L is for They Chose Their Own Literature

For years, I had heard, “Why do we have to read this, Miz Young? It’s so boring!” Whatever they were referring to—Beowulf, The Return of the Native, the Victorian poets, much of the beautiful literature in my syllabus—they needed to read (or so I thought) in order to be educated boys and girls. But it hurt my heart every time they showed disinterest in the literature that I loved. I wanted them not only to love to read but also to love what they were reading. What’s an English teacher to do?

She’s to read her beloved English Journal, that’s what. Just a little background before I get to what I really want to tell you about. In 1964, when I began my life as an English teacher at Pascagoula (MS) High School, I took out a subscription to the English Journal, a publication that the student of one EJwriter called “the orange and white no-picture book.” I think I first heard about the EJ while I was a student at Mississippi College. Maybe I saw a copy in the library. I don’t remember, but I do know that, even though we had very little money, I splurged and bought the subscription. Throughout my thirty-two-year teaching career, I scoured the publication each month for teaching ideas and for free books that I could order, ones that would help me in my classroom.

Fast forward to sometime in 1989. I had gotten behind on my reading of the English Journaland decided to take one evening to sit on the floor of my office and browse through the back issues. It must have been an evening when I was all caught up on grading papers. Anyway, as I paged through the publications, stopping every now and then to peruse an article, one almost jumped off the page at me!  The article by Anne McCrary Sullivan was titled “The Personal Anthology: A Stimulus for Exploratory Reading.” And it was all about having students choose their own literature. I devoured the article, hanging on every word that Anne wrote, picturing my students doing this assignment with the most success that they had ever had in all of their years of school. 

I wish that I still had Anne’s article, but since I don’t, I’ll tell you something of my instructions for my students. They are a bit tweaked from the original ones, but I needed to customize them for students at Woodham High School . I made the assignment twenty-seven years ago, so I may not be remembering my instructions exactly as I gave them back then.

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The Reading Anthology

Read the following examples of literature and respond by using the instructions that I will give to you.

·     Short Stories (5) – The first year I required 10 . . . much too many

·     Novels by British authors (2)

·     Novel by a Southern author (1)

·     Poems by a British author (5)

·     Poems by authors not British (5)

·     Young Adult novel (1)

·     Nonfiction book (1)

·     Magazine articles (3)

·     Children’s book (1)

I’m forgetting some of the types of literature that I required of them. I kept this assignment a secret from everyone, students and fellow teachers alike, until we came back from Thanksgiving. I wanted them to be able to read during the Christmas holidays if they wanted to. The students would have lots to do in the months from the end of November until Spring Break, usually around the first of April. I gave very little homework during their work months because most of them would be working every day for at least a little while on their project. By the way, by the second year of my assignment, the kids were referring to my beautiful assignment as “The Dreaded Anthology.” I called it that, too, just to humor them. The reason that I had to have the anthologies in by Spring Break is that I had to have time to grade them, and there were usually between twenty and thirty of them.

On the day that I made the assignment, the students walked into my room to see a long table with something on it covered by a nice table cloth. After I gave the assignment and watched their expressions . . . some eager, some frightened . . . I uncovered a table full of books, books of the kind that they’d be reading. Our school library had a big hole in it because of all the books I had checked out. Actually, the librarian was in on my secret and helped me find books to use in my display. Some of the books were from the University of West Florida Library, and some were from my personal library. I made suggestions based on what I had read. I remember one girl getting so excited. She already knew she wanted to read Gone with the Wind as her Southern novel. This wasn’t exactly what I wanted them to read, but I said, “Of course” when she asked. I should have asked for what I wanted because I couldn’t change my instructions after giving them. I really wanted them to read a current Southern author. In fact, I recommended John Grisham because I had just finished The Firm, and many read that book.

They had to submit a memo to me every two weeks, letting me know how they were doing with the assignment. I wanted to know how much they had read and whether or not they were enjoying their reading. If they complained that they didn’t like the book, my answer was “Abandon!” I explained that they were writing their own book in choosing and reacting to their literature. Why would they want to include something that they didn’t like? On several days, students would bound through the door to my classroom, literally yelling, “I abandoned!” I just smiled and told them how wonderful they were.

