Susan Hill's blog :: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

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19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Susan Hill on Mon 19 Feb 2007 12:07 GMT | Permanent Link

I don`t know where to start but I do wish the Education Secretary would spend a day with me going down my e-mails from desperate middle to lower grade 14 year olds. They are trying. They really are. And they are reading I`m the King of the Castle and the Woman in Black, for heaven`s sake - not difficult reads. Not Dickens. Not George Eliot. Not the Brontes. On the whole I am delighted that they enjoy my books but then they come to course work and exams. These young people are not natural readers. They have probably found learning to read at all hard work. They certainly do not come from a background where parents and friends read. And however they write to me, they are sincerely wanting help. They mean well (mostly.) If they are struggling with me, heaven help them and their teachers if they are forced to read Eliot and Dickens. Shakespeare is bad enough. I have no idea why they are being forced through him either. Here is an e-mail I would like the Education Secretary to have to deal with. This young man i 14 and was in terrible trouble over coursework on atmosphere is created in The Woman in Black - not the most difficult aspect of the book. I helped him and I wrote notes for him and I guided him through the book and gave him hints. I did NOT do his work for him. But I could tell he was trying his best. Yesterday I received the following.

hello agen my corse work was handed back to me and i was told it was all wrong. please can you help me agen as u did help me alot last time i have to do; How does Susan Hill use atmosphere in The Woman in Black on the chapter in the nursery. please do help me asap thank you x

(I have left his name off the message.)

I will try to help him again but I wonder how far we will get. I have asked him to send me his coursework and the teacher`s comments as I cannot believe he or she simply said it was 'all wrong.' We need to know more.

A friend of mine teaches 14-16 year old bottom set Comprehensive boys angling. As a hobby. He is brilliant at it and they love it. One boy asked if he had any angling magazines and Chris took him some. He read his way through them, finger under the line, mouthing the words, glued to them because he was passionately interested in the subject. He said he had never read anything - ANYTHING - that he had enjoyed and found interesting until these magazines. Chris has now taken him some angling books and he is immersed in them. But he asked him what he did read and he said nothing, reading was so awful at school. What were they reading in class ? Romeo and Juliet. Do you wonder if boys roam the streets ? (The SP agrees with me. ) So is the poor lad and hundreds like him now going to have to wade through The Mill on the Floss and Hard Times ? Wonderful, wonderful novels, great books, great reads - well I would say that. But the boy with the angling magazines will not. He would struggle, like my young friend above, with The Woman in Black, though he would probably enjoy the play.

Where is this Secretary for Education coming from ? What is he thinking ? Who has he spoken to ? Not me. Not the teachers. Not those at the coal face. I am desperate for boys like these to find something they can enjoy in books, see some point, so that they may move towards reading for pleasure and enrichment. I try every day to that end. That`s why I spend so much time answering all these bloody e-mails.

The politician has not helped.

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Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by call me madam on Mon 19 Feb 2007 14:50 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

When I was teaching at a comprehensive school years ago there was a form called 4NS. 'NS' stood for Nautical Studies. The class consisted entirely of difficult boys with learning problems. The form teacher was an ex-serviceman who took these lads, got them to build a boat and then taught them to sail it. He taught me to sail, too! I can't imagine how such a course could be fitted into the modern curriculum or what good would have been served by trying to get those boys to read classic novels. Or where you find teachers like that now, because I doubt if this remarkable man had even been to training college.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Curzon Tussaud on Mon 19 Feb 2007 16:31 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

As a firm believer in the maxim that for every human there IS a book which unlocks the puzzle of reading and transforms it to a pleasure, thank you Susan, for the time, care and trouble you take with the children who write to you. Strikes me that they may get more from you than from their poor benighted teachers.
I have very happy memories of my last year of Latin, in the stream which was not destined to take it at GCE. Our teacher was determined to show us the enjoyable aspects of the subject, and we read texts in translation, learnt silly Latin rhymes, and covered quite a lot of what is probably now called Classical Civilisation. I remember those classes more vividly than I do many of my examined subjects. Now, of course, I wish that I could have stuck with Latin and not worried over Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by clara on Mon 19 Feb 2007 16:34 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

My son is doing English for AS level and started the year quite keen. However, Persuasion as his set book and the poetry of Edward Thomas have bored him rigid. When I asked why Persuasion had been chosen for a bunch of streetwise, 16 year old London boys I was more or less accused of being anti-feminist!

