Is literature education a real necessity to teach in public schools?

[ReynardKitsune]

literature is my favourite subject and i love it that it is availablde as a subject the lessons are so relaxing and is the only one i find true pleasure in.
it also makes me understand alot of things and also depicts alot of picture and human nature in my mind

[hhc]

A few reasons why litterature should be taught in highschools:

1. It teaches you not to see the world just with the eyes of logic, money, egoism, etc. It introduces you to a way of seeing that gives a chance to dreasms, humanism, philosophy, wondering, love and altruism. If you're wondering about the practicality of this, let's just say that if you take it seriously, it might stave off depression, mental or emotional breakdown when you reach 50.

2. It is a basic tool in understanding history, a science that I believe everyone thinks should be taught. To go even further, history can't be studied without mentioning art. Art is a crucial factor and motive that has been making things happen throughout the centuries. Reading a Dostoyevski book can help you look deep into the eyes of the Russian society in his time.

3. It enriches the vocabulary of the students and teaches them how to read between the lines and find the message the writer wants to give us. I believe this is a very useful for all future adults.

4. Litterature is pleasant to read. Students definitely need a creative break from our materialistic, cement-filled every day lives. Otherwise they would just explode.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I believe in education for the sake of education, the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom above all things. It is the purpose of education to fill an empty mind with an open one, and not to produce employment drones, manufactured to serve other people.

One of the biggest mistakes with today’s education is that it is constantly sold with the image of “study for employment” and this is wrong. Maybe it would be better to cut out the middleman and have burger flipping lessons or to have classes on how to please your boss more effectively?

Shakespeare out, burger flipping in. I’m sure that would please many people, but forgive me if I am not one of them.

Great video posted previously:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
Do schools today kill creativity?

[Michigan J Frog]

I wouldn't mind either way. Schools murder real literature anyways.
Omg Annotate 11!!1!!!1

Nothing is a real necessity to teach once you get beyond middle school. Not like you learn anything after that in school anyways. A waste of time and money.

[JBI]

I wouldn't mind either way. Schools murder real literature anyways.
Omg Annotate 11!!1!!!1

Nothing is a real necessity to teach once you get beyond middle school. Not like you learn anything after that in school anyways. A waste of time and money.

Perhaps its the learner. It all depends on the teacher anyway - if you don't like the method of reading literature in high school, wait until university. I tell you, it is about 1000x more in depth, cutting every piece apart, and writing scansion for more poems than you have ever read.

All the boredom you think of when you think of English class is there for a reason.

On the bold: just pointing out, this is what happens when you let the standard slip, you get the birth of vernacular.

[Michigan J Frog]

Perhaps its the learner. It all depends on the teacher anyway - if you don't like the method of reading literature in high school, wait until university. I tell you, it is about 1000x more in depth, cutting every piece apart, and writing scansion for more poems than you have ever read.

All the boredom you think of when you think of English class is there for a reason.

On the bold: just pointing out, this is what happens when you let the standard slip, you get the birth of vernacular.

You used anyway yourself...

I don't mind the work or the boredom, if that's what you call it, but you can pick apart the whole book, write 10 essays on it, learn all the literary techniques, and even "understand it", but without experiencing it all these are useless. The person who is able to experience it knows more about the books than the lit. majors.
It's almost impossible to explain to people who do like to "analyze" books. As in Salinger's later novels- he dedicated those books to the reader who reads and runs. I cannot speak for other writers but I myself would not want one of my written works to be read like that. I am probably not interested in reading writers who want their books to be analyzed.

I am not saying it applies to poems, as I was thinking more of short stories and novels when I wrote my post. I am not terribly interested in poetry and have not read much of it- so I can't comment on that.

And in university you can dodge those classes.

I suppose the one positive to come out of teaching literature in public school is that you force them to read and might spark their interest in literature. (Though from my past experience I know that most of the students end up reading cliffnotes/sparknotes)

These classes are no different than others- most students only care about their grades- college they get into- job.
And the ones that end up as majors- well we don't need any more critics and scholars.

[Drkshadow03]

These classes are no different than others- most students only care about their grades- college they get into- job.
And the ones that end up as majors- well we don't need any more critics and scholars.

That's true in a way, the job market for college-level literature jobs is extremely saturated at the moment. Not to mention it's extremely difficult to find something new to say about any major literary work because so much of it has been said already.

[sprinks]

I think it is important, for pretty much all the reasons previously stated by others .

So, my belief then is that the best way to treat this situation is this. In high schools and perhaps colleges, for English requirements, students should be offered two options.

1. An English course which primarily focuses on literature
2. An English course which primarily focuses on linguistics

The literature one will be a traditional later-grades English class, where the writing is primarily essays relating to how well you've studied a work of literature and much of the class has to do with comprehension, while the linguistics one will focus much more on learning about the craft of writing in general along with the study of the language and its facets in high level detail. This one might go in depth on the theories behind clause usage and the numerous meanings of words based on contexts, etc.

This is what we have at school. There's English Literature (which I take) which is focused on essays, oral presentations, and analysis and knowledge of texts (primarily classics). Then there's about 4 other English classes, each a different level of work and focus, the lowest being about how to write letters and resumes and the like, the next being a little more indepth and harder, the next a little harder and branching into novels a little more, and then the one just below Lit, where it's more of a focus on personal response, and is not just about texts, but also film analysis and creative writing and things like that.
Although, the Lit class is changing next year, to include creative writing. Darn!

