Avi

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Making the case

readingThe oth­er day I was vis­it­ing a high school class. When I was tak­ing ques­tions, a ninth grad­er asked me how I go about putting sym­bol­ism and hid­den mean­ings in my books. When I replied that I do not put hid­den mean­ings and sym­bol­ism in my books, the boy’s response was, “But my teacher is always point­ing out that stuff in the books we read, includ­ing yours.” 

There are many things one can teach about a book: its con­text, lan­guage, style, con­struc­tion, its his­tor­i­cal moment, and so forth. The list is long, and pro­duc­tive. But to teach as if a text is writ­ten in code—a code only a teacher can decipher—is to tell stu­dents that they can­not under­stand what is being read. It makes read­ers feel dumb. It tells them they can­not under­stand lit­er­a­ture. Most impor­tant­ly, if one teach­es lit­er­a­ture in such a fash­ion, it robs a stu­dent of the joy of read­ing on his or her own terms and experience. 

“You real­ly don’t put sym­bols and hid­den mean­ings in your books?” the boy asked incredulously. 

“Nope,” I said. “I just want you to have the plea­sure of read­ing them.” 

“Wow,” he said, as oth­er stu­dents nod­ded. “I wish you would tell that to my teacher.” 

As it turned out, unbe­known to me, there was a lit­er­a­ture teacher in the class­room. When the kids left, she intro­duced herself. 

I said, “I hope you weren’t offend­ed by my remarks.” 

“Oh no,” she assured me, “I sup­pose one could make a case for read­ing for pleasure.” 

I hope I did.

13 thoughts on “Making the case”

  1. Avi, I work for houghton mif­flin now and I am in New Jer­sey train­ing teach­ers. I am using your blog every day. You nail it. Love to L.

    Reply
  2. Read­ing for plea­sure led, for me, to writ­ing for plea­sure. It’s always bet­ter to let your mind fly with the sto­ry than it is to bog your­self in themes and sym­bols and meanings.

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  3. Go, Avi! I am very sen­si­tive to this mak­ing-read­ers-feel-dumb thing. And what about the fact that each read­er brings his/her own life/self to a book, and any mean­ing they derive is theirs and theirs alone? It’s not about the author’s inten­tions. Thank you for your response to these students!

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  4. That’s what hap­pened to poet­ry too. Too many stu­dents were taught (implic­it­ly and explic­it­ly) that poet­ry has “hid­den meanings”…and we must work to dis­cov­er what they are (sug­gest­ing that there is only one way to inter­pret a poem). I would like to think that we have moved beyond that. I would like to think that class­rooms are filled with poet­ry. I would like to think kids are writ­ing poet­ry (and sto­ries) because it gives them plea­sure. Hope that’s the case! I tried in my many years of teach­ing chil­dren’s and lit­er­a­ture and writ­ing to give the teach­ers in my class­es those kinds of expe­ri­ences. Thank you for writ­ing about this top­ic. It matters!
    Caroline

    Reply
    • Years ago I vis­it­ed a class­room in which the teacher had a “Poet­ry Throne.” It had book­cas­es built into it with, yes, books of poet­ry. Her rule: Any child at ANY time could go sit in that throne as long as they had a book of poet­ry open on their laps.
      Avi

      Reply
  5. I chose you to write my research paper on. Our top­ic was famous authors so I chose to do you. I don’t know if you can help me… Is there any­thing that you would like me to know about you or any great advice that I could put in my paper? Thank-You
    Shannon

    Reply
  6. In class we have to write a paper on a famous author. So I chose you. I was won­der­ing if you can tell me a lit­tle about you and your books. Maybe like your child­hood. In my research so far I found that you were a twin, I am one too! I found some of the awards you got to. I would love for you to help me out this because I think it would be cool to get direct infor­ma­tion form the author that I am doing. Your writ­ings are amaz­ing and I hope you win the nut­meg 2014
    Thank you so much
    Shannon

    Reply

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