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Fen Crosbie on Mon 19 Feb 2007 17:47 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

I would hazard a guess that the reason they are doing it is because the school has a set of the books and the teacher was too late to get anything else.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by dovegreyreader on Mon 19 Feb 2007 17:29 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

We have a horror story of our with one of our sons studying An Inspector Calls for GCSE. First day of summer holidays and complete depression over the coursework that had to be produced over the 6 weeks. So we agreed a plan, firstly I would NOT read it, didn't know it all. He would read it and we would allocate time each week to chat about it.Well, it went swimmingly and we had some great two way debates over the 6 weeks. He then did the coursework, all his own work and submitted it , full of pride in his own efforts and very excited about his possible grade.Letter from school saying they knew he had cheated and would he please submit a piece of work of a lower standard more in keeping with what they expected from him! Me ballistic at school and was told as follows "he is only allowed to work with what his teachers have taught him in the classroom so that every child has the same opportunity". By talking to him about it, we had cheated!
Believe me I took that one to the very top and beyond, but was left with a son asking "so what was the point of me even trying?"

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Danny Rhodes on Mon 19 Feb 2007 18:52 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

Just recently (most of last year) the subject of cheating in coursework was thrust at teachers across the land. What you got here was the backlash. Teachers are frightened that they'll come under scrutiny. The culture of OFSTED as Big Brother waiting to pounce still remains.

Teaching is becoming increasingly demoralising (perhaps it always has been). Things change on a yearly basis, nothing is ever left to settle and success is met with cries of 'exams are too easy'.

The next thing is schools being judged on their 5 or more GCSE results that include Maths and English. You just wait until the results come out in August. There's going to be mayhem. What I want to know is, who says somebody has to be good at maths AND English. How is that a judge of success? I'm crap at Maths. Always have been!

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Rhys on Mon 19 Feb 2007 20:57 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

Lynne , That sounds nuts, what the school said to you.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by malcolm on Mon 19 Feb 2007 18:28 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

I totally agree that young teenagers should not be forced to study texts which they will find demotivating. The problem for the Education Secretary, I suspect, is political. He fears the headlines from the right-wing tabloids such as the Daily Mail, and a backlash from the Headteachers Union (whatever it's called): 'Labour dumbing down'; 'Labour has no respect for English literature'; 'Labour refuses to teach our cultural heritage' etc etc. And, in a sense, he's right. If he'd announced a few days ago that Shakespeare and Dickens etc were to be taken off the prescribed list for 11-14 year olds, there would have been a major media storm and calls for his resignation. Governments can only do what the people (ie the media and various other vested interests) allow them to do. In this case, I suspect Britain's just not ready for sensible syllabus construction. And it's not just the politicians' fault.

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Kelvin Matrix on Mon 19 Feb 2007 22:50 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

I fully agree. I don't quite understand how Susan Hill can attack the Alan Johnson on this and yet so frequently write that "The Daily Mail" is her favoured breakfast reading. Does she not see the connection, or is it a case of selective vision or a lack of joined-up thinking?

Re: Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Susan Hill on Mon 19 Feb 2007 23:33 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

What`s any of it got to do with my reading the Mail ? I read the Mail for the gossip and the handbags over my coffee.. it has nothing to do with my view of teaching literature to teenagers, of which I have a considerable insight - albeit from one side - over about 30 years.
Besides, I am a very inconsistent person. Never been joined-up in my life.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Danny Rhodes on Mon 19 Feb 2007 18:40 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

We are forced to teach Shakespeare at SATS and GCSE level because the press would crucify any government who took him off the syllabus and accuse them of 'dumbing down' the study of literature. I have to say that I've had some success with some groups with Shakespeare. Once they get beyond the language the stories usually hold them. The most popular by far is Romeo and Juliet, mainly because of the DiCaprio film and because love is something they understand. I've also had a fair share of failures and at times feel desperate for somebody to rethink things. I field the question 'Why do we need to know Shakespeare?' daily.

Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and Heroes are novels in the AQA exam that remain popular, while A Kestrel for a Knave (one of my favourites) is holding on. They've recently added A Catcher in the Rye to the list...

The biggest barriers are poor reading skills and no reading culture.

One of the reasons I wrote 'Asboville' was because I wanted young people (particularly older teenagers) to read a book about their own lives. I've yet to convince the exam board to add it to their list!!!

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Dawn on Thu 22 Feb 2007 09:29 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

Just to let you know that your book 'Asboville' was the first book in English (we live in Spain) that my daughter,aged 14, has read in 3 years. I bought it for her at Christmas, having seen it mentioned in Susan's blog, in the hope that she would enjoy it. She did very much but unfortunately it has not sparked a renewed interest in reading which remains restricted to texts and internet chat sites.

