Pytash: Classics in the Classroom

"Simply assigning books is not enough; teachers need to have an instructional plan that makes difficult texts accessible to students" (Jago xii).

Chapter 1

To start off, I was eager to see what this textbook enclosed. I am not very familiar with the classics. That is not something we really talked about in my middle or high school. While we did read a few, half of the books that she mentions in the first chapter I have never even heard of before. 

I enjoyed that Jago was requiring more out of her students than most people think they are capable of doing. She explained how she picked texts that the students shouldn't be able to read without her. I never really thought of it in that sense, while I do agree that offering a text that is maybe a little more challenging would be better because then you could show them that they really can accomplish it (2).

One thing that made me quite angry was her view on young adult literature. She made it seem like it's good for pleasure reading but you can't study literature through it. I would have to disagree with her on that. While not all YA books have the capability of studying literature, I think many do and I think they are more appealing to students. You could say that I don't necessarily have a big argument for that because I did not read many classics but those that I did read would be on the bottom of my list. I would definitely rather read a YA book than any of the classics I did. 

Jago's third guiding principle was: Don't simply assign difficult books; teach them. She said, "It is [students] nature to do as little as possible and our job to help them do as much as possible" (Jago 6). I absolutely agree with her on that. If we look at it in a wider perspective, it's true in almost any case. We're Americans and we want to do the least amount of work possible, so it's no wonder that students will try to get away with the bare minimal. That is where I see our job as teachers to step in and encourage and enlighten them that they can and should reach higher than they're trying. 

A last point that I was caught by was in her fourth principle on reading literature requires language study and builds vocabulary. The statistics she gave of the gap between students with more or less privileges was no surprise to me. "Those who come to school with rich vocabularies thrive; those who arrive with a language gap never seem to make up the difference" (Jago 9). I think this is where parents need to be made accountable. I know that is a hard task to complete and how we do that I'm not sure. But it's so sad that parents want to have children yet don't want to take care of them or help them. Teachers cannot do everything and I think one way to get students on the right track would be to start making parents accountable for the lives they brought into this world. It's unfair to a student that really works and wants to learn but doesn't have anyone to help him. Perhaps the teacher could start a newsletter that would entail many ways a parent could get involved and resources they could use to help their child.