I have known for most of life that I would study literature. As a young girl my father read his favorite stories to my brother, sister and me -- The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings trilogy, and later he sat me down with Oliver Twist -- my introduction to the classics and the beginning of the literary feeding tube that has continued to connect us.

In High School, I found myself abnormally excited about (most of) the literature we would read in class, however my experiences varied with the teachers. Because I attented several high schools, I was subjected to varying curriculums, and often was required to read the same books twice and even three times (you can imagine my delight in reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a third time) however, the different teaching approaches I experienced either had students on the edges of their seats and hands in the air, or drooling on their desks. To this end, I found Vendlers article exciting and romantic, because her evident passion for literature evoked my own -- I suppose I enjoyed it for the very topic of her speech; the love of words.

And while I do believe that the classics are of immeasureable value in the education process as well as because of their sheer value as wonderful literature, I also think there is great value in finding the importance in literary works of Minorities and foreign cultures like Sherman Alexie, Amy Tan and Cherrie Moraga. The best education we can offer,in order to provide a sense of diverse national identity and contemporary relevance is a well rounded one that includes both.

My older brother was always really good at math (he is graduating from MIT next friday) but for some reason I swear the only book I ever saw him pick up was Calvin and Hobbes. I on the otherhand found that I excelled at reading which my mom noticed and really supported me to do. In the summer I could read a book a day and while we travelled alot I had lots of time to do so. I was always really proud to be a good reader and when I entered high school I was also blessed to have great english teachers who noticed my enjoyment and also challenged me. I found english class easy and never had problems with participation, in fact on some occasions it was quite the opposite.

I was always behind when it came to school, and reading was something that I had a lot of trouble with. I did not like to read beacuse it was so hard for me. I went to reading tutors and phonix tutors, but the more I had to work at it the more I started to dislike it. However, as soon as I started Catholic school, where summer reading was a must, my reading ability became stronger and I started to like it beacuse I could do it. My family is very literate and I got plenty of support and that helped me a lot once I started to get more motivated to read. But what really got me motivated was an actor that I had a crush on in 6th grade. He was staring in a moive that was not coming out for a while, so i decided to get the book that it was based on, and I loved it. That made me realzie that books could be fun and I did not just have to read beacuse I had to for school.

I grew up in a very rural, small town. We didn't have a television until I was seven. In the evenings my parents would read Little House on the Prairie books to us. I can remember reading them every night and when I was old enough to read, I too, would join in and take a paragraph or so.
I don't know how I ended up in AP English classes in High School. And unfortunately the only things I remember from them were that my teacher was stuck in the 60's and we all believed he smoked pot (most likely just before our class) and we read The Little Prince.
But I've decided that English, for me, is like toothpaste. When going to the store to pick some out, I'm faced with way too many options. I read the packages and look for all the fancy extras, which I'm told "You must have!", but in the end I always buy the good'ol regular mint toothpaste without all the extras. And after I use it I'm happy I've stuck with something that I know does what it was designed to do...makes me feel like I can face the world again. This is how writers like Dickens and Hesse, poets like Coleridge and R. Browning, make me feel. I think it's important to have exposure to all the options and opinions out there, but one must and will, in the end, choose what is right and what speaks to them.

I wish I could say I've been reading my whole life. Reading has been hammered into me since the fourth grade (something good about private school, I guess). I hated it. I never really read the books assigned, but could glean enough from class discussion to make it seem that I had. I wasn't until ninth grade, when I read "Cat's Cradle" over Christmas break, that I fell in love with books. Reading is very hard, and takes practice. "Cat's Cradle" was very short, so I got through it alright. From there I was charged, and read every other vonnegut I could get my hands on. At some point I branched out, and began reading more and more, tackling longer, more difficult books. At some point, I started reading exclusively from what I thought was the canon. I did this, I think, to seem erudite, and cool (can you imagine?). Now, I just read what I love: history, Dorthy Sayers, PG Woodehouse, and lots of poetry. I study literatue now, because it's a pleasure.

