:BRIGHTSTUFF:..Personal & Political Musings & Rants by a Liberal Leftist Black & Asian Teacher

(I first posted this on the "Teachable Moments Forum" in response to a thread created by the moderator of that forum. You can go "Teachable Moments Forum" here: http://forums.delphiforums.com/k12teachers/messages but you will have to create a free Delphi account to participate in the discussion. I've added more to my response for the sake of clarity).



Conservative journalist, Michelle Malkin, has gotten herself in a tizzy about the summer reading list assigned to students of Worcester, Massachusets.

Apparently, they've decided to assign Tupac Shakur's book of poetry, "The Rose That Grew From Concrete".(http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040630.shtml)

As someone who is NOT a fan of either the very conservative Michelle Malkin or Tupac Shakur, I'll try to comment.

I don't personally see anything wrong with using a book of poetry by Tupac Shakur as being particularly wrong.

Things like this can help spark interest in poetry or maybe other genres. I think it gets the child interested in reading- period- and that's not bad. I often tell parents that it's important that their children are reading all kinds of things- including comic books. I remember reading things like "The X-Men" as a preteen and being struck at some of the themes that were being explored (racism, sexism, bonds of friendship, identity etc.). Hell, I read comic books and other kinds of books as a preteen/teen and ended up getting a degree in literature. Some comic books aren't exactly as easy and trite as people seem to think.

I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone that many children (and adults) like to read books written by people that they can identify with in some way. There's nothing wrong with that.

As to the point Malkin makes about pushing aside the classics...

Are we then telling children that modern literature has no value at all?

Are we only to teach the classics and ignore modern literature?

Are we to only let the classics stand as examples of what literature should be?

As a person who has a degree in English Lit, I must admit that I personally don't like a lot of modern poetry (I'm talking very recent stuff, not, say, Sylvia Plath) and can be a bit snobbish about it. I do, however, see some value in it.

I personally would like to see what else was on their list for summer reading.