Couch 82: If you're happy and you know it, be a number!

I had to read it in AP english in the late 70s. Back in my day we did not get to pick or change the list.
I wanted to club all of the character in that book. I did not like Jane Eyre either.
I did much better with Catch 22 and anything by Faulkner.

I kind of like the name Moorcliff.

Since I've been in therapy, I've seen even more in the novel. It's hard to believe though that Emily Bronte, as isolated as she was, would have known all of this stuff when she wrote the novel. But who knows. Like I can see that Heathcliff and Cathy are in a way each other's Shadow. I'm going to start reading it again tonight as soon as dinner is done.

Lolagrace - i was getting confused about your identity there for a minute. First youre talking about your "husband" - im like, okaaaaay. Then your "sons"? Hmm, not as i recall, but whatever. Then your "students"? -okay, NOW i remember!! D'oh!!

I think the heathcliff is something i need spelled out for me, and then im gonna say, well THATS just TOO obvious. Like Dr Evil being a bad guy. i think i just resented being made to read these books in high school because i had already read so many of the classics on my own during junior high. I just didnt get it. At that point i needed a survey type class to explain to me what it all MEANT. Philosophy or values or something. I wasnt getting that at home at all.

I changed my philosophy of teaching literature a bit over the years. It used to be there was a canon of literature that all AP students "must" read, and we taught them as works to the whole class. Unfortunately, what that tended to foster was a lot of Sparksnoting it because, frankly, kids won't read what they don't want to read. I still do a few things as a whole class, but I've found giving more choice (still from a list of "quality" literature) gets more students actually reading entire works instead of finding shortcuts through novels they aren't interested in. My students are actually reading much more now than in the past, so it seems to be working. The challenge has been finding how to help them learn to analyze and read deeply when I have 50 or more different novels all going at once. I obviously can't be the expert on every novel, but they can be taught to discover these things for themselves. It can be done. Just takes a different approach and a lot of work in teaching literary criticism, archetypes, rhetorical analysis, etc. Once they learn that they can research the works for themselves, they really get into it and are rather proud of how capable they are of doing that for themselves.

Help, Help Me! I am trapped in my uni login page. I can't get any subject links to work and it won't let me log out.

I don't remember ever not reading a book. I would not do math or science if not interesting - but I would read anything. I was more interested in language use than plot most of the time.
We had this one thousand year old teacher who started each year by telling the AP class she did not care if we liked the books or not. She was not making us read them because she wanted us to like them. Then she told the same thing to our parents and told them not to bother complaining to her if their kid did not like the book.
I loved her.

I actually disliked Moby **** more than anything by the Brontes. The Bronte's -I just found silly.

I don't think I've ever read WH, but one of my first years at university, I took am English lit course that included Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and The Mill on the #%€£* Floss. Much as I enjoy many classics, I only liked P&P out of those three books. The others were too girly, and too longwinded and focused on romance, the characters were uninteresting, and I did not like the style. (Style and use of language are absolutely crucial for me.) I think I would feel much the same about Wuthering Heights - I know the plot of it rather well and quite frankly it sounds boring. Give me Dickens, or Dostoievskij, or Austen, or Gaskell, instead.

Is sparksnoting like cliff notes?
And I keep reading it like sparksnotting.

The cool thing about literature is there is such variety out there. The hard thing is helping kids find literature they'll initially hook into. Once they hook in, they'll continue to read, but so many high schoolers will openly admit to never having read an entire book beyond about 7th grade. My goal is to get them hooked back into reading. What many find is that they really like nonfiction once I suggest a few books to them. Nonfiction often gets largely ignored in English classes unfortunately, but teaching AP Language is almost entirely nonfiction, so they get a chance to finally get that exposure.

Reading was the only way I could relate to people before I found band. Actually, novels, even if we disagree, is one of the ways I still relate to most people first.

Yup. It's the online version of Cliff's Notes basically. I actually don't mind students using Sparksnotes to supplement their reading, but unfortunately many use it to substitute for actually reading which doesn't work out well for them. I show them how to use it as a tool rather than a substitute. Cliff's Notes got me through some hairy literature in college. For instance, I talk about reading Beowulf in Middle English and not understand a blooming thing I was reading so I would use Cliff Notes to clarify and verify that I was on the right track.

I loved my middle english class. It was like putting a puzzle together. So was latin and I almost had a double major in that.

Art - can you explain what it is that you find so compelling about WH?

I only read one book in all of high school... The Catcher in the Rye. Thirteen years later I still enjoy it. I never read any other book or even pretended to read them.

In grade 12 our teacher gave us a choice of ten novels and that is the one I picked. Every other year we were not given a choice.



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WH - Heathcliff shows up, he leaves, he comes back, he disappears again, lather rinse repeat. It should be called, WTH

I think im still reading the mill on the stuffing floss

In 8th grade, i remember my best friend recommending Tess of the D'Ubervilles to me, telling md it was a really good book. I put her off, saying i didnt like spooky mysteries - i was mixing it up with The Hound of the Baskervilles - true story i finally did start reading it a few years ago, and i really do wish i had read it at age 14 - i needed to!

LOL. That's about right. But seriously, my English teacher brain is enjoying all of the duality in the novel. And the characterization is interesting -- not a redeeming character in the book so far, but they are interesting. Talk about people with deep seeded psychological issues. I also appreciate the way Bronte chose to narrate the story; could spend a lot of time discussing the idea of the reliable narrator.

The only book I never read that was assigned to me was "Huckleberry Finn." I tried, but the dialects drove me nuts.

I remember my hs English teacher (I had the same one junior and senior year) would take Cliff's Notes from anyone if they had them in class...he wasn't very popular, go figure.

I hate Huck Finn; bores me to tears, but I teach with other teachers who absolutely LOVE it though and I suspect they do a good job of teaching it because they have a passion for it. I try to refuse to teach anything I don't like; unfortunately, sometimes curriculum gurus think they know better. Grr. Pet peeve.

She'd be a frustrated teacher in today's technical age. I prefer to show them how to use such resources legitimately because they're going to use them one way or the other.

Ohhh..Dah! I got confused. Now I remember and I'm making more sense of the posts.

Hee, hee. I've been reincarnated.

I enjoy watching Thug Notes. This one's a review of Lord of the Flies:

Im glad im not the only one! Plus uppercase C and G are very similar. Its not our fault! We are very open minded tho, arent we? You wanna start calling your female partner who you USED to call your wife, your husband now - we dont blink an eye, we dont ask questions, we just roll with it. As much as senile people CAN roll!

Hm. I don't think you know who I am yet . . . I definitely have a male partner and have been married to him for almost 28 years, 3 sons, I'm a teacher . . . figured it out?