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Archives For June 30, 2012

What am I Missing with ‘A Separate Peace”?

July 6, 2012 — 7 Comments

The Simpson’s creator Matt Groening is a great satirist. In one episode in an exchange between the cartoon character Lisa Simpson and her Grandmother, he also demonstrates his ability to be a great literary critic:

Grandma Simpson: Don’t be bashful. When I was your age, kids made fun of me because I read at the 9th grade level.
Lisa: Me too!
Grandma Simpson: Although I hardly consider A Separate Peace the ninth-grade level.
Lisa: Yeah, more like preschool.
Grandma Simpson: I hate John Knowles.
Lisa: Me too.

I value Lisa Simpson’s opinion on literature, after all, this is a character who has been seen clutching copies of  The Bell Jar, Ethan Frome, Man and Superman, The Corrections, and the more age appropriate Pippi Longstocking. So when she says she hates John Knowles, I feel validated. I have always disliked John Knowles’s A Separate Peace.
However, there are others who call this same book  “A masterpiece”(National Review) or ” deeply felt and beautifully written” (The Observer) or “Intense, mesmerizing, and compelling” (School Library Journal). The English Language Arts Common Core State Standards gives its recommendation since the novel has been, “Hailed as a literary masterpiece,” and that ” A Separate Peace is a classic novel with numerous teaching resources available.” The CCSS analysis of the text complexity reads:
“When considering the qualitative measures and the reader-task considerations, this novel is well placed at the 9th-10th grade complexity band. The complex themes, use of first person narrative—but with multiple flash backs and flash forward indicate higher level reading skills are needed by the reader. The Common Core Standards Text Exemplars also place the novel in the 9th -10th grade complexity band.”
 In a  2004 study titled A SeparatePeace:Four Decades of Critical Response, Lois Rauch Gibson writes:

“Rejected at first by American publishers, John Knowles’ A SeparatePeace appeared in England in 1959, where critics admiringly compared it to Salinger’s writings. American critics, responding in 1960 to the American edition, generally noted its depth, sensitivity, and ‘disturbing allegories'(Aitken 754). They did not entirely agree about what the allegories might be, nor have the four decades of critics since.”

I would argue there are no allegories in this short story “Phineas” that was expanded (unnecessarily) by Knowles into a full length novel. This is a fairly straightforward story of young white males at an exclusive prep school and their conflicts and competition during a last summer before entering the very grown up world of competition and World War II. I found the story dated when I read it in 1973, but Gibson felt the novel could  speak to today’s readers:

“As we approach the forty-fifth anniversary of the American edition of A Separate Peace,in a world where the all-male, all-white prep school environment has become exceedingly rare, John Knowles’ novel nonetheless continues to speak to adolescents. Once we fought wars against fascism, then against communism, now against terrorism. Before this background, teenagers attend school, bond with peers, lose their innocence, encounter hate and ignorance and what Knowles calls blind impulses; and each one inevitably struggles to develop an identity-sexual and otherwise. As the world continues to change, no doubt the next four decades of critics will have much to say about this resilient and compelling novel.”

I have always considered A Separate Peace to be the poorer literary cousin to J.D. Salinger’s 1951 classic Catcher in the Rye. Unfortunately, I like A Separate Peace’s  Gene less than I like the deluded Holden from Catcher in the Rye, and I like the object of Gene’s angst, Phineas or Finny, even less. This is a critical problem in the novel according to Slate Magazine’s Dec 2009 review The Secret of A Separate Peace by Stephen Metcalf:

“We do not love Phineas as Gene does. His charm for Gene exceeds his charm for us. The less we are seduced by Phineas, the more we experience him not as an Apollonian boy-god lacking the normal ratio of ill-character but as a love object for Gene, and Gene alone.”
I remember reading the climatic moment of the novel, when Gene reflects back on the accident in the tree:
 “He [Phineas/Finny] had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us. I was not of the same quality as he. I couldn’t stand this. . . . Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud. It was the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make. With unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped into the river, every trace of my fear of this forgotten.”
“What the heck?” I distinctly remember thinking, “He intentionally caused him to fall! What kind of friend is that?” He lost me at “forgotten.” I considered the final “apology” of the novel a fraud:
“I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there. Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone.”
It’s a lie. Gene was responsible (indirectly) for the death of Phineas, and in this statement he is contradictory about killing his “enemy.” Apologetically glorifying Phineas at the end is probably meant to be sincere, but to me the conclusion reeks of Freudian dishonesty. Gene could never really know Phineas, so he destroyed him and then made him a god.
 Still, our 9th grade honors classes read A Separate Peace.
When I asked the teacher why she replied casually, “Well, they can read it in a weekend. They like it.”
“Do you do any real lessons with it?” I pressed her.
“No. They generally get it.”
“Get what?”
“Friendship, betrayal. Teenage angst.”
Ah, yes. A Separate Peace is awash in teenage angst. So is high school, which probably is the reason the book remains in the high school canon. That and the accumulated hundreds of copies available in English Department libraries. Of course, this wallowing in the imposed angst of teenagers reminds me of another brilliant Matt Groening observation, this time provided by Lisa’s brother Bart. Heading into an alternative rock and roll concert, Bart is heard commenting, “Lisa, making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel.” Which explains why Lisa hates John Knowles.
Me too.
In 9th Grade, Coming of Age, Education, Reading, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , , ,
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Why I Blog: The One Year Anniversary of Used Books in Class

July 3, 2012 — 10 Comments

A bit of self-indulgence here. I have been blogging for a year on July 3, which means that the Used Books in Class blog is a one year old “toddler.”

