Counterpoint: Kids can still get hooked on the classics

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On Wednesday, the Minnesota Star Tribune published an article from the Associated Press stating that students aren’t reading “the classics” anymore in school, nor are they reading much at all.

My answer is: It depends. I taught for 25 years at Patrick Henry (now Camden High School) in north Minneapolis. And in my English classes, and in most of my colleagues’ classes, kids read whole novels and plays and memoirs regularly. Excerpts were read here and there, but most kids want the full impact of a literary text.

It’s a challenge, the author of the article writes, to get kids to read. Um, actually not so much. But teachers do need to model it. In fact, we often started the year doing much of our reading in class. That’s how I knew they were reading!

Often we started each class reading together, out loud. I’d read, and some students who loved to read out loud would also volunteer. So what if they were high school students? Reading together clarifies the plot, a character’s intentions and difficult themes, and it gets students involved and interested in a book right from the start. In other words, people got hooked after a chapter together.

This is especially true if one is 16 and reading a “classic.” These are challenging books, and not one the students chose. Having someone help you thread the needle to get you started is helpful.

Also, let’s be more mindful about which “classics” we choose. Yes, we still taught Shakespeare (“Romeo and Juliet” is one most students relate to, since the leading characters in this tragedy are their age), but “newer” classics should be integrated into our canon. In IB (International Baccalaureate) Literature, Nobel Prize-winning author Chinua Achebe’s powerful novel out of Nigeria titled “Things Fall Apart” was frequently read. The novel “Beloved” by another Nobel Prize winner, American author Toni Morrison, also was taught. “The Handmaid’s Tale” by frequent prize-winner Margaret Atwood, as well as “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston, were also well-liked by students, and brand-new books such as Trevor Noah’s childhood memoir “Born A Crime” were also popular with students.

(Other great choices from recent years include “Kitchen,” a short novel by Banana Yoshimoto, which takes place in Tokyo, or “Aura,” a mysterious novel out of Mexico by Carlos Fuentes, or plays by August Wilson such as “Fences” or “The Piano Lesson,” or vignettes centered on a theme such as those found in local author Tim O’Brien’s powerful Vietnam novel “The Things They Carried”).

I would also argue that while I would definitely still be willing to teach Steinbeck in ninth or 10th grade and Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” to older students, I would never, ever have agreed to teach “Jane Eyre” or “Pride and Prejudice” (though I love both) to high school students. Not 25 years ago and not today. They are simply not texts for 16-year-olds. They were written as adult novels, and they are specific to context with which most high school teens are unfamiliar. “Jane Eyre” references England in the mid- to late 1800s (as does Dickens). Austen’s novels take place in the Regency England of around 1810. These are not universal texts. They are very female-centered, for one thing, and particular to a limited audience.

For example, do most of today’s high school students relate to the lives of a lonely female governess, orphaned boys in London or unmarried sisters in a tiny village in England? Might they find these novels, though deemed classics, more than a little odd unless we spend a good amount of time educating them on the context first? And might that not be a great use of time in school? Why not choose more diverse and universal texts (meaning those with universal themes that any reader could connect to), such as texts I mentioned earlier?

Additionally, there is the use of cellphones, AI and technology in general that teachers must contend with today. In a school without a strong and supported cellphone policy, I can promise you that 50% of students would be scrolling through their phones instead of reading in many a classroom. In schools in which phones are locked away, great reading, learning and discussion can and do take place.

Those readers and those discussions however will be much better in classes in which the right “classics” are being read. Just because you read “Moby Dick” in high school does not mean your kids should. (And really, I dare you reader, to tell me what you remember of that “classic,” or any other you read back when in school.)

I agree, we must still read and help students enjoy, connect to and comprehend great literature in school. Which means that everything from novels, plays, essays, stories and, yes, even poetry should be read, analyzed and especially discussed. Introducing students to multiple genres, authors, time periods and themes is incredibly important. Kids do enjoy reading, but we must show them how and why to read. Put down your phone and read with your kids, parents. Read the same books they’re reading in high school and talk about them. Support their education and limit their phone use. And read yourself for pleasure and let your kids see you reading as well.

Eva Lockhart, of Edina, is a retired teacher.