Pat’s Prob

Posted: March 3rd, 2014 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »

Our friend Patrick, teaching in Namibia, writes:

Today we read the first chapter of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in each of my 12th grade classes. Things Fall Apart is one of the most well known novels by an African author and is widely read in US schools, let alone African schools.

It’s also the only novel that my school has in abundance… there is not a single other work of fiction- in English- for which we have multiple copies (save a few ‘English literature anthologies’). And it’s one of the very few novels that the Ministry recommends for reading at the Senior Secondary level. So I thought we’d work our way through the book this month.

Well it’s quite apparent that my learners are not all too interested in the book. We’re only a few pages into it, and I definitely could have done a better job of introducing the novel and providing some context, but the indifference is so palpable that I have a hard time thinking that the next month will go well if spent reading Things Fall Apart. 12th graders want to read about action, mystery, and romance (I know because I asked, and because I used to be one)… not the clash between village traditions and colonialism, etc… And this was the issue with almost every book I read in high school- something that’s considered a ‘classic’ and is required reading for any young adult is actually is pretty uninteresting, until several years later when you return to it on your own and realize it’s significance.

So do I forge ahead with Things Fall Apart and hope my learners come around to it eventually? Should I care if they ‘come around’ to it, as long as we can pick up some grammar, vocab., and literary techniques along the way? Or do I bag it in favor of a more engaging read, one that will get the students excited about reading in and outside of class? Is that even doable, given that I have no copies of any other book? How illegal and immoral is it to print and photocopy chapters from an eBook that may or may not have been acquired through the proper channels?

50-50. 🙂

Let go of the desire to make “the right decision.” It’s like choosing b/w, say, UVa and Vanderbilt for college. Both solid. There is no great choice avail, like say Duke, but you can make some progress with the 2 options at hand.

I remember marching some 10th graders through Orwell. They groaned and groaned. Years later, several of them remembered the slog, in mostly a good way.

No matter what, you’ll need other material…I wouldn’t overly worry about the copying chapters.