TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

If you could design the English Curriculum..

Go To

Muzozavr Since: Jan, 2001
#376: Jan 22nd 2012 at 12:05:19 PM

I know it's not a scientific argument but I do know some people that have epilepsy and they are all saying that reading Dostoevsky for too long makes them feel physically bad and closer to an epileptic fit, even if they do like the book itself and its ideas.

ERROR: Signature not loaded
Aondeug Oh My from Our Dreams Since: Jun, 2009
Oh My
#377: Jan 22nd 2012 at 2:24:13 PM

I highly doubt it actually has to do with the works themselves. Spreading such things, if it caused anything but misinformation, could cause nasty placebo affects. "I think it will make me sicker. Therefore it has". Making it potentially dangerous to say such things.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
MidnightRambler Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan! from Germania Inferior Since: Mar, 2011
Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan!
#378: Jan 24th 2012 at 5:32:16 AM

I do love that essay - I've been careful to be concrete, though I don't think I always put enough thought into my cliches - but I just don't get his general beef against Latinate words.

He didn't have anything against Latinate words. It was the way they were used that bothered him. He specifically mentioned that 'the defence of the English language' did not imply 'in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning.'

And yes, it's an awesome essay. The funny thing is, once you've read it, you start seeing the same kind of meaningless clichés in present-day language. One example is the statement that 'we cannot return to business as usual', in reference to the financial crisis. The past few years, it has been used so often (mostly in Europe, it seems) and so gratuitously that it now means nothing, except 'Lookit me, I'm a good progressive boy!'

edited 24th Jan '12 5:33:16 AM by MidnightRambler

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...
TheGloomer Since: Sep, 2010
#379: Jan 24th 2012 at 4:59:23 PM

I'm not sure I would have changed too much about the English Literature subjects I did. From GCSE to A-level I studied Macbeth, The Tempest, King Lear, The Burial At Thebes (Seamus Heaney's translation), An Inspector Calls, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, The Empire of the Sun, Robert Frost, Edward Thomas and John Donne, as well as a collection of pre-1900 poetry.

Even before that, I got to read The Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm.

If I could make one change, I'm pretty interested in the history of America in the early 20th-century, so it might have been interesting if something like The Orchard Keeper had been included. Maybe I would have discovered Cormac Mc Carthy sooner.

Gwirion Since: Jan, 2011
#380: Jan 24th 2012 at 8:05:35 PM

I know it's not a scientific argument but I do know some people that have epilepsy and they are all saying that reading Dostoevsky for too long makes them feel physically bad and closer to an epileptic fit, even if they do like the book itself and its ideas.

Hahahaha, what? I used to make shit like that up to get out of school assignments, too, but this takes the cake.

If they're really ill, they can show a doctor's note and be exempt. Problem solved.

You are a blowfish.
Clicketykeys Since: Sep, 2010
#381: Jan 25th 2012 at 5:48:50 AM

I know it's not a scientific argument but I do know some people that have epilepsy and they are all saying that reading Dostoevsky for too long makes them feel physically bad and closer to an epileptic fit, even if they do like the book itself and its ideas.

It's much more likely that it's the font, size, or leading (amount of space between lines). I'd say have them look at a different publication of the text.

Anarchy just a medicine seller from Perak, Malaysia Since: Jun, 2010
just a medicine seller
#382: Jan 25th 2012 at 10:44:08 AM

Lord of the Rings and House of Leaves would so be on there somewhere for older kids. For younger kids I would put Enid Blyton, Peter Pan, Hunger Games...

And lots and lots of Kazuo Ishiguro. Specifically The Remains Of The Day. Not having that on an English curriculum is a crime, I say. A crime!

Also horror is underrepresented in English curricula in general. I say get some Lovecraft and Stephen King in there. Edgar Allen Poe too. And not just his poems.

Galeros Slay foes with bow and arrow Since: Jan, 2001
Slay foes with bow and arrow
#383: Jan 25th 2012 at 11:06:35 AM

[up]I remember reading some of Poe's stuff, like The Fall of the House of Usher during High School.

