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Ben GoodwinResearch in the Teaching of EnglishDr. Samantha Caughlin3/8/11Classics v. YA Lit v. Graphic Novels: Landmark Cases in What Works to TeachThe Scene:What follows is the theoretical script for a conversation between three scholars in Secondary English Education: Carol Jago, Katie Monnin, and Arthea J. S. Reed. In the alternative universe of this conversation’s setting, these three women are all Secondary English teachers at Metaphorical High, and have met for lunch in the teachers’ lounge, as they do each day, for a lively discussion. Today’s topic: What kinds of texts have a place in the Secondary English classroom? We will join the debate in media res after a brief but necessary biography on each of our characters’ real life counterparts. The Players:Carol Jago has been steeped in the world of Secondary English since starting work in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District in 1974. Over the years she has added author, editor, speaker, consultant, and many other titles to her list, and is currently the “past-President” of NCTE. A self-described avid reader, Jago is a large proponent of teaching the classics, and has consistently worked with publishing, speaking, and professional organizations to have students reading classics and a select few other texts that she believes to be standards aligned, rich, and accessible. Her arguments and their rationales in this discussion are adapted from those presented in her book With Rigor for All: Teaching the Classics to Contemporary Students, released in 2000. As the back cover contends, this work “provides a convincing rationale for teaching the classics to all of your high school students,” and is “the best source of information and inspiration we’ve come across” if you “believe in teaching the good stuff.” Essentially, the text asserts that only works that are ‘classics’ carry with them the richness, engagement, relevance, and most importantly rigor, that is needed to accomplish the true purposes of the Secondary English classroom.Katie Monnin is an assistant professor of literacy at the University of Florida. Besides teaching and publishing works about using graphic novels at the Secondary level, she has presented in conferences on the subject as well as on issues of image and print-text literacies and new media; she is also the co-editor of the Florida Reading Quarterly. Her arguments and their rationales in this discussion are taken from Teaching Graphic Novels: Practical Strategies for the Secondary ELA Classroom, released in 2009. This work contends that graphic novels are a important and useful addition to the curriculum in the wake of the “greatest communication revolution of all time.” Essentially, Monnin posits that these types of texts should be used for their ability to garner student interest, their easier accessibility, their capacity to enable critical connection and consideration of textual and visual elements, and their usefulness as a bridge to more traditional, ‘classic’ works.Arthea J. S. Reed is currently Director of Education and Development at Northwestern Mutual Life in Ashville, NC. Previously, she has been a professor and chair of the Education Department at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, taught from grades two to twelve in Connecticut, Ohio, and West Virginian public schools, has been coeditor of the Penguin/Signet Classic teachers’ guide series since 1990, and worked for NCTE and the National Writing Project. Her arguments and their rationales are taken from Reaching Adolescents: The Young Adult Book and the School published in 1994. Though an older work, this book is a thought-provoking and comprehensive chronicle of Young Adult literature issues and pedagogical suggestions. Essentially, the author provides YA lit as an easier, more engaging, and highly relevant avenue into encouraging student reading, a necessary educational step aligning with students’ cognitive development, and a great way to introduce and connect with more traditional, ‘classic’ works.The Script*Note: Where possible, I have used these author’s original words, and have marked these direct quotations as such. Otherwise, all dialog is assumed to be paraphrased from their works, with page numbers given to provide the original origin.*[12:45, Second Lunch. Three teachers (Carol, Katie, and Arthea) sit around a teachers’ lounge table eating their collective consumables]Carol: You know guys, I’m just getting so frustrated about how reading lists for our high school English classrooms are getting so “watered-down(2).” Katie: How do you mean Carol? Carol: Well, I’ve always believed that students need “powerful stories to engage them,” and “that the most potent stories are those that have weathered the test of time: the ‘classics(2).’” I’m worried “that in our determination to provide students with literature they can ‘relate to’ we sometimes end up teaching works that students don’t need much help with at the expense of teaching classics that they most certainly do need assistance negotiating,” “which teachers defend….by explaining to themselves and others that most teenagers simply can’t understand the difficult vocabulary…[and] today’s kids won’t read anything that is old (2-3).” Arthea: Whoa, hold on just a second. I use a lot of Young Adult literature in my classroom, and I think it helps out a lot.Katie: Yeah, and I’ve actually started integrating graphic novels into my curriculum [Carol gasps] which my students have really gotten into. Why do you think that the classics are the only way to go?Carol: The fact of the matter is that “all books are not created equal (7).” Actually, a scholar I read named Marshall Gregory said it best. Essentially, he said that by using “great works” you can help them develop intellectually because of the vicarious experience powerful examples of the human condition, develop