Thursday, November 21, 2019
English vs. Literature
So I'm tutoring a fifth grader named Colleen Collins. I have to help her with English. In her English class she mostly does grammatical things, like learn about prepositions. So this made me wonder. Why do we take a class called "English" when we don't do anything grammatical. I feel like we should take a class called "Literature" instead of English. What do y'all think? Should our class be called English or Literature?
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8 comments:
I do agree that we are not taking an "English" class per se and that we really should change the name to Literature. I also think that it is interesting to note that while a name change might not seem like such a big deal, the name of a course does affect who will take it. I am sure that there are students who would excel in a Literature course but who do not think they will do well in an English course due to the emphasis in English courses on grammar.
I agree with you Andreas, however I do think that there is a purpose to learning grammar in elementary school. In order to read or analyze text, we need to understand how to write and depict sentences. Weather we realize it or not, we are using the skills we learned in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade when we write essays. We learned how to construct sentences in these grades so we can effectively write today.
On the other hand, maybe too much “English” is being taught in lower grades. Maybe there should be a mix of English with literature. Some things that we learned in lower grades aren’t used now, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be taught. The reason for this is standardized test, the ACT and SAT.
The ACT and SAT test your “English” skills. You aren’t asked about a book you read because not everyone has read that specific book. These English skills that we learned as kids are especially useful on these test.
Maybe there should be a different approach for the ACT? More testing on literature rather than English? What do y’all think?
Sorry----Whether***
I agree that the class should be called Literature. Calling it English simply doesn't make sense especially when half of the books we have read this year weren't written in English. One Hundred Years of Solitude was written in Spanish and Inferno in Italian, so it makes very little sense to call the class English when the literature we read weren't necessarily written in English.
I also agree that the class should be called "literature." If you look up the definitions of the words "literature" and "english" they are very different. Literature is "written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit." English is "the language of England, widely used in many varieties throughout the world." Therefore, the English language leads to literature. In our class, we don't talk about grammar so much, we really just read different parts and kinds of literature and analysis it and talk about it as a class. We also talk a lot about the history and background of the literature we read. Also, we don't really learn new words and the actual LANGUAGE of english. So, therefore, I believe our class should be called "literature" and not "english" anymore.
In my opinion, if the class name were to be changed to "literature", I think it may make a difference. Though our curriculum would remain the same, and our focus in the class would not change, there may be a resulting psychological effect on the students, as they may take the class more seriously if it had a more imposing name to it. As for many students, we have been taking "English class" since lower school, and it might prove to be better off for us if the name changes accordingly with curriculum changes.
Im glad that everyone thinks that we should change the name of the class to literature. Ms. King, how can we go about this?
I believe the class should just be called literature/writing as the main things this class covers is just reading and writing along with some fun projects. We cover little to know grammar in this class. So in conclusion, this class should be called Literature/writing.
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