Literacy vs Literature

So one of my portfolios in my new job is literacy.  In our school board – as in many boards and districts around the world, no doubt – literacy and numeracy is the number one-two punch.

Literacy is the subject of many books, conferences, professional development days, and so on.  If this were a scholarly paper I’d cite numerous studies that link literacy proficiency to job success, life success, happiness, world peace and Nirvana – but it’s just a blog, so you’ll have to trust me on my sketchy list.

As a literacy consultant and as a former English teacher of twenty-five years, I’m convinced of the effectiveness of literature circles, graphic novels, gender-sensitivity/awareness in text choice, and the list goes on.  In short, I’m in favour of texts across the curriculum that will get kids who don’t read to read or kids who seldom read to read more often or kids who read poorly to read better.

When I moved into my last high school teaching gig, I immediately did two things in my classroom:  I rearranged the desks into pods and I placed reading materials between bookends at the centre of each pod.   One day in early September of 2007, a colleague walked into my room and asked two questions: “Aren’t you afraid the kids will cheat when they’re sitting so close to each other?” (that’s a topic for another blog)  AND “What’s up with the reading materials?  Aren’t some of them at a low level for high school kids?”

Being at a very academic school, I understood the attitude behind the latter question.  However, I’m no so naïve to think that just because a student is in grade 12 and university-bound that she’s necessarily going to be in love with reading Shakespeare.  Hence, I’m not above putting out popular magazines and graphic novels and Dr. Seuss and Grisham and Stephen King – you get the picture – as silent reading materials.

This is not to say that this attitude toward literacy was always so and/or that all high school English teachers are there.  I have a very distinct recollection of my predecessor who tried a soft sell of literature circles at an in-service she ran for a whole whack of English teachers.  Her PowerPoint presentation was going well.  Made sense to me (I wish I would have listened to her 5 years ago instead of waiting until last year to give literature circles a go).  But then a presenter’s worst nightmare happened. 

This veteran teacher of English literature – and much the senior of the presenter – got up on a soap box and started waxing convincing about the power of the teacher-expert who knows and loves quality literature, thank you very much, and is passionate and therefore has something to offer his students that literature circles can never accomplish.  Holy crap, that made sense to me too!  What was I supposed to believe now!?

Confession time: every time I talk titles of books to use in English classrooms – whether for whole class study or for lit circles – that kids are going to like because they’re like Hunger Games or because boys will like them or because girls will like them or because there’s a movie of the book, part of me dies inside.  Just to clarify, this is because a lot of these books, quite frankly, aren't all that good. 

Juxtapose that with the feeling – as an English teacher and/or as one who loves good literature – of reading an incredible book.  Recently for me, it was David  Adams Richards’ Mercy Among the Children.  It kept me up at night.  I cried alone reading it on my deck.  It has about 100 sticky notes in it because I may want to blog about it sometime.  The novel ravished me.  You know the kind of book I’m talking about?  The kind that washes over you because of not just the story which is well crafted, but because you’re thinking,  Now here’s someone who can write.  The prose is so beautiful it hurts.  And it doesn’t read like so many other modern books where the writers seem like they’re writing with a film deal in mind.

So did I just contradict myself?  I don’t think so.  Here’s why.  If we want growth, change and ultimately improvement in education, conversation around any given issue is absolutely essential.  When I had debates in my twenties and thirties, things were very much about being right or wrong.   Either/or.  Now, because I want things to get better more than I want to be right, I’m very comfortable with the both/and dialectic.

So I’m very happy to say that I can get equally excited about a literature circle with books that aren’t going to win any Pulitzers any time soon as I can with turning kids on to Gabrielle Garcia Marquez.  Why?  Because that grade 9 struggling reader and that grade 12 kid who might end up being a published author are equally important.  And they each deserve the best of what we as teachers can offer them.