cognitively because of “the precise use of language and…sound arguments within the text, help them gain an “aesthetic sensitivity that helps them recognize and respond to art,” work on their “ethical sensitivity” because of the lessons of the text, and finally develop an “existential maturity that allows them to behave as civilized human beings in a world where others are not always so inclined (8).” I mean, “when the study of literature can accomplish so much (and so much that law enforcement and social services struggle in vain to accomplish), it seems foolhardy for schools to shortchange this essential element of a child’s education (8-9).” Arthea: And only ‘classical’ works can do these things? Only works written by white guys a long time ago?Carol: No no no, I don’t mean ‘classical’ in that sense. To me, “a classic is an enduring story… the texts I use in my classroom include both works from antiquity and contemporary novels (5).” Katie: But not young adult literature or graphic novels huh?Carol: I just think that while it might be “easier to persuade students to pick up” those kinds of texts, “a critical reading to classical literature results in a deep literacy that I believe is an essential skill for anyone who wants to attempt to make sense of the world (7).” Katie: Well I must respectfully disagree. Not that ‘classics’ don’t do that, but that they alone can do it and only they must be taught in the classroom. I know Arthea would agree with me, do you want to say your piece Mrs. Reed or shall I?Arthea: Go ahead and defend your graphic novel babies, and I’ll speak up when necessary.Katie: Alright, well first of Carol, you’ve got to realize that we are experiencing “the greatest communication revolution of all time (xv).” Carol: [interrupting confused] What now?Katie: The society is changing Carol; we have to asks ourselves “what it means to be literate” today because “the worlds of print-text literacy and image literacy share the stage. They are co-stars. They are partners(xv).” Carol: I’m not sure I believe that.Katie: The proof is in the history—this has been coming for a long time. Right after the Committee of Ten decided about the canon, NCTE suggested teachers should instead consider the interests of students. In the 1920s and 30s, reader response theory started suggesting that it’s not all about the text itself but the interaction of the text and the reader, and two decades later, scholars like Dora Smith “suggested that speaking and listening also be values as acts of literacy in the ELA classroom” (xix) instead of just reading and writing. Britain jumped right on the bandwagon of the future when The Newsom Report “recommended that ELA teachers expand their definition of what counted as literacy by including more image-dominant literacies” after they discovered that “half of Britain’s adolescent population felt marginalized by the ELA curriculum(xix).” And most importantly, at least for me, is the research out of the 80s about multiple learning styles and intelligences, and that these specific characteristics in students, like some of them being more visual-spatial learners, should influence teachers’ pedagogy. Not to mention the new focus on media literacy that has been gaining momentum in schools(xix-xx)! Carol: But what does all that have to do with why graphic novels deserve space in our curriculum? I mean, comics in a serious ELA class, really?Katie: Well that’s part of the problem right there—comics are not the same as graphic novels. Graphic novels are far more complex, and deeply explore “issues of characterization, plot, setting, theme, symbols, and so on (xvii).” The graphic novel Maus II even won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991, leading to readers from outside the graphic novel and “comic” worlds to begin reading the genre. Carol: One Pulitzer Prize doesn’t justify an entire genre. How can students engage critically with a graphic novel like they could with Shakespeare? Can they really learn anything?Katie: Tons! Like I talked about before, students with more visual-spatial intelligences can actually interact with graphic novel more critically than they could with simple texts, and the very nature of the genre lends itself to critical thinking. Students are forced to make inferences between panels and connections between the words and images. Essentially, “readers can actively and critically reflect on the partnership between the image and the words (12).” Whether they are partnerships of comparison, contrast, reference, or story-extension, exploring and analyzing these connections is incredibly critical and enhance students’ abilities to understand and reflect on any kind of texts (12-13). Carol: But what about our curriculum standards? I know I can teach them through Shakespeare, but are you really trying to tell me you can meet them using graphic novels?Katie: Most definitely. For instance, “high school reading standards stress that students use a variety of strategies…. to comprehend literary texts” (25) Using graphic novels and using teaching strategies that more visual-texts allow for like text potentials and story maps ensures that students will be exposed to a variety of ways to explore a variety of texts. And if you want to get even more specific, how about the standard for teaching non-fiction? Texts like Maus I and Maus II, which focus on real events like World War II and the Holocaust, can be used with great effect to cover a topic that students often find very dry and boring (67). Arthea: I’ve actually seen some History teachers use graphic novels that way. I don’t mean to interrupt Katie, but what was that you said earlier about teaching media literacy? That’s still something that I have trouble with.Katie: I’m glad you asked Mrs. Reed, because media literacy is definitely important. We as ELA teachers simply can “no longer isolate print-text literacies as the dominant (or only!) literacy worth