I have been a reader all my life. My dad read great books to me in primary school and I began reading classics on my own in middle school. This appetite for reading meant that by the time I was introduced to the high school english curriculum, I had already read all the required readings on my own. It is hard for me to speak on behalf of people who do not enjoy the classics, who were not moved by "The Catcher in The Rye," or who loathe the work of dead white men. As for myself, I enjoyed all the standard english curriculum books (except for Hemmingway- a total mysogynist). I believe that the books deemed "classics" have been called so for a reason and I agree with the author of the Boston Globe article. New texts cannot compete with classics because they have not completed the true test of quality - social, emontional, and cultural relevance after decades and even centuries of publication.
I tend to fall in line with scholars like D'Souza (mentioned in the Richter text) who believe that student-centered learning, multicultural curriculums, and the women's studies agenda detract from the principles of classical educaion and are less valuable to a liberal education. The majority of college English classes I have taken have been tediously left-leaning, drawing the focus farther away from the study of great works and more into the realm of social and poiltical indoctrination.
It is my belief that the quality of English education has declined so much that I am working to become an educator, placing strong emphasis on the richness of the english language and the importance of grammer, structure, and vocabulary. I hope to continue to teach the books that were taught to me and my peers. The classics will always be relevant because human nature is unchanging as are the stories in great books which encapsulate the beauty, sadness, joy, and meaning of the human experience

In my not to long ago high school experience, I started as a freshman who hated reading these classic novels that seemed to have no relevancy to me at all. I would read them but come away from the experience no more wise than when I started. "Heart of Darkness", "A Seperate Peace", and "Jane Eyre" made absolutely no impact on me. In my third year I encountered a teacher who asked me to give a close reading of Toni Morrisons "Song of Solomon". Like Graff, when I was asked to look further than the text and give my own interpretation, the book became so much more interesting. The next year I decided to take a critical analysis class on post colonial literature. I found that the further that I looked and read outside sources it became easier for me to get involved and enjoy the text. Books like "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" interested me because of the different close readings that could be applied.
I may or may not end up as an english major, but it was reading these books in high school that led me to choose to take this course. If I had continued to read normal high school classics I would have most likely ended up elsewhere.

I come from a large, fairly literary family -- my grandmother and my aunt are both librarians, and always kept me in supply of good books to read (Christmas and birthday presents are more likely to be books than anything else.) And grammar is very important to them -- the old adage "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" in my family becomes "if you don't have anything to say properly, don't say anything at all." So, I suppose my written grammar was more influenced by that than by any formal learning -- as I said in class, I've never had a proper grammar lesson in my life! But, I had a bit of an unhappy childhood, and I used books as a refuge and escape. Far better to be a teenage "witch" on trial in Salem or a time traveling genius than to have to be young Laura at home. I identified so closely with the books that I read that I always found a character or a part that really spoke to me -- I've never experienced, as Graf did, the problem of not having anything to say about a book, because I've always felt SOMETHING about them -- love, like, hate, disgust...
Though I agree mostly with what Vendler had to say, because I think if we are unable to pass on the love of literature than everything else is for naught. I think if we take away reading as fun, we're taking away not only an important resource from kids, but also the respite and escape that I found as a kid. However, using the text and the text only to find the "answer" gave me some trouble in high school -- I was assigned to read "The Sun Also Rises" and write a paper about it. I hated the book -- it wasn't descriptive enough, I didn't understand the character motivation, and this Hemingway guy obviously is a real ass and obviously could learn a thing or two about writing! My teacher was livid, and gave me extra assignments, including reading a biography of Hemingway, and a brief synopsis of WWI and why the hell there were "American Exiles" in Paris. Now, it's one of my favorite books.

One thing that can be said for my experience with required reading in high school: it definitely made an impact. Strong emotional responses were the order of the day. But then, everything in high school drew forth powerful emotional responses. All Quiet on the Western Front gave me nightmares for months after I read it, rendered me incapable of watching war movies depicting WWI and, even now, causes me to shudder. A drastic response, particularly when one considers that I was glutting myself on horror fiction for years before experiencing the text. Animal Farm was the bane of my existence; I ended up reading this book in THREE different English classes; all of them insisted on discussing the text in excruciating detail. I hate this book, almost as much as I hate the short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych”, for pretty much the same reasons, actually (trice-borne examples of over-analysis). To Kill a Mockingbird shines benevolently in my memory. I don’t think I’d had much exposure to Southern literature before this point, and the flavor of this work, as well as its sense of nobility appealed to me.

My past schooling has informed my decision to study writing and literature (which is the official title for my IDP program), but not because of curriculum. Rather, gifted teachers, a love for story and a home life that encouraged intellectual questioning has led me to this place.

There were two texts in high school that I found confusing - Silas Marner and Moby Dick - the first one no adult could explain why it was important, even though it had been assigned reading for them. The second drew mixed reviews in a way, but I was working at a library and two of my employers insisted I have tea and doughnuts to talk about what was important about Ishmael and Ahab. Hearing what they said made me reconsider. Moby Dick might be better at university level, whereas Huck Finn might merit exploring both in high school and later. Vendler brings up the importance of names everyone should know, like Orpheus or Lear or Circe (or Ishmael?), but where do they happen in a curriculum today? Should Kerouac or Morrison be included, as examples of literature? We have so many options, what guides our choices?