Argument Essay Should students’ required reading in high school represent the real or the idea? Students deserve to represent the real, not the ideal in which most parents want them to believe life is normal. Meghan Cox Gurdon believes that the novels with gruesome details and storylines should not be in the reach of students. Janice Harayda also agreed with Ms. Gurdon, but Sherman Alexie did not agree with either one of them. Students should not be sheltered from the dangers, and real-life situations that do happen. Students who have been abused, or have inflicted self-harm can be inspired buy YA novels. There are plenty of teens around the world who struggle getting through the day, it can either be from poverty, being bullied, getting abused at home, causing self-harm, or maybe even feeling a sense of hopelessness within themselves. But when reading YA novels, these kids can be given a voice; they can overcome their predicament. Through these novels they kids who once felt like they had no voice, have a voice and it all comes through the power of reading a story about the life of another teen that struggles with the same problems they do. …show more content…
In “Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood” by Sherman Alexie he speaks of a time when he met a young man, who was seventeen, who went to one of the most elite private high schools in the country who spoke to him about a problem he had.
The kid told him his father wanted him to join the military just like he did, but the did really wanted to become a writer and his dad didn’t allow that. He was old enough to serve and fight for his country, go off to war and witness the most horrifying and gruesome situations in which all soldiers would go through while at war, but to Ms. Gurdon one of the journalist believed kids of that age were too young to be reading YA
novels. Now, it is possible for a student or a random teen who is going through difficulties to have flashbacks of a certain situation in which they did not enjoy going through by reading a YA novel, so in some cases it can be a good idea to prevent students from reading those novels. Not all kids will be able to handle such detail, and imagery that is portrayed through these novels. However, by the reading students do in high school, the more real they are the better understanding they will have about what’s really going one around them. Through all the novels that include subjects about rape, violence, drug abuse, and self-harm can give students with similar situations a sense of no longer feeling like they are alone. No one is really ever alone, because when it is dark, one must look for light. So, by allowing students to read such books, we are really helping, they are being given hope that there really is a better path to a better life. So, I ask again, “Should students’ required reading in high school represent the real or the idea?” I’d say real, there is no use in trying to “protect’ them from such “horrors” when they most likely go through far worse then what is portrayed within the YA novels.
Overall, fiction novels should be authorized to be in the school curriculum. Figment of imagination helps students connect more with the real world and find a solution to the challenges encountered. Students are open to different perspectives of life and learn to be creative and open minded. Lessons like making life and death decisions, telling the truth and the true meaning of friendship
In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, is, though written like fiction, a true account of the murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. This evocative story illuminates new insights into the minds of criminals, and how society tends to act as a whole, and achieves its purpose by utilizing many of the techniques presented in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In In Cold Blood, Capote uses symbols of escape and American values, and recurring themes of egotism and family to provide a new perspective on crime and illustrate an in-depth look at why people do the things they do.
Olivia Butler writes in the afterword of “Bloodchild” that it’s not a story of slavery, and evidence from close reading can be used to support this statement. Butler uses the human form as a vehicle for defamiliarization to show the mechanical functions readers serve themselves and others. Furthermore, this process is able to reveal their passive nature and ultimately highlight the human allowance for manipulation. She brings light to these behaviors by showing a lack of respect for human life, an unbalanced power relationship between the Tlic and the humans, and Gan’s stripped cognitive process.
While I student taught the classroom teachers were informed to take the reading block, which provided students to read a book for pure enjoyment and replace it to test prep. I believe that if the school system does not take action and get rid of these standardized test society is going to be composed of hollow minds. Yes, it is easy to memorize terms but to completely understand them and apply them to the real world takes skills. Reading is everything in the outside world and is a form of communication. As I read the book the author reencounters reading a book titled Come Back and how his perspective suddenly made him realized that feeling anger towards someone in his family for his sisters death was wrong and destructive. Perhaps, can someone who is not a reader realize what the author
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
As evidenced by his words, it was not simply a matter of going over there at the age of seventeen to fight for one’s country. Rather, it was a matter of leaving behind the safety and security of the home to which you were accustomed, with little expectation of returning. At a time when these ‘kids’ should have been enjoying, they were burdened with the the trepidation of being drafted.