teaching… [we] must adopt pedagogies of multi-literacies (103).” And because “graphic novels combine print-text literacies with still image literacies… the use of these two types of literacies qualifies graphic novels as media texts (106).” While graphic novels may be “static” media unlike the “fluid” media of TV or movies, this nature is actually helpful because students “can determine how fast or slow they read. They can determine how many times they will read and even the different routes they will take to travel through the story (106).” This kind of freedom is really important to the goal of media literacy—helping students find their own way to understanding how all media is constructed and serves a specific purpose (104). Carol: Ok fine, but media literacy is only one of the problems that we have to address in the ELA classroom, what about writing tests, end-of-grade tests, ELL students…Katie: [interrupting excitedly] Aha! Graphic novels are actually really great for ELL students. Scholars have shown that “when we learn another language, we often, if not always use images to assist us… and that the use of image literacies in language learning is much more than an established pedagogical practice (123).” I mean, the vast array of different levels of difficulty and complexity in comics and graphic novels alone make them an excellent tool to help ELL students advance in their reading and language learning (124). Carol: Sigh… I guess I’m still just not convinced. I still feel like using graphic novels is just lowering the bar of expectations on our students, and the bar of quality on our texts.Katie: But that’s just it! “We consider print-text literacies to be valuable, thought-provoking literacies simply because they are traditional literacies. It’s like Steve Johnson said in Everything Bad is Good for You: what if we lived in a world where video games were invented and popularized before books, and then page-bound texts came out and suddenly they’re all the rage? Authority figures would be shouting at students “saying things like, ‘Stop starring at that book, just looking at it! Play your videogame! (105)’” It’s not right to disregard a genre that can be beneficial in the classroom just because it doesn’t hold up to your values. Students’ values, and their needs, are simply not the same as yours!Arthea: And here’s where I’d like to step in, because that’s exactly why I think we need to include young adult literature—the needs and the nature of students have changed and our curriculum needs to as well.Carol: But see that’s exactly why I think we need the classics! “With incidents of teenage violence and despair on the rise… children today virtually raising themselves…young people spending long unsupervised hours in from of television and online… teachers, and especially English teachers, may be students’ primary access to… the best of what has been thought and said in the world (126).” I know that some of the rationale for using non-‘classical’ texts is that students can relate easier to the characters and plot, but I think that “sometimes it is easier to learn from a character who appears to have nothing whatsoever in common with us, at least on the surface (131).” I think taking a look a different lifestyles can “provide [students] with a remarkable model for behavior” (132) and “I am not ashamed of my desire to shape my students’ behavior.” (127)Arthea: Hold the phone Mrs. Jago, I think you’re missing the point. What I’m saying is that students are different these days and we need to react accordingly. Reading, for example. Most teachers lament that students today just don’t read right? [Carol and Katie nod their agreement] But have we ever stopped to ask why they don’t read, or for that matter “why adolescents are unable to understand complicated information they read? (8)” Think about it this way: “the reader of any text must take a stance… and the stance a reader takes reflects the reader’s purpose in reading the text (9).” A reader can either take an efferent stance that focuses on what they retain after reading the text, or an aesthetic stance that “focuses on what is experienced during the reading act itself.” “Too often, in literature programs, we turn works of literature into efferent reading exercises” (10) which is unfortunate because “it is through a personal reading that students move to the higher levels of understanding… and deal with the complexity of works. (10)” A scholar I admire named Nancie Atwell “contends that it is too often teachers who turn students into ‘aliterate’ readers” by demonstrating things about reading literature like that it is “difficult, serious business” and that “there’s another kind of reading, a fun, satisfying kind that you can do on your free time or outside of school (11-12).” Carol: Now wait just a minute! Reading classics IS difficult, serious business! I think that “where educators have gone wrong is in promoting the idea that learning is fun.” “Reading a classic, like learning a language, takes applied effort,” and while “learning can be enormous fun and with a good teacher often is… fun is not the goal. The goal is learning (26-27).” We should explain the difficulties of hard texts to students instead of just giving them easier ones. Using young adult literature might make the ELA class fun, but I don’t see how it makes it learning.Arthea: Well then allow me to explain it to you. Essentially, “the many excellent young adult novels written for adolescents… provide an opportunity to experience texts aesthetically. This experience will eventually carry over to more mature reading and will increase the likelyhood that these adolescents will become avid adult readers (10).” Isn’t that what you want Carol?Carol: Of course! A “goal I consciously pursue is love and respect for literature… that without determined high school English teachers… would die out (5).” But can YA lit really make readers more