[JBI]

Michigan, just so you know, the comment was on "anyways" not anyway. As far as I know, "anyways" is considered a bastardized "informal", slang, form of anyway, carrying the same definition, but being viewed as not suitable for formal language. But then again, thank you for reinforcing my point.

[Emil Miller]

I think there's something to that. I mean, take Orwell as an example, he always was really more of a journalist/essayist, that's how he started out, and even when he wrote novels it still had more the feel of an essay. Don't get me wrong, I've read all his novels and I do think he was a very good novellist (Coming Up for Air perhaps being the one exception), but he wasn't as concerned with the actual language in the way that a real literary novelist, for example Hemingway, would be. In Orwell's case language was used to convey meaning, not to celebrate its own beauty.

I do agree, however, that studying literature improves your analytical skills. This was made overwhelmingly clear to me after my first few lessons with my 9th grade English teacher, who clearly had a passion for the subject and had a way of analyzing a book which no previous teacher I'd had possessed. He was the one person in my life who got me interested in literature and for that I owe him a lot, and being (not to brag) probably one of the brightest and most genuinely interested students he's had we formed quite a close bond. Needless to say, I wouldn't have given up that education for anything, and my life has become extremely enriched by it - never mind that whatever job I may go on to have will have nothing to do with literature, or even that I'm not now doing a degree in it (though I'm still an avid reader and, having talked to some of the people over here doing literature degrees, much more knowledgeable about it than many of them). But back to what I was talking about, I definitely think that studying literature has made me a much more perceptive and intelligent person, as well as exponentially increasing my capacity to express myself. Really, just show me anyone who is well-spoken and eloquent and I'll show you someone who will have done a fair bit of reading. I'm not necessarily referring to the classics or Ulysses but just reading in general (obviously going beyond just The Da Vinci Code).

Also, but this is just my personal preference, I believe that a condition of employment of every English teacher should be a little gleam of insanity in the eyes.

Your comparison of Orwell with Hemingway omits to mention that the main difference between these writers was not one of language but that one wrote stories while the other dealt in polemics. Whatever Hemingway's faults, he wasn't on some self-imposed mission to change peoples political/ social views; whereas Orwell patently was.
Hemingway went to the Spanish Civil War to report on it for the US press whereas Orwell went there to fight in it with a delegation from the Independent Labour Party (a ragbag breakaway group from the Labour party consisting of fellow travellers, anarchists and various other social misfits).
They both wrote books about the civil war but one is a straightforward novel while the other, as in so much of Orwell's writing, is left-liberal propaganda.
I acknowledge that though there have been many writers who have used the novel as a platform for their political or social viewpoint: Wells, Shaw, Dickens etc. etc. their work has, like Hemingway, been just as much about telling a story as propagating their opinions.

[Michigan J Frog]

Michigan, just so you know, the comment was on "anyways" not anyway. As far as I know, "anyways" is considered a bastardized "informal", slang, form of anyway, carrying the same definition, but being viewed as not suitable for formal language. But then again, thank you for reinforcing my point.

Okay. Good to know. I will type in formal language on this forum from now on.

Go Academia.

[carrotcake]

I think literature courses in high school and colleges/universities are far more important than most people realize. Considering that (especially) high school students are so moldable still, the literature they encounter (and analyze, as in school) will help transform them into the people are...

Instead of just learning how to calculate your grocery bill in a math class or learning about how the human body functions in a science class (both very important subjects, too, nonetheless), literature courses allow people to grow in more significant ways.

[wilbur lim]

The merits of literature is eclectic,that's what we can mechanically conclude.I perceived that literature can be taught to all,nonetheless,if students don't befits to study that,then there is no legitimate point to teach.

[wilbur lim]

You used anyway yourself...

I don't mind the work or the boredom, if that's what you call it, but you can pick apart the whole book, write 10 essays on it, learn all the literary techniques, and even "understand it", but without experiencing it all these are useless. The person who is able to experience it knows more about the books than the lit. majors.
It's almost impossible to explain to people who do like to "analyze" books. As in Salinger's later novels- he dedicated those books to the reader who reads and runs. I cannot speak for other writers but I myself would not want one of my written works to be read like that. I am probably not interested in reading writers who want their books to be analyzed.

I am not saying it applies to poems, as I was thinking more of short stories and novels when I wrote my post. I am not terribly interested in poetry and have not read much of it- so I can't comment on that.

And in university you can dodge those classes.

I suppose the one positive to come out of teaching literature in public school is that you force them to read and might spark their interest in literature. (Though from my past experience I know that most of the students end up reading cliffnotes/sparknotes)

These classes are no different than others- most students only care about their grades- college they get into- job.
And the ones that end up as majors- well we don't need any more critics and scholars.

Ah,nice elucidation.I relish going Sparknotes and Cliffnotes' websites.It is a privilege to have some notes to teach the gist and purport of your doubt.Personally,literature is my primacy.

[PeterL]

Perhaps in these days of diminishing challenges in education, when post-secondary education is largely technical job training, there may be no reason for students to study literature. Few people need to learn the analytical skills involved, and literature may be beyond the intellectual capacities of most students. If literature and other language skills were removed from education, it should be possible for students to complete their studies earlier and become productive members of society. There would be minor problems with that, but nothing that couldn't be worked around. Simplified language would allow anyone with a third grade education in language to understand anything that would be necessary. It might be a good idea to have a few schools that would teach advanced language, so that there would be someone to interpret past literature, such as nursery tales and advertising slogans.