I started this blog for two reasons. The first was a response to Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide, a book I have mentioned numerous times in posts on this blog. I was determined to increase reading in the classroom per his suggestion through “book floods,” and I began purchasing used books for the classroom libraries at Wamogo High School (Region 6 in CT). Fortunately for me, in the Fairfield and Litchfield counties in Connecticut there are numerous sources for excellent quality used books available for $1.00 (or less) through public library book sales held generally in the summer and Goodwill or other thrift stores.  I wanted to share how I had added entire class sets of books ( for example: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Kite Runner, The Bluest Eye, A Walk in the Woods) or increased books in classroom libraries for independent choice reading in grades 7-12.

The second reason was that this past year I required students to write using blogs. At each grade level (9-12), the Wamogo English Department teachers used blogs in the classroom in order to increase student reading and writing collaboration. Our Lord of the Flies unit included “survival activities” on team blogs for 10 graders. The freshmen classes used a blog in different ways: to record individual book reports and to respond to questions associated with whole class reads.. The journalism class’s newspaper format is a blog, and we have also had students blog responses to Hamlet or record their progress on Capstone projects. If I was requiring that students blog, I needed to know how to blog as well.

I researched the use of blogs in the classroom. According to Trey Martindale and David A Wiley,  in their paper Using Weblogs in Scholarship and Teaching, “Clearly two keys to effective blogging are knowing who one’s audience is, and knowing that that audience is in fact reading one’s blog. My students were motivated and willing to write regularly and with clarity, knowing that fellow students and the instructor were reading the blogs.”  I recognized that most student writing is read by the teacher, so our students needed to understand how to target an larger audience. I emphasized this question for my students by having them identify the audiences of other blogs, and then consider the question  “Who am I writing this blog for?” and “Who will be able to read this post?”.  Similarly, I had to apply the same consideration for this blog.

I also researched whether blogging was an effective strategy to increasing reading and writing in the classroom. Would student blogging rather that standard writing (papers, essays) improve comprehension skills? In one study by N.B. Ellison and Yuehua Wu, “Analysis revealed no significant differences in comprehension between blog and paper assignments, although students reported spending less time writing in the blogging condition.” However, in another study by R. MacBride and Lynn Luehmann using blogging in science and math classrooms, “Findings indicate that (1) teachers’ intentions focused on creating additional forms of participation as well as increasing student exposure time with content; (2) blogs were used in a wide variety of ways that likely afforded particular benefits; and (3) both teacher and students perceived the greater investment to be worthwhile. ”

I found the same to be true for this blog, Used Books in Class. My first post (7/3/11)  received 8 hits! I was surprised anyone would be interested in this blog about used books, but those first hits motivated me. Now, after a year, the focus of the blog has shifted from “used books” in class to posts discussing “how books are used” in class. I have drifted into other areas of education, namely the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, but these issues directly or indirectly impact teaching in the classroom.  26,518 hits later, I still am still surprised at the interest this blog has received. Honestly,  it’s not like readers could use yet one more education blog; there is some serious competition for attention!

Yet there is one more reason that I discovered for blogging as I wrote over the course of a year. I found other blogs to be informative on issues in education, and their comment sections were one way to enter into online discussions. I had followed Shelly Blake-Plock who authored Teach Paperless from 2009-May 2012. In his post, Why Teachers Should Blog, he offered one line that stood out:

Because to blog is to teach yourself what you think.

I had no idea how true that statement would be for me this year. Blogging has allowed me to frame an evolving philosophy of education, and I had to think about my own teaching practice every time I sat down to write. Blogging has provided the platform for me to articulate my responses to issues in education, and I had to think about how public my response would be every time I sat down to write. Blogging has let me practice my writing voice, and I had to think about how this voice needed to attract the reader and keep the reader reading every time I sat down to write. In summation, blogging has taught me over the course of this year how to think in order to write about education.

Thank you for reading posts on this blog. I am heading into year two with this “toddler”. When I started, I wondered if I would have enough topics to write about. I do not worry about that any more because this blog has taught me how to write what I think, and I  am thinking all the time. I think, therefore I blog.

In Education, Friends of the Library Book Sale, Independent Student Reads, New Milford Goodwill Store, Writing , , , , , , , , , , ,
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