I am not too worried as her reading standard is very good and her English is progressing well via her English lessons in her Spanish school, which, because it is taught as a foreign language, has an emphasis on grammar and structure.

When she was younger and when we still lived in England I was studying Shakespeare with the OU and took her with me to several performances of various plays locally and at The Globe. She really enjoyed those experiences and although at the moment I am confident that she would veto a theatre trip on the grounds that it was 'minging' I hope that one day she might come round.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Susan S. on Mon 19 Feb 2007 20:49 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

My husband, who teaches Classics at the City University of New York, read this blog with interest and would like to know whether the situation you describe in Britain represents a change over, say, the last twenty or twenty-five years. Has there been a change in the student population or in the required readings? His own view is that obviously the development of reading and writing skills is tremendously important, but that the analysis of literature is hardly the only way to accomplish this.

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by SMS on Tue 20 Feb 2007 00:00 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

I can only comment on my own experience with reading at school, but it always also depends on how the teacher gets the book, play etc. across. We had a very funny and clever teacher in German (which is my mother tongue) and it was a lot of fun reading for this particulat course, but on the other hand my English and French teachers were duller and didn't have the certain something to combine fun and serious studies in reading, which in my case lead to the decision to stop at English in grade 10 as I never ever wanted to do Shakespeare with her in school.

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Marie on Mon 19 Feb 2007 23:57 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

Part of the problem must surely be that one curriculum is considered appropriate for all children. I still remember the despair that I felt when at age 13, key stage god knows what, our class was stopped from reading Wait Until Dark and instead made to watch a video about a special needs child called Enrique who drowned in a swimming pool, and then made to read various permutations of the story, as a newspaper report, a letter, etc etc, and answer questions about it. Just about the most boring thing I have ever done in my life. I was desperate to read something decent and if my English GCSE had been all about that kind of thing I would have given it up if I could.

Re: Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Susan Hill on Tue 20 Feb 2007 23:12 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

Yes, Marie you are so right. One size does NOT fit all.. mixed abiity teaching is one of the curses of our times. As is the refusal to recognise that some pupils will thrive on George Eliot and Shakespeare and the Brontes and Chaucer, and others need to read about whatever interests them, whether it is angling or skate boarding, plus some carefully chosen exciting fiction and drama. There is plenty of good fiction and drama out there which is also exciting to the non-academic, non-readers and which would encourage them to see the point. They will never get it if they are forced through PERSUASION

Re: 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC AUTHORS MUST BE READ BY 11-14 YEAR OLD

by Jane Smith on Sat 24 Feb 2007 22:28 GMT | Profile | Permanent Link

My sister works as a pastoral support manager at a secondary school in the UK. She deals with children aged 14-15, and sorts out the problems that the teachers cannot cope with—which include everything from lost sports kits to teenage pregnancies, rape and drug addiction. She's had several of "her" children carted away by the Police wearing handcuffs. The children, that is, not the Police.

Anyway. In this school, when kids are repeatedly disruptive in class they get sent to a special unit where they have to sit in individual cubicles and carry out special assignments. Amongst her other duties, my sister has to sort out those assignments, supervise the children while they’re there, and make sure they don’t return to class until they’ve calmed down.

Yesterday, she had three repeat-offenders turn up. They were so used to the special unit that all of them had all ready worked through the work sheets which are provided. So, my sister being my sister, she decided to give them a new assignment.

She gave them each a sheet of paper. “Write down a character,” she said. “What’s a character?” they said. She explained; they wrote. “Fold the paper down and pass it to your neighbour,” she said. Then, “Write down a location,” she said. “What’s a location?” they all said. She explained; they wrote. “Fold the paper down and pass it to your neighbour,” she said. Then, “Write down a crisis,” she said. This time they needed no explanation. They wrote, then folded the paper down and passed it to their neighbours without any problems. It seemed that they each knew far too well what crises were.

“OK, now you each have a character, a location and a crisis. You're going to write a story using those three things.” What she hadn’t counted on was what they’d written.

While their characters were pretty much OK, and their locations were pretty run-of-the-mill, their crises were exceptional.

The first kid had written nothing legible.

The second kid had written (and I’m quoting here): "imp utt ance"

And the third, and perhaps most memorable kid, had written (quoting again): "a monkey shatt on her".

My sister discussed these possible story situations with the children involved. I can’t imagine where I would have taken it. I just know that my initial response when she told me of this was to laugh until I wept.

Where this fits in with the comments all ready posted here, I'm not sure. All I know is that the children my sister deals with all attend a not-so-bad school in a pretty affluent town in the midlands. Which makes me wonder just what is out there for the children in the more demoralised, deprived areas of this country?

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