Gwirion Since: Jan, 2011
#384: Jan 25th 2012 at 9:43:51 PM

And lots and lots of Kazuo Ishiguro. Specifically The Remains Of The Day. Not having that on an English curriculum is a crime, I say. A crime!

Hell yes.

You are a blowfish.
siliconvinylproductions Artist :: Scientist from At headquarters Since: Mar, 2012
Artist :: Scientist
#385: Apr 12th 2012 at 2:12:34 AM

Can we also add Sun Tzu's The Art of War to whatever lists people are going to make? The work itself is incredibly short and strangely universal in life lessons.

Well, of course that's coming from my somewhat 'perennialist' view of English classes. Personal development and whatnot.

Proud Knight of the Lambda Calculus.
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#386: Apr 12th 2012 at 7:45:27 PM

Without reading all the pages on the thread, I am with Deboss. Ban Shakespeare in schools. Round up the luvvies who extol it and put them in purdah.

More once I read the rest.

Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#387: Apr 12th 2012 at 8:42:17 PM

The English teachers will teach Marlowe, Jonson and Kyd instead, and then you'll be sorry. wild mass guess

edited 12th Apr '12 8:52:58 PM by Yuanchosaan

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj
Firebert That One Guy from Somewhere in Illinois Since: Jan, 2001
That One Guy
#388: Apr 12th 2012 at 8:48:07 PM

Totally agree on more Poe. In fact, I had an English teacher who wished she could teach a class just on Poe.

Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#389: Apr 12th 2012 at 8:51:56 PM

Which Johnson? Ben or Samuel? I am all about the latter one. He was funny, literate and he had a Scottish sidekick and biographer, James Boswell.

And if Sun Tzu gets a nod for Art of War, which I agree with, totally, then one must also give Go Rin No Sho, or A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. a place in the curriculum. If anything to give the kids an equal footing with the Wall Street crowd who use that and the Art of War to dominate the business world. (yeah, even after the Crash of '08)

edited 12th Apr '12 8:55:04 PM by TamH70

Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#390: Apr 12th 2012 at 8:54:02 PM

Ben Jonson*

. Thus the other English Renaissance dramatists.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#391: Apr 12th 2012 at 8:58:41 PM

I don't know. Christopher Marlowe's death was more of a story and an entertainment to me than his plays. Was he a spy? Was he a double agent? Why did he die at the hands (or dagger) of Ingram Frizer? Did Walsingham tire of him?

Jhimmibhob Since: Dec, 2010
#392: Apr 13th 2012 at 10:14:57 AM

No mercy to the anti-Shakespeareans, sez I! Make the rugrats read & intensively study at least one history, tragedy, comedy and romance each, along with 4-5 sonnets. Make 'em memorize 1-2 speeches by heart. Add in at least one Jonson comedy and Marlowe tragedy.

Each year.

Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#393: Apr 13th 2012 at 7:38:02 PM

^^I wasn't seriously advocating studying Marlowe instead of Shakespeare at school. Frivolity is the only way I can cope with this sort of discussion.

Every time classics, English education or overrated works are discussed on the fora, the conversation inevitably turns to Shakespeare. I find the hate for him astonishing - was studying Shakespeare really that terrible? Was it so much worse than anything else you might have disliked in your English course? It tends to be a dislike that encompasses every play Shakespeare wrote, ignoring their diversity of plot and style. If it's a dislike of Elizabethan drama as a whole then Marlowe, Jonson et. al. don't have a chance either, but I don't think I've ever seen a person talk about why they hate Marlowe. I was making a joking reference to this phenomenon; clearly, we have to give the others a turn on the hated/loved wagon.

Bardolatry is a problem when it comes to teaching Shakespeare in high school. He's treated with more respect than every other author (Joyce, I think, is the exception - but I don't think Ulysses is a common high school text!), which impacts how his plays are approached. Ideally, one should be able to have a discussion of Shakespeare as an author like any other with flaws, rather than some Bard-as-a-literary-force, but this is apparently not the case in most high schools, even if the teachers themselves are strongly opinionated on his works. I'm guilty of Bardolatry, but I can see how irritating it must be if the few Shakespeare plays you've been exposed to aren't to your taste, but people keep telling you how wonderful he is. It hides a diversity of opinion and interesting discussion of his works.

