Everyone who passes through McIntosh’s doors headed towards the glory that is graduation will take four years of English. Those classes may be remedial, college preparatory, gifted, or advanced placement; however, at some point, everyone here has sat in a desk (or on a pink bench) in an English teacher’s classroom and attempted to learn something about this great language of ours. A staple of English classes is required reading. And that is a topic on which everyone at MHS has an opinion. Yes, even the teachers.
American and British Literature teacher Ms. Sara Knight, a recent graduate herself, said that when she selects books to be read in class, she looks for a sense of human interest that would be relevant to her students. In defense of the oft dreaded classic literature, she said, “Classic means classic. A text becomes a classic because it surpasses temporal, geographical, and cultural restraints on meaning and understanding…People value what it says about the human condition [or] maybe it’s just a great story. We’ve been reading works like ‘Hamlet’ for centuries for a reason; they still speak to us even though the language has changed.”
Ms. Shery Kearney, who teaches world literature and AP Language, agrees with Ms. Knight. Ms. Kearney said, “As much as I love technology and the access to information it gives me, nothing replaces smelling the pages of an old book that has that slightly acid, musty smell tempered with the softness of vanilla, of finding a long-forgotten book mark that marks a page where someone stopped and wondering was it forever or just temporarily or of picking up a journal and a good ink pen and writing my personal thoughts about the way the character made me hate him or the ending made me cry.”
Gifted freshman literature and world literature teacher Ms. Lynne Bruschetti did not have required reading in high school like McIntosh does. She said, “[W]hen I majored in English in college… I received a rude awakening. I became quite angry once I realized all I had missed for four years. I felt cheated that no one showed me the literature that McIntosh students are required to read.”
A problem that many students have with required reading is that the time limits set make doing other class work difficult. Ms. Kearney said, “Just get to the end, I tell my students. It will be worth it in the end…We may not traverse 12 leagues of darkness, gouge out our eyes, or descend into Hell, but we fight our own demons every day.” In essence, though the journey may be rough, it is a part of life that we all have to go through.
Whether you’re wading through the obscurities of Homer or crying for Hester Prynne and her darling Pearl, literature is a part of your life, and it will be for the remainder of your education.
