Back in fifth or sixth grade at Immaculate Conception School, Sister Mary Espantosa, ran us through the reading curriculum by telling us that books are generally divided into two classes: fiction and non-fiction. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d wonder: Is that all? Either it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiction or it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not?<\/p>\n
Well, literature in the form of short stories, usually in prose, and consisting of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153made-up\u00e2\u20ac\u009d stuff, constitutes a mammoth genre. And what is the counterpart of fiction? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s non-fiction. How many geniuses sat around a table coming up with a label that covers just about everything else?<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biography, historic literature, drama, essays, memoirs, science fiction, poetry and much more to the literary canon. And all we can come up with is made-up stuff or non-fiction?<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re discussing things we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been reading. Someone says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I loved the role of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Most will recognize the work by F. Scott Fitzgerald as fiction: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something Scotty made up, about some fast-living, free-flowing, fun-loving, fool-hardy, fancy-dressing, financially fit friends and philanderers in the early 1900s.<\/p>\n
The discussion likely spurs more comment about what others have been reading. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that many fictional pieces are based on facts; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s likely that J.D. Salinger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s novel, Catcher in the Rye, came from actual experiences in the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s youth. We learn about attitudes regarding sexual mores by reading Samuel Richardson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Pamela and Henry Fielding\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tom Jones, a spoof of the former, which we could never get from a mere list of dates about the introduction of serial fiction in newspapers.<\/p>\n
History is more that a list of dates; literature reflects the time, period, culture, family mores, life and death, gender roles and more. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water in our rush to be the first in the world in educational testing.<\/p>\n
Remember the Common Core purports to help high school graduates prepare for the work place or college and even read a manual as mundane as explaining how to set up a VCR.<\/p>\n
But then there are people who reason, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not true, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a waste of time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In Santa Fe recently, I became engaged in a conversation with a gentleman about reading, the new Common Core curriculum and the difference between fiction and its unfortunately dubbed counterpart, non-fiction. It happened \u00e2\u20ac\u201d of all places in \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the blood bank, as we waited in vein.<\/p>\n
My fellow donor, probably a retired teacher, like me, was insistent that too much time on the educational clock covers reading \u00e2\u20ac\u0153made-up stuff that anyone can write.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I begged to differ. It soon became challenging to posit that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much merit to stuff that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made up. My acquaintance was vocal and passionate about students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 literacy.<\/p>\n
An editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican laments the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153throwing out (of) the teaching of literature in favor of nonfiction.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (I am glad others feel as I do). The premise is that Common Core standards will ensure educational success for children who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153were not reading enough rigorous texts.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
One proposal to the Common Core is that more emphasis in upper elementary reading ought to be on nonfiction, climbing to 70 percent by 12th grade. If implemented as planned, much poetry would be tossed, along with many essential novels. We need a common plane for discussion and references we can all understand, and not just Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n
The Common Core, which by definition attempts to standardize the learning in schools, can be a useful tool. It would be beneficial if education developed a curriculum whereby students across the United States would study, for example, a few dozen classics, thus providing a common ground.<\/p>\n
In addition to Mark Twain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming-of-age novels, add Rudolfo Anaya\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bless Me, Ultima and other regional quality literature.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you thinking of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcrelevance\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked. He was. As a reader I have become more voracious as I age. I like to delve into the social mores of the 1800s, in reading what Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina, believed about manners of that era. We get our dose of heroics through works like El Cid.<\/p>\n
And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which transports us into South America. What about old fairy tales like Cinderella, traces of which can be found in every culture around the world? These fictional portrayals of people and times past speak to the human condition and should not be jettisoned just because many U.S. students are not reading as well or as often as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think my fellow blood donor appreciated how I ended the discussion, by citing one of Shakespeare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tragedies, King Lear. I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When it comes to relevance, to reading about things within our narrow ken, then we ought not read King Lear unless we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 80 years old, blind and have three daughters, two of whom are deceitful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
As for me, I try to reach beyond the more familiar. Reading about Russia, in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dr. Zhivago,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for example, multiplies my contacts with others \u00e2\u20ac\u0153out there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that close-to-home reading, such as the novels of Anaya \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Bless Me, Ultima is a prime example \u00e2\u20ac\u201d re-acquaints me with many things, events and people of my youth, but I still believe only good can come from dipping our toes into writings from here and other places.<\/p>\n
This conversation, although spontaneous, enhanced my concern about the gradual loss of fiction as an aid to understanding our world and us. Our friends and neighbors often write wonderful stories and \u00e2\u20ac\u201d fiction or non-fiction \u00e2\u20ac\u201d these tales enrich us all.<\/p>\n
We both left the blood bank in Santa Fe, a wee bit wiser and about 16 ounces lighter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in fifth or sixth grade at Immaculate Conception School, Sister Mary Espantosa, ran us through the reading curriculum by telling us that books are generally divided into two classes: fiction and non-fiction. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d wonder: Is that all? Either it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiction or it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not? Well, literature in the form of short stories, usually in prose, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1659,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}