Literature

[maggiebee]

Just read that British Education Secretary Michael Gove has decided that the English literature list for a national exam needs to be more English, so To Kill a Mockingbird, of Mice and Mean and the Crucible will no longer be acceptable. Wonder if he's read any of them??

[Canary42]

No, but he's looked at the pictures !

[jeffa]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1339348.html

[maggiebee]

Oops, must have missed that one - but no doubt others have too. :(

[jeffa]

What makes it even worse is that he has a degree in English literature!

[gness]

Mention it to Sunny-Dave, Maggie....watch his BP rise....x

[jagjag]

This is not true he has not banned them, and he has read them. Probably fuelled by the bbc.

[factor-fiction]

It's one of the exam boards who have decided this and are suggesting they use Dizzee Rascal or Russell Brand. Michael Gove has simply said they should use more British writers and some more up to date texts. Some of the media and education professionals like to twist things to get at Gove (and it's not hard to see why). I think the exam board OCR may be trying to make a political point here. There are lots of modern British books that should be considered alongside the excellent Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird- for example The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.

[Svejk]

come on now factor(& jag). don't spoil a good story by introducing a modicum of common sense, or heaven help us, the truth.

[Canary42]

As Holden Caulfield would say, "Gove is phoney"

[ChillDoubt]

I said pretty much exactly the same on the other thread, factor.

[Mosaic]

The thing is, those three American works are damn good tales, as well as stretching kids to think about contexts that have plenty of contemporary meaning. I agree that there is loads of good literature written by British writers, but the role of teaching up to GCSE is to introduce kids to a love of literature. Gove seems to be once again aping techniques used in Oxbridge cramming schools (upper end, private sector) and the old grammar schools (who modelled themselves on Oxbridge crammers), where a diet of Dickens, Jane Austen and Byron was the only 'proper reading' for examinations.
Sadly, we're allowing once again the fripperies thrown into our paths by politicians and media to distract us from the real, serious need to have a long talk about what education is and how it can be done.

[Canary42]

I wonder if Gove has read Dickens' Hard Times - and the Gradgrind theory of education.

The opening lines :-

“NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

[baza]

I thought that was Joe Friday in Dragnet " Gimme the facts ma'm, just the facts"

[craft1948]

I don't have a problem with Gove, surely the subject is English Literature not American Literature......

[Buenchico]

>>>surely the subject is English Literature not American Literature

I take 'English Literature' to mean works in the English language. Using your ultra-tight definition, Craft, Derek Walcott, V. S. Naipaul, James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, and Robbie Burns should all be automatically excluded, as none of them qualify as English!

[Buenchico]

I'm particularly worried about the automatic inclusion of the (boring, boring, boring!) romantic poets in the GCSE syllabus. Surely the works of Roger McGough and Benjamin Zephaniah are more accessible to young people. If they're not 'serious' enough for Gove, how about Derek Walcott (or isn't a Nobel Prize for Literature good enough for him?) or Wilfred Owen?

[Canary42]

With such modern English features as the startling increase in food kitchens, and associated poverty, the thirst for more severe prison conditions, the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor, corruption in high places, etc., I would have thought Dickens still had significant relevance in today's society.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - ooops, that's French.