Jean Kozek
Instructor, Oak Park High School
RED everywhere! Not edit-the-paper red or I-won't-take-it-anymore red. Rather Red Wing Fever Red. "Spirit of Detroit" draped in a statue-size Red Wing jersey; Red Wing flags flapping atop fans' cars; Red Wing Caps, mugs, flags, pennants, decals, Brooms-for-a-Sweep, T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, Wing-Nuts and body paint and tattoos. And the Detroit newspapers splurging on black ink to extol each Red Wing player; a page devoted to a "Make Your Own Stanley Cup" cut-out; and articles about Russians watching the one day tape-delayed video of the most recent game in which five Russians skate as Red Wings; and Mitch Albom's sports columns, some of the finest American literature around.
Mitch Albom Live? Great American literature? Analogy, alliteration, metaphor, crafted writing and relevancy. Sports writing not about a play-by-play but about those who play. He connects the reader to the topic. Describing Red Wing Yzerman during the Finals, Albom describes Yzerman's life at home with his family: "His eyes are locked on something off in the distance. In that way, I guess Steve Yzerman is like a lot of working men. He doesn't want to talk about it."
Over the last few years my definition of American Literature has taken a much more inclusive view. I had assumed that American literature implied great dead writers who, at the time I read them as a student, discussed issues and ethics far removed from where I was developmentally. And, the more difficulty I had understanding the "work", and the more I needed to refer to Cliff's Notes, the better the writer. Eleventh grade reading of Moby Dick left me totally dependent on my teacher and notes. I suspect I shied away from the Classics because I assumed that they were not comprehensible without the aid of an instructor, so I chose to read non-Classics for my personal and pleasurable readings.
For a few years, when our daughters were little, I taught Adult Education classes. My students tended to be able to read but were unwilling; they tended to be frustrated with texts and literature; they made few connections with the themes found in the Classics. This same situation existed when I moved to the seventh grade class room. Reluctant readers and closet-readers - don't tell anyone I love to read students. My Afra-American, middle-class students, for the most part, could not be coerced by grades, detention, or effusive, energetic hyperbole promising that if they read the book, give it fifty pages, they'll like it. Fifty pages when R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike and Stephen King catch their attention immediately? All of this is to say that for the past fifteen years I've learned much from my students who have caused me to re-examine both what literature I teach and how I teach it. I'm still in the process of looking for answers which makes me an appropriate member of this team. While I do NOT believe that there is a list of MUST read classics, I do believe that what is read must be well-written, age appropriate, and taught in such a manner that students feel they are not totally teacher dependent or Cliff's Notes dependent for understanding.
For the last three years I have been teaching both ninth grade Language Arts and Senior and College English, each a one-semester course on writing the research paper. I have scrapped the ninth grade text and added fiction and non-fiction readings to the twelfth grade courses since students need samples of good writing in order to write the research paper.
My egocentric ninth graders not love the themes of "the hero's journey" and rite of passage since they see themselves in these roles. It has been fun to weave together readings of stories and myths and ritual with story writing suggestions from Barry Lane's After "the End" to help them create their own short stories which usually have adolescent heroes and sheroes, to coin a word from Maya Angelou. All of which is to say that reading selections serve a dual purpose: reading to write and writing to allow for reading comprehension. This is an area I believe I need to investigate in more depth. The "Making American Literatures" project will offer me the opportunity to consider ways to teach literature and choose literature so that my students benefit.
I am fortunate because most of my fellow high school English teachers are also involved in a re-evaluation of what they teach. Our eleventh grade American Literature Honors class consists of entirely multi-cultural paperbacks; the teacher ditched the textbook. One tenth grade Language Arts teacher adopted the Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics approach; her success with the tried-and-sometimes-true classics has encouraged her to consider a different variety of classics. Another teacher of Ethnic Literature and Creative Writing has been influenced by her participation in the National Writing Project last summer. The school literary magazine that her students produced is a testament to her participation in the Project and her philosophy to encourage students to discover their own voices in the rewriting. Me, I'm also a graduate of the National Writing Project which, along with my teaching experiences and both personal and professional readings, has caused me to reflect on what I teach, how I teach, and why I teach it.
However, this heavy philosophical reflection needs to come to an end. First, I was told to be brief---which I wasn't. Second, I'm starting to see Red again as I catch the reflection in my computer screen of the RED WING T-shirt I'm wearing. "Stanley Cup Champions." I'll awake at 5:00am tomorrow morning to quickly dress for school then run out to the driveway for my Free Press and, of course, Mitch Albom's column on the Red Wing victory. Truly wonderful American literature.
Email: melkozek@prodigy.net
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