The other issue with teaching Shakespeare is how much it's permeated culture. I'm sure any random person on the street knows at least half a dozen phrases/lines from Shakespeare, and recognises concepts strongly associated with him (e.g. "Romeo and Juliet" couple, green-eyed monster). The plots of his most famous plays are known at least vaguely. What I'd really like is to be able to approach Hamlet as if I knew nothing of Hamlet, so I could read it again without having any preconceptions as to what it is about.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#394: Apr 13th 2012 at 11:20:08 PM

[up]Yep, studying Shakespeare was terrible, particularly when the main teacher responsible for it in the faculty was blind to the man's flaws. He and his works are sacred cows. And the best thing to do with those is to make them into tasty burgers.

The thing that annoys me most about Shakespeare is that he is always touted as the greatest writer in the English language, which would tend to mean that no-one in the last four hundred years since he willed his second-best bed to Anne Hathaway was better than him. Which I cannot and will not ever believe for one nano-second to be true. And every time I hear that stuff spouted by the flocks of luvvies that continuously stage adaptations of his plays to the seeming near elimination of anything else, particularly in Britain, I want to knock their teeth in.

I loved Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V. Not because it was Shakespeare, not really because of Branagh and the other actors, who were brilliant to a person, but because it was showing a really good kicking of the French nobility at Agincourt, all mud and blood and rain as it was. Which I kind of believe is why the original theatre-goers who saw the play when it first came out went to see it. Not because of it being any great work of literature.

Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#395: Apr 14th 2012 at 12:13:01 AM

Given a choice between Shakespeare and any other work in existence, I'll take the other option. I have never experienced anything so unpleasant as being made to read Shakespeare.

That and I still think cutting the Literature section out of the mandatory section is worthwhile.

Fight smart, not fair.
LordGro (Old as dirt)
#396: Apr 14th 2012 at 6:21:14 AM

A thing to consider with Shakespeare is the sheer quantity of his work. (That is, if every 'Shakespeare drama' is authored by the same man.)

For comparison, Christopher Marlowe is credited with a mere seven plays, and yet he is regarded one of the "big names" of English drama. Then factor in that no less than 38 five-act plays are attributed to Shakespeare, and you get an idea of his impact.

You may personally like or dislike him, but if you want to understand the history of English literature and theatre, you can't ignore his influence. It may sound cruel, but the purpose of school-assigned reading is not to make you enjoy yourself, but to actually equip you with knowledge.

TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#397: Apr 14th 2012 at 8:06:54 PM

I still believe that in the period of four hundred odd years since the last piece of sod was kicked in Shakespeare's grave that there have been countless authors in the English language who have covered themes he dealt with either better or so much better that he isn't even in the ballpark anymore.

I hate, and I mean hate, that I know so many bits and pieces from his work only because my English curriculum was written by people even more lazy and ignorant than the ones depicted in Methods of Rationality who were responsible for the dire state of affairs in Hogwarts before Quirrell came along. (until I started reading that book I didn't have a term of reference for how that laziness made me feel and why I felt it.)

Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#398: Apr 16th 2012 at 12:39:29 AM

You may personally like or dislike him, but if you want to understand the history of English literature and theatre, you can't ignore his influence.

Fortunately, I don't and I don't think they should be part of English class. Or do you prefer English Language Arts for that?

Fight smart, not fair.
JHM Apparition in the Woods from Niemandswasser Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hounds of love are hunting
Apparition in the Woods
#399: Apr 16th 2012 at 1:49:54 AM

[up] I'm sorry, but that is possibly the most intellectually lazy thing that I have ever read in my life.

But let's put that aside for a moment so that I may ask you: Were it not for having to read Shakespeare in your school career, would you know that you disliked his work? Furthermore, you have yet to explain, clearly, why you dislike it. Educate me.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.
Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#400: Apr 16th 2012 at 2:06:49 AM

Would I know or would I have a reasonable, but correct, guess?

It's lazy, but it's my firm believe that English class is there to teach you how to use the language. You don't need to know where it's been to know how to use it.

Fight smart, not fair.

Total posts: 538
Top