JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #16
Suffering through Charles Dickens
We finally got through Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This is one of our district required novels for 8th grade language arts. I say "finally got through" because this was not a novel easily read and understood by most of my students. There are many English nineteenth century terms and references that whiz right over the heads of my 21st century youth.
Instead of investigating character transformation or the rich use of metaphor and simile in the novel, we spent much of our time translating the archaic language and references so that we could attain basic comprehension.
Add to that the fact that Dickens does not make clear who is who and how the characters are related to one another at the outset and you have about 85% of 160 8th graders declaring the story is "confusing and boring" and not doing the assigned readings. And I can't blame them.
Instead of inculcating a love of reading, we are affirming what many of our students already have decided. Books are boring, difficult, a drag, and a colossal waste of time. How am I supposed to convince them otherwise when I have to punish them (with a homework or test grade) for understandably hating a book with long passages that are beyond the ken of many of them? I am not even going to debate with myself whether or not this selection is appropriate when no overt mention or sign of the religious significance of Christmas is allowed in our public schools. I do know, however, that I cringed for my several non-Christian students as certain parts of the novel were read.I recognize
the universal theme of the story and its value in our schema of cultural
literacy. Yet I am left wondering how we are supposed to balance exposing
our students to these classics with a recognition that they need to discover
the joys of reading before they are weighted down with those classics.
Add to that dilemma the 15% of my students who are ready for this level
of reading, and what is a teacher, especially a new one, to do?
Are there
ever any easy answers?
