I reread The Great Gatsby for about the 20th time (and third time in the last calendar year).
Here’s what 11th graders have to say about it. I made them “Tweet” their reviews, hence the hashtags:
“Overall all I didn’t like the book, it wasn’t very good and I feel it is very confusing to the young mind. Although that’s probably just because I’m not very smart.”
“It was alright.”
“I personally think that this book is an OK one, but I think some people are giving this book a little to much respect then it actually deserves. The character development is smooth and interesting and the way the story is told keeps it intriguing, but most of the jokes (if any) are so out of date that the original meaning has been lost throughout the ages and some experiences are impossible to relate with now.”
“I honestly was not a fan of the novel #GreatGatsby, the story lulls along without much significance, it’s just not one of my favorite books.”
“overall the book was easy to read but some parts in the book was confusing when there were telling a story and it was hard to follow”
“Overall the novel was somewhat appealing to me but was not something that interest me enough to want to keep reading the novel on my own. It took me a while to finish the novel because of this, and although i thought the novel had an interesting plot, something about it just made it boring to the point where it was dreadful. It may be the fact that some of parts in the novel were confusing to me and i had to re read multiple times to fully understand what was happening.”
“I really didn’t like the book. In my opinion, it wasn’t attention grabbing and I got bored while reading it. To anyone else it could be a good book, but it’s just not for me.”
“Pretty good but i don’t really understand any of the themes or storytelling”
“I forgot to turn it in but it was fun!”
“it was okay”
“Gatsby was a great novel that exposes the ugly side of wants, money, and power. The novel challenges one idea of the American Dream. The novel exposes many different problems, but all in all it was a very good book especially if you can understand the symbolism.”
“I thought that the novel was okay but it’s not something I would want to read in my free time.”
“the book was good it just didn’t interest me because i didn’t pick it but it gives you a lot of good information and you made us look inside the book more”
“I didn’t like the book at all. There wasn’t anything that grabbed my attention and kept me reading. I didn’t feel like there was a story that I could connect to and follow what it was saying. The older style of narration also probably played a part in the lack of interest.”
(Photo by M. LaFlaur)
It continues to boggle my mind that we force children to read books they will not emotionally understand. So many kids turned off reading by being forced to read this or whatever else. I read this book three times (all assigned reading) and it wasn’t until I read it in graduate school that I felt I actually understood it, and it resonated with me.
Part of the issue is that kids are tested on ‘grade level’ material when it comes to their state tests, so even though a lot of what we read in school here isn’t the best fit for them, it’s partly due diligence to make sure they can pass the test. (They almost all did for this class). Grade-level material has a ridiculous range for 11th graders….things like The Great Gatsby but also speeches given by Elizabeth I (which is incredibly complex). But in addition, at least in my class they spend 15-25 minutes daily reading whatever they want to read. One kid has read and re-read Mathilda like like three times this year, while my copies of The Hate U Give and A Man Called Ove have been making the rounds. I would also argue that reading something challenging and not in your wheelhouse as an accomplishment is also a worthy venture. Sometimes I think more adults also should read more and more difficult things than they would otherwise choose to.
I have some more flexibility going into next year (this is a new school for me and I didn’t know the waters yet), and I am definitely rethinking what they will be and won’t be reading.
You sound like a good teacher! I spent about three years teaching English Comp at a University and I had a lot more freedom than it sounds like you do. I always leaned more towards teaching them the skills and disregarded The Canon, but I agree that it’s good to push them and make them read outside their wheelhouse. The problem for me comes when that’s all you’re making them do.
Thanks! It’s miserable to be around miserable kids who are being forced to do the miserable things you’re making them do.
When I was getting my teaching degree, I had classes with people from various backgrounds (I personally went to a mostly white [I am white] suburban school in a relatively conservative county). And so my education was fairly canonical…and hearing people talk about how to diversify their reading lists especially for Black and Latin communities was important and interesting….but also, there was an important notion of not NOT teaching the canon alongside those diverse text. So while kids should read writers of diverse background….Shakespeare ain’t going anywhere and kids should not feel like they were deprived of the opportunity to read Shakespeare because they went to a “Black school”. Luckily, literacy research suggest that high-interest and variety are best practices for supporting kids’ reading. I don’t my balance has been enough in the past year, but I have tried to do that. So while the inclusion 12th grade (high percentage special ed classes with collaborative special ed teacher) had to read Sherlock Holmes and British poetry (which they HATED), they also got to watch The Lego Movie and discuss it as an example of dystopian literature.
Please tell me it was the British poetry they hated and not the Sherlock Holmes.
I loved Gatsby in high school, but if I had had to tweet my review of Crime and Punishment, it would have been similar to the reactions here (hate, incompetent, why).
Narfna, unless it was WWI poets because I am not a big poetry reader but I love those!