mature? In my mind, “few young adult books employ rich language or explore complex themes. The characters are often one-dimensional and almost always teenagers themselves (80).” How can such “simpler texts” (81) help?Arthea: Well first I’d like to say that your perception of YA literature is inaccurate. YA texts are not cut-and-dry “simple.” Did you know that books aren’t labeled “Young Adult” labeled as such by their authors, but by publishers, and that these publishers do not label these texts this way because of their length, quality, or even subject matter, but rather by who the publishing house wants to market more to (4)? In addition, “young adult literature offers many examples of rich language… [These books] can show students how elements of language can be used to develop plot, character, and setting… [and] help students locate such elements as alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme, and rhythm” to reflect on language and produce “richer, more concise and precise use of words” (381) just as well as, if not better than, any other text.Katie: See that’s just what I said about graphic novels. The public—and more importantly the educational—perspectives on these texts are biased and block them from being effectively used!Carol: It’s not bias to say that these texts are simpler than the classics, easier to read and more accessible and thus less effective as tools for developing critical literacies. It’s a fact!Arthea: Alright, but even if I agreed with you that they are simpler across the board, which I don’t, the characteristics you don’t like about them are exactly why I think they are useful.Carol: How so?Arthea: Well, a scholar named G. Robert Carlsen provides evidence that “reading interest peaks between the ages of twelve to fourteen” (7), so this age is an essential time to get our student interested in reading. More importantly, “not all students become capable readers at the same rate… [but] all young people, however, can enjoy and learn from their reading if they are directed to books that are appropriate for them (13).” In fact, research shows that “the egocentric stage of reading development cannot be bypassed if the reader is going to progress to the next stage,” (15) so having students read texts that are easily accessible and personally relevant is essential. I truly believe that “creating a curriculum in which students meet books as equals does not mean watering down the content of the curriculum… it does mean offering a variety of books that bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood and gradually teaching students how to examine ideas, issues, and situations in a more sophisticated way,” (16) not just giving them Shakespeare right off the bat even if you add a helpful warning label.Carol: Yes but not all students are equals as you’ve stated yourself. With student diversity on the rise, how can you be sure that young adult literature will be any more universally relevant than the ‘classics’?Arthea: On some level you are absolutely correct. “Today’s students are diverse.” However, “because students are diverse, it is essential that the books included in the curriculum value this diversity” “The best young adult books help students see the similarities of age-mates who may come from different cultures or have different problems (17).” And on another level, these diverse students are very similar in that they are on similar heights of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. As I’m sure you guys know, Maslow says that generally lower-level needs must be taken care of before higher-level ones, and “the struggle of [our students] to meet social affection and self-esteem needs is also evident in [their] developmental reading stage,” (19) a struggle that the content of many young adult literature books helps with.Carol: Ok, I can see how these books might be useful from a developmental standpoint at a certain age, but how does using young adult lit having any impact on making them avid adult readers of great works in the future?Arthea: Glad you asked. If students are allowed access to young adult texts and can even make their own selections from them, their motivation to read will increase.Carol: How?Arthea: If we give them YA titles that “challenge them, meet their personal needs, and appeal to their interests, we are encouraging them to develop reading versatility at an early age. We can also begin to teach them the difference between books that are read for pleasure, those read for personal development, and those read for educational or professional reasons (37).” Armed with these skills and understandings, they will be much more confident going forward. Not only that, but when previously unmotivated students start enjoying books, even if those books are not as challenging as you would like Carol, they will begin tumbling down a steep slope of reading. The more they want to read, the more they will read—it’s that simple (40). Carol: See that all makes sense, but I just don’t understand why we need to use class for this kind of reading. I just don’t think it’s rigorous enough to spend our valuable educational time on it. Can’t they just do it at home?Arthea: For one, the simple fact is that many students don’t read at home. Whether it’s distractions like TV and the internet like you’ve talked about, or the unfortunate nature of non-conducive home environments, we have to provide them space to read at school if we want to ensure that they are reading (10-11). And I don’t exactly agree with you that young adult literature isn’t rigorous. Studies and successful programs have show that reading of young adult literature in the classroom, even free, individual reading, can be both rigorous and educationally effective. By including written and oral reflections, group, individual, and class-wide discussions, and other good pedagogy, reading YA lit can be just as rigorous and worth the time as any other kind of text (281-282).Carol: Alright, alright, let’s say for a minute that I agree with both of you about the usefulness of graphic novels and young adult literature, where’s the space left over for my beloved ‘classics?’ Do you two think we should just toss them out of the curriculum as failed experiments?Katie: No, no not at all! I love teaching the classics and think they’re an essential part of the curriculum.Arthea: Me too! I would never suggest simply getting rid of them altogether.Carol: Well then what would you suggest?Arthea: I would suggest using young adult literature as a bridge to the ‘classics.’ “In fact, it is possible to use accessible young adult books to teach basic skills so that students can more successfully read and interpret the classics.” “Using some of the best young adult novels, the English and language arts teacher can illustrate the author’s technique in handling many aspects of literary craft (403).” In a sense, YA lit can be used a “way into literature,” (404) as a technique or activity used before reading the literature in order to thematically connect a particular ‘classic’ with a young adult title, “helping students see connections between the works [that] may make each work more meaningful to students, particularly those who are not yet able to synthesize sophisticated concepts on their own (405).” Katie: That’s almost exactly what I would suggest as well. “I recommend that ELA teachers pair graphic novel works of literary fiction with print-text works of literary fiction. This pairing approach will help students make connections between the two formats—a skill that is also mentioned in the benchmarks for teaching fiction in middle school and high school ELA. When we pair traditional print-text literature with modern graphic novel literature, we are showing students the literacy revolution currently at play during their own time and place in history (40).” That way, BOTH texts are bettered by the combination!Carol: Ok, I can see how paired texts could work. I can see how perhaps “English departments inadvertently downplay the influence other voices have had upon the American character when they teach only classics (137-138).” Maybe “Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God could be paired with Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn,” or perhaps I could mix “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby… with Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City (138)!” Now that I think about it, there are all sorts of rich thematic connections between ‘classic’ and contemporary novels! [begins excitedly listing pairings (as seen on page 139)]Katie: But those are still all novels Carol…Arthea: And I’m really not sure how much more accessible or relatable they would be than the original ‘classics.’Carol: Hmmmm… what if, in order to get all the good paired novels and all the graphic novels and young adult books in, we “have every student in middle and high school enrolled in two periods of English (73)”!?! Maybe the biggest problem with our reading list is “not that it [is] too white or too male, but that it [is] too short… I think it is reasonable to expect students to read fifteen to twenty books over the course of the school year and at least three more over the summer (137). Right?[The bell rings signifying the end of lunch]Katie: Are you serious?Arthea: Oh Carol, you are so crazy!Carol: What? High expectations equal high achievement!FinThe EpilogueThough I feel I did my best to remain non-partisan in the construction of the above dialog, a quick perusal easily reveals my camouflaged bias against Carol Jago’s position. I first encountered this text during my final Secondary English Methods course at my undergraduate university about a year and a half ago. I cannot sum up my initial reaction to her text in any better way than to take you on a journey back in time to present an excerpt from my class-blog entry on the subject:My concern about it is when people come on too strongly, or with too extreme a view, as I thought Jago-rocket did a few times in our reading for today. "Long after they have forgotten the teenage romances and science fiction they gobbled up, Beowulf will still inhabit a place in their minds." (18) I yelled obscenities at the book for a full five minutes after I read this sentence. How DARE she discard two whole genres of perfectly good merit like this? Who is to say that Beowulf is inherently better or more relatable than any other given book? I learned more about love, philosophy, human nature, and myself--more of which has stuck with me than any other text--from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I got more joy and inspiration from a book about a circus trained midget detective then I have from all of Shakespeare combined. In this day and age the theory is obviously moving towards reader response, and as the Jagonaut exemplifies with her story about Romeo & Juliet & Tupoc, she obviously sees this. How then, can she be so heavy handed about her insistence about the so called 'classics?' To me, the list of canonical books she presented and what she said about how they teach them in her school goes against everything I have learned and believed in in the last 3 years. English SHOULD NOT be about what you, the teacher, find important in the books you find important, but rather what the students get out of whatever texts they can connect to. Yes Shakespeare and Fitzgerald are canonical musts in our current high schools, but that doesn't mean they should be or that there aren't other books that would help our students learn better.A strong response to be sure, but one that was significantly tempered why the teacher—my advisor and a woman who’s work and pedagogy I significantly respect—came out generally in favor of the text and it’s message. I spent the rest of the class trying to integrate and come to terms with my innate reaction and