Another thing that they had to do was to write a letter to a living author. That meant that they had to read something by a living author, of course. Those who read The Firm wrote to John Grisham, and he answered them with hand-written letters. I surely do hope that they kept them because I imagine they’ll be very valuable some day. By the third year that students were writing to him, they received form letters because he had become so famous by then that he didn’t have time to write “real” letters. 

My teacher friends couldn’t believe that I had given such an assignment. For one thing, it would take me forty forevers to grade them. And besides, how did I know that they had really read the books, and if I hadn’t read their selections myself, how would I know if their writing was correct? My answer to the first comment was that I wouldn’t be grading in the way that all of us graded regular essays or research papers. I had a printed rubric that I used, and each student had a copy so that they knew what I’d be looking for. Since they knew how many points such things as grammar, usage, and punctuation counted, they were extra careful in their composition. I never made marks on their precious books; I made note of all errors on that rubric so that they could check what was wrong and see my glowing comments about what they wrote, but I wouldn’t be marring their books.

My answer to their question about whether or not the students would really read the books and how would I be able to check their honesty since I hadn’t read the books myself was that it would be a whole lot harder to write something convincing if they hadn’t read the book or short story. As far as my not having read something . . . I found a lot of books that I’d like to read from this assignment.

Every morning during Spring Break, I got up early to tackle MY project, reading and reacting to their Dreaded Anthologies. One girl gave me a tape by Enya to listen to while I read her anthology because she had listened to it while she read and wrote. Do you know Enya? If not, check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9yDWiosyfk. Absolutely beautiful! 

Most of the students were faithful in keeping up with their reading and writing, but a few weren’t. I remember two boys who sat over near the windows and who never should have been in a Dual Enrollment class. They set out to sabotage my assignment. I don’t remember everything that they did, but they thought they’d upset me and make me lose my temper with them. In fact, the things that they did made the assignment harder to complete than if they had kept to the rules. Most of the students made As or Bs on their anthologies, but those boys both made either Cs or Ds because the rubrics don’t lie.

I had strict rules about the anthologies being in on time. If they didn’t show up with their completed book on the day that they were due, their grade started going down with every passing period. Many students worked all night long finishing their books because they had procrastinated in both the reading and the writing, but they wandered sleepily into my classroom, proudly holding their completed books to me. They worked so hard, and I rewarded them generously with grades and glowing comments and compliments about their Dreaded Anthologies! One of the students, after the anthologies were turned in, told me that another student’s mother had done the whole assignment. My thoughts  . . . What a stupid mother! She took away from her son something that he’d be proud of forever!

Every year (I did the assignment for three years), I’d take the students to the front of the school for a photo. You’ll see their sweet, sleepy faces in the photos.

When you look at the photos, you’ll wonder what in the worldPotpourri means. I’ll tell you.  You already know that the definition of the word is “a mixture of things, especially a musical or literary medley.” But what potpourri is here is a collection of my writing. You see, as my students were reading and writing, so was I. I had my books ready on the day that we had graduation practice, and I had a bound copy for each of my students. Were they surprised? You betcha! In fact, one girl, as she passed me in the parking lot of the Civic Center, leaned out the window of the car she was a passenger in and yelled, “Miz Young, you are carrraaazzzy! I love you!” That one gesture made all of my hard work worth every minute!

Just one more thing . . . I have at least 150 former students as friends on Facebook. Several have mentioned their anthologies to me. Usually, the message goes something like this, “My son came to me the other day, complaining about the big assignment that his English teacher had given to him. I said, ‘Wait just a minute, and I’ll show you a big assignment!’ Then I pulled out my anthology and said, ‘Now, THIS is a big assignment!’ Thank you, Mrs. Young (or sometimes now, Sandy) for giving me this wonderful experience!” I just smile and remember the good old days in the classroom. And then the tears come.