks for this.
The independence you express to support readers is one Iāve seen systematically undermined to create the non-readers in the peace. I believe people should get to read what they desire (Iām presently pissed my school wonāt let kids read movies). But reading beyond desire is powerful and quite untrained despite a demand that doesnāt end. And waiting for the interested and talented few rather than investing in exposure under current conditions seems just as wrong as expecting everyone to read archaic west-guys. I envy your time and depth in planning. But saying people are doing it is directly ignoring tons of real systemic bs that makes it impossible for many to do or implement such and thereby hampers more learners caught in a net that happens to not include you. Also, I donāt get the sense itās students faultāthey certainly didnāt do any of it. And I tell mine often the world made them without their success accounted in precisely this capacity, and its adults fault. And we still need to learn.
And you can learn to read faster(in English) by putting your text in longer lines. Where oh where would the dominant reading experience involve shorter lines than smartphone. All mediums shape experience, none make the mind rot. But they do connect our world in different ways with varying leverage to power. And in it seems reading still has a lot of utility left in a buncha versions while wide populaces lose the literacies that enable reading its uses in the first place. And this undergirds deep literacy in many domains.
Glad I read youābest of luck. Stay doing good work seems like
Do you have any links about longer lines being better? Personally, I have to get out a sheet of paper to follow the entire line with anything wider than a paperback.
What you say with the paper makes me imagine something sensible, Iām talking about the root sheer through stacking concepts in the mind which can be held accountable b a finger in what I describe, or a paper it what I imagine for you. This really speed up my reading without me really needing to try in undergrad, and makes me recommend the attempt.
I never think any 1 thing is the thing, but I say as a try. Iād also say there should be more room to listen to texts to have phonetic or author connectionsāIliad mummered, maya angelou or Toni Morrison reading herself
Iām humbled through accountāfor better or worse
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1071581901904586
https://www.roboleary.net/webdev/2023/03/10/ideal-line-length-digital-text.html
Most wrap from typographies and e-commerce concerns wanting enagagement with a sweet spot from 40-75 characters. When my kids feel stressed about reading I like letting them know ways they can read faster. I recommend reading with a finger on the page or numbered lines to prevent losing place, which I think they call saccade in here.
It's pretty frigging ridiculous to characterize Melville's astounding classic as occupying " a very small, very old, very white, and very male box." There are still people who appreciate writing style and don't give a damn about identity politics. Teach that in a sociology class. My four-year-old son listened to and loved Moby Dick and Crime and Punishment. And given that The Odyssey is as important to the foundations of western culture as the Bible, I don't see the point of replacing it with those books that no one has ever heard of.
"things that never happened"
Not in your universe. Kids in the backseat do listen to the audiobooks their parents are listening to. Never dumb down for kids. They'll remain so.