
'Bullying' of literature ...that poor, sensitive literature....its merits propagated as received wisdom. I speak as a freelance Eng Lit tutor working with 11 and 14 year old and adult students.
You help them 'get in there' by giving them tools and an array of lenses for looking through...not by telling them what to think, what to worship.
So many sacred cows. They need to grow their vocab but I find their insights amazing. Wouldn't it be a change for a teacher to say, 'why are we looking at Shakespeare? Well...' or to put it to the students, 'this play, yes it's famous, but could it be a pile of shite? Discuss.'
Introduction to Poetry
BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
You help them 'get in there' by giving them tools and an array of lenses for looking through...not by telling them what to think, what to worship.
So many sacred cows. They need to grow their vocab but I find their insights amazing. Wouldn't it be a change for a teacher to say, 'why are we looking at Shakespeare? Well...' or to put it to the students, 'this play, yes it's famous, but could it be a pile of shite? Discuss.'
Introduction to Poetry
BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.