“ I joined the Army when I was fourteen because, one, I was persuaded that the only way to get my parents back or to stop that from happening was to be apart of the Army and kill those people who were responsible for killing my parents. But, you see, the thing that is very disturbing about this thing is that once I joine...
To accurately determine what an educational institution should do with a book that contains some degree of cultural or moral shock is to analyze what the purpose of these institutions actually is. “Some parents brought the town’s segregated past and their dissatisfaction with the present into the discussion about the book” (Powell, 1). It is true that people from areas where slavery once ran rampant will be emotionally distressed with books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This may be understandable, but ultimately, schools are not purposed to dampen the discomfort of specific students and their families. Education Assistant Professor Jocelyn Chadwick states, “‘you have to remind them you are there to defend the text and not solve social issues’” (Powell, 1). Alleviating the cold reality from members of the community is neither a responsibility of educators nor a pedagogical concern. For the teachers and professors, the education of students, through whatever methods and textbooks, should far outweigh any of the culturally or morally shaky backlash that could follow. However, some disagree with this. “The CHMCA officially objected to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the grounds that ‘the prejudicial effect of the racial characterizations outweigh any literary value that the book might have’...
Stephen Crane’s approach to writing about war struck oddly with the reader right from the beginning. Thoughts running through the youth’s head do not sound like those of a hero. He has no purpose in this war, yet he fights in it anyway. The lack of a mighty American lumberjack hero as a protagonist immediately sets this story on a different track than the usual romantic, vivid, traditional, honorable accounts of war. The youth has no idea what he is getting himself into.
Teenagers can identify with characters and use some of this particular literature to identify with some of the challenges in society today. Critics say banning such books from libraries or attempting to keep young people from reading them is tantamount to censorship and is counterproductive. Some people can really identify themselves in some of the literature like ‘Twilight’ series by Stephanie Meyer. Young adult literature that dives into disturbing topics such as suicide, addiction and self-mutilation has the potential to depress and dangerously influence teenagers, who are more impressionable than adult readers. Parents and librarians should screen books for young adult readers more actively
Books teach people everything they need to know about a certain subject, historical event, or how to deal with certain situations in life. Students in school need these books in particular to develop, but it is occasionally difficult to acquire education books when parents are censoring books for their children. “That parent in Connecticut also declared the she is the best judge of what is acceptable for her children to read” (Gallo). Censorship over a child is hard because depending on the age, there could be multiple reasons. This mother dictating over a child that is fairly young then it is understandable. Younger children as they...
Over the course of the 21st century, there has been a steady decline in the rate of high school graduates. With such an important factor to the success of adolescents, school administrations have begun to take notice of such unacceptable findings. In this process they have attempted to understand the needs of our youth and the methods that give them the opportunity to become better readers, writers and overall students. To these young individuals, these years of development are pivotal to there success as adults. Educators must work together with the student to understand their individual forms of learning, not every student is the same and must be given the opportunity to learn no matter what the circumstance might be.
Censorship in Schools There has recently been a renewed interest and passion in the issue of censorship. In the realm of the censorship of books in schools alone, several hundred cases have surfaced each year for nearly the past decade. Controversies over which books to include in the high school English curriculum present a clash of values between teachers, school systems, and parents over what is appropriate for and meaningful to students. It is important to strike a balance between English that is meaningful to students by relating to their lives and representing diversity and satisfying worries about the appropriateness of what is read.
Dystopian fiction has a great effect on teenagers because it causes us to look at the world differently. Anthem and The Hunger Games are great examples of what its like to live in a dystopian world and be a dystopian protagonist. I think teenagers can learn a lot through reading novels like this or watching the
The censoring of books and other literatures in schools by parents is a common thing, even in the United States, where the freedom within the law protects the educator’s judgment of their professional standards, meaning schools should be trusted to practice their rights to choose which materials may or may not be used in children’s learning environment. Schools already censor materials that are deemed not suitable for young students; school books should not be used to push ideological positions, they should be used to teach children the truth and expose them to ideas that will expand their knowledge, not by influencing them, but by making them understand.