You Gotta READ the Book

My initial and immediate reading of Wilhelm's method is that New Criticism is somehow a bad thing, but taking that stance would make readers miss so many things that texts themselves have to offer (a reader following NC might have noticed the alliteration in that sentence, which wasn't originally intentional but became so). If the reader isn't looking for characteristics like that (or isn't at least later made aware of them), he'll miss the genius of the writer or the work. I'll be the first to acknowledge that, oftentimes, there is no genius coming from either one (here's looking at you, Chopin), but it's hard to imagine missing out on the kinds of things that a close reading--but not necessarily NC--can show. I stopped on page 22 to type this, so maybe Wilhelm can reel me in with an argument soon.

It's important not to worry about correct interpretation unless there really is one, though. If an author has gone on record stating his or her intentions, there's nothing wrong with offering that view of the book. If the teacher hijacks the discussion with his favorite theoretical reading, regardless of how outlandish it is, that's a problem.

I also think it's important to visualize the scenes and connect to the text, but I have a hard time saying that that's more important to the reader than paying attention to the meanings of the words. I remember in 6th grade reading class, Mrs. Chilton gave us worksheets on which we had to make this many connections and visualize (draw) that many scenes and predict what would happen in the next chapter of whatever we were reading. Well, that's perfectly fine and perfectly correct. That's what Wilhelm is saying students need to learn. But, in my case, that was something we learned in 6th grade! We learned it in 6th grade and could then carry it over to 7th grade, through high school, through college, and into the rest of our lives. We didn't have to learn it in 8th or 9th or 10th grades. We had already learned that we were supposed to do those things. And that's why I have such trouble with the notion that students should be more focused on their own connections. They should've been taught those things years ago, and by 8th or 9th or 10th grade should be learning how to dive deeper into texts to gain meaning that way--in addition to what they've already learned about their own connections. That said, even in 10th or 11th grade, teachers would ask questions like, "How do you feel about Curly's wife? Do you think she's a good person?"

On page 88, Wilhelm says that many of his students have trouble spontaneously imagining the scenery of the story, and I literally cannot imagine not doing that while reading. My inability to understand that is most likely something that I'll have to learn to deal with while I'm teaching. It's a little bit like playing a sport: a great athlete will have difficulty understanding why you can't do something that he or she does every day, and will often have trouble teaching that skill until they understand what the average or less-practiced person needs to do in order to accomplish the task.

I read a story earlier today about teachers who are removing the desks from their classrooms. I feel the same way about this as I do about reading: aren't the desks important? I'd love to sit in a beanbag chair in class, but surely there are times when desks are better. Or maybe not. Maybe the desks are only important because teachers make them seem important; after all, they're often in the wrong place and need to be moved to facilitate activities anyway. So... maybe it's okay to get rid of the desks, but I think we need to keep some of the close reading.

I'm looking forward to reading more of this book because I think the subjects Wilhelm is writing about are things that inexperienced teachers either often worry about or never even think about. I'm interested to see what solutions he used in order to help his less-engaged readers become more so.

Reading has always come relatively easy to me, but that doesn't mean I've always enjoyed it. That reluctance began in elementary school in a gifted program called Special Interest, for which we were required to read novels. Many of my classmates read frequently without prodding, but Mrs. O'Conner actually gave me the titles of books I had to read, since I didn't often choose my own. She succeeded in getting me to read by choosing the My Side of the Mountain series, which I really enjoyed (oddly enough, though Hatchet is the same type of book, I didn't like it). I think she was the one who encouraged me to read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, as well. I read its sequel a little later, and followed that up with To Kill A Mockingbird in sixth grade. I also enjoyed the Island, Everest, and Dive trilogies, as they were both easy and interesting. I find myself reading similar novels (i.e., fiction dealing with the outdoors/adventures) now, like In High Places, although I've been working for the last few years on reading things that I should read in order to be able to better make connections for/with students (and, in some cases, pop culture) e.g., Harry Potter, The Road, Artemis Fowl, Paradise Lost, and plenty of others.

Most of the books from middle school didn't leave an impression on me, though I remember reading Light in the Forest, The Diary of Anne Frank, and The Miracle Worker, as well as having to memorize "The Road Not Taken." One of the things I enjoyed in middle school was our Greek mythology unit in 7th grade, which was a key reason I took Intro. to Mythology last semester. Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451 were my favorite stories, and 451 has kept that status. I re-read it over the summer and can't believe how much closer we've gotten to the world Bradbury describes in the 6 or 7 years since I had last read it.

The books in high school were much more interesting overall. Though we got stuck with some real bombs through the years (Romeo and Juliet, The Awakening, Travels with Charley, Hamlet, and The Crucible among them), many others were very good: The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Shipping News, Of Mice and Men, A Separate Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, and Benito Cereno, to name a few. Most of these novels are ones I enjoy because of how well they were taught. Had it not been for Ms. Gibson's teaching, Benito Cereno might have been one of my least favorite stories; instead, it's something I can't wait to read again. Mr. Emerick did a similarly outstanding job teaching A Separate Peace, and it's also become one of my favorite novels. The knowledge and  passion that my teachers showed in doing their jobs has directly contributed to my enjoyment of the novels I've had to read over the years, and I hope to be able to affect my own students that way.

Surprisingly, despite the amount of reading necessary for my college classes, I've spent much more time reading during the past two summers. In K-12, I would be amazed if I read more than 600-800 pages in any single summer solely for pleasure. In each of the past two summers, I've read 9 books and 15 books respectively, easily totaling more than 6,000 pages between the two. Those totals are partly due to greater motivation, but also to my awareness that to be a good teacher (and student) in this discipline, one needs to read more (in terms of genre/category, as well as volume) than what is required in class. My reading list for this summer already includes more than 50 books of all different kinds. Feel free to contribute to that list.