the research I was reading and being presented. At the time I felt like I just didn’t have enough experience or exposure to take a confident position. However, being in this course seemed the perfect opportunity to explore a little deeper into the war of text vs. tool by discussing several of the new considerations I’ve made this second trial run with the aid of my student-teaching practicum and two new texts’ worth of knowledge.To begin with, I agreed with the argument Reed raised about the realistic nature of today’s students’ lives and desires, and how the fact that these elements seriously conflict with reading at home or independent from school assignments. Originally published in 1994, I can imagine that she would be even stronger today about insisting that time be devoted in the ELA classroom to giving students the opportunity to read fun, engaging texts. One of Jago’s points that I most certainly agreed with was our mutual desire to help students become life-long lovers of reading, though I don’t specifically care what they read as long as it’s just a touch more complex than People magazine. As both Reed and Monnin point out, our values and desires do not line up with those of the modern student body, and if we want to instill a specific value like a love of reading, than it is our job to find class time to devote to that end. The strategies proposed for this purpose—utilizing graphic novels and young adult literature—seemed far more likely to consistently engage students’ interests and passion than slowly convincing them over time that classics like Shakespeare and others are actually awesome if you look closely enough.Now, this is not to say that I don’t enjoy texts Jago labeled as ‘classics’ or think they have a place in the ELA classroom—like both Reed and Monnin I most certainly do. I just that in order to make teaching with these complex texts effective, a teacher needs to aid students in gaining the understandings, strategies, and skills necessary to critically digest them, something the pairing activities using graphic novels or YA lit seems to accomplish quite well. Though I think there is definitely something to be gained by pairing more traditional ‘classics’ with contemporary, multicultural novels as Jago suggests, this seems like a strategy that could only work near the end of a course with students who have been properly trained so as to make it a worthwhile venture. From my practicum experience I can definitely say that the students in my class who attended the weekly book club meeting about young adult and other non-traditional books were more engaged and understanding of the ‘classical’ and contemporary works used in the classroom. As for Jago’s assertions that the reading list must simply be made longer or ELA allowed two separate periods for each student, I can say only that I think we as a discipline need to sit down and critically discuss just what exactly is our purpose. The History, Math, and Science folks all seem to know exactly what it is they teach while we just don’t seem that sure, and if we are to claim the necessity of a full 100% more class time, then it must come only after we can state in writing a knowledge load that requires such time.Finally, I was intrigued about how these authors incorporated development theory into their arguments for completely separate ends—a common phenomenon that has been discussed in both of my classes this semester. Jago says of Vygotsky, “He has written that ‘the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it.’ If students can read a book on their own, it probably isn’t the best choice for classroom study (3).” She goes on to contend that because “we underestimate our students’ capacity for comprehending complex literature,” student complaints about these texts are merely “developmentally appropriate… and for that reason [are] not to be heeded (73).” Reed contrasts this by bringing Margret Early’s three stages of learning growth and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into the fray. Essentially, she uses these scholars and others to agree with Jago about giving students something that will stretch them, but is more instant that a diversity of opportunity is needed to meet students at all stages and that if the required stretch is beyond the reach of a student’s developmental level the effort will be wasted. Running on an entirely different track, Monnin cites Howard Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences to point out the need to develop instruction tailor just to the students’ stages of development but also the specific developmental strategies that their type of intelligence is attuned to (xx). No matter how powerful the ‘classics’ may be as tools for meeting ELA’s ends, I still cannot see any other way for effectively or ethically selecting texts for instruction than basing them upon the specific characteristics of students. After such considerations, I would wager that ‘classics’ would often come out on top as the best text for the cause, but that’s a place to get too—not one to start from.In conclusion, though I cannot say I am any more in favor of many of Jago’s arguments today than I was 18 months ago, I do believe that my doubt is at least better founded. In addition, there were several lines of reasoning of hers that my time in the classroom and here at MSU has helped me to consider in new ways. I am also indebted to this project for giving me an excuse to bone up on two wonderful texts that have gone a long way towards drawing me a road-map for incorporating alternative texts like graphic novels and young adult literature into my future curriculum. As someone who grew up loving comics and occasionally living day-to-day just waiting for that next YA title to be published, I am grateful for some potential strategies to help awaken such passions in my students. ................
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