Teachers and librarians are modern-day heroes, embroiled in a conflict between the political left and right of the book agenda.
To Teach or Not to Teach “About Rats and Humans”? If so, how do teachers do it? In the recent news that a Muslim student complained about seeing a photo of the Prophet in an art history class at Hamline University, what about triggering warnings? Can “culture cancellation” be dealt with? And what does book anger do to young people’s ability to learn from literature?
These are the big questions Deborah Appleman tackles in “Literature and the New Culture Wars” (Norton, $19.99). In a small book of just 141 pages, she poses these and other thorny issues and offers a way to continue teaching troubling texts without causing harm. But in this country where she admits our differences have become tribal, this is no easy task.
“There lies the challenge,” she writes. Teachers of literary texts need to find ways to strike a balance between excluding texts that are offensive, offensive, and downright harmful, and retaining texts that contain problematic elements such as language, dialogue, and expression. A must find, but of significant aesthetic and historical value. developmentally and cyclically. ”
Appleman is Professor of Educational Research at Hollis L. Caswell and Director of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College, Northfield. After receiving her PhD from the University of Minnesota, in high school she taught English for nine years. Her latest book, which she co-authored with Michael Graves, is “Reading Better, Reading Smarter: Designing Literature Lessons for Adolescents.”
One of the most controversial topics Applebaum explores is “cancellation culture.” She cites sexual misconduct accusations against Sherman Alexy, a Native American author whose books have inspired many young people.
“Perhaps there is a way we can retain some of the literary treasures of both classical and contemporary literature and still hold us all accountable to some reasonable moral standard.” Even with good intentions, cancel culture doesn’t get there: teachers choose between continuing to teach Sherman Alexy and Junot Diaz, or recommending the Harry Potter series and adolescent novels by now-shunned authors. You have to decide for yourself, and before you react reflexively in a way that doesn’t encourage critical thinking and doesn’t allow room for atonement or forgiveness, let’s at least talk about it. do you want it?”
Throughout the book, Appleman argues that literature must be taught in context, helping students to see the text through the lens of history and the conventions of the times in which it was set.
Although aimed at teachers, this book is a thoughtful (and ambitious) attempt to curb the strong emotions people bring to literature. It would be an interesting discussion at the book club.
Appleman in an interview with University of St. Thomas law professor, author, speaker and advocate for justice, Artika Tyner, at Magers & Quinn, Mpls. Hennepin Ave. S. 3038, Monday, January 30, at 7:00 pm , discuss this book. , and she will be available on Tuesday, February 7, at 6:00 pm, Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.
