There’s a closet in my apartment that has become the receptacle for every scrap of paper or box o’ things I own and it’s in the process of being thoroughly gutted. As I waded through the rubble of my past one morning, I found a manila envelope chock full of print-outs and hand-written essays in my familiar, blocky printing: this packet is my “interdisciplinary writing portfolio,” a crock since all the writing comes from English class, and it’s filled with four years of my writing at Moorpark High, 1994-1998. Some of the work is creative; some critical. There are no papers in there, which is definitely strange because I know I wrote at least two longer papers — what I’d now call literary analyses — one on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and one on… another book. It’s been a fascinating read, a little humiliating — I was an opinionated young thing with a sizable opinion of herself — but overall kind of fun to see me think on paper as a teenager. I was also pleased to see that I had concrete thoughts about The Scarlet Letter, the book I hated most in 11th grade English, a book I’ve managed not to reread, a book I can barely remember.
That got me to thinking: I don’t remember much of what I studied in high school English. I remember reading “The Lady of Shalott” by Lord Tennyson and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. I know I read The Red Badge of Courage and The Scarlet Letter and at least three of Shakespeare’s plays, but I don’t actually have a memory of reading those texts and talking about them or anything in class. Or writing about them, even though I have evidence that I did (making claims without evidence, no less). I know I must have read some Langston Hughes, because I found a response poem I wrote entitled “The Alpine Path,” a really gloriously bad misinterpretation of the central metaphor of “Mother to Son.” I also know that I was supposed to read Whitman’s Leaves of Grass for some kind of paper (maybe a literary analysis?), read only a couple of poems instead, and tried to write something about Abraham Lincoln. I had no idea what I was doing, in other words.
Thinking about English got me thinking about high school in general. I know I learned stuff — of course I did — but I don’t actually remember the learning experience for most of my classes. I remember the social dynamics of high school; I remember avoiding certain bullies and getting into fights with friends; I remember the three different locations on campus where I had lunch; I remember having too many unexcused absences to be allowed to leave campus for lunch, thus ensuring that I would continue to ditch school; I remember sitting in classrooms and I even remember who I sat next to in most cases (vividly: the first semester of sophomore year Biology). I remember teachers: the ones who inspired me, the ones who bored me, the ones who were actually football coaches and had no business teaching social studies. I even remember fighting with my chemistry teacher, whom I loved, in front of the entire class about whether women should be allowed in combat (not my finest hour). But memories of learning are few and far between.
In fact, I realize that the one class I really remember learning in is Band. Marching band, jazz band, wind ensemble; I’m not sure why, though I guess it probably has to do with the fact that we were applying our learning right away, and everything we learned felt necessary. And here’s the kicker: I’ve always loved to read. I didn’t especially like English (odd, considering what I do now) but I liked most of what we read. I’m a reader. I’m a writer. You’d think I’d remember. But I don’t.
All of this has been very troubling. I teach English now, 11th and 12th grade, and of course I want my students to remember the experience of my class. Out of ego, of course, I want them to remember my class because it’s my class and I don’t want to be forgotten. More importantly, though, I want them to remember, in twelve or fourteen years, the characters and plots of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Stranger. I want them to remember understanding the betrayals in Beloved and the meaning of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy in Hamlet. I want them to feel that their experience in literature class was necessary.
But will they?
Of course they won’t.
At least, they won’t remember everything. It’s not their job to, really. They’re still kids. High school kids, with high school worries: other classes, social lives, college, personal identities, music, rebellion, everything teenagers think about. And for some of them, literature is merely a class they’re required to take. They may enjoy it, but they probably wouldn’t have chosen it in the first place. A sobering, but useful thought.
Now, I do aim to ensure that the students I teach leave my class with more than a vague feeling that they disliked a book or might have written a paper. Definitely the latter: they do write a lot, a lot, a lot more than I did, at least. And I’m confident that the school I teach at has made the experience of learning such a cornerstone that most students will remember at least something that happened, if not a whole bunch of things. But I might need to shake off the (ego-driven?) desire for them to remember everything we read. For my sake as well as theirs. For the sake of literacy, it’s important that they do remember what we read — but maybe that’s not the most important thing.
This is what I hope my students will take with them:
1. The pleasure and usefulness of reading literature.
2. The pleasure and usefulness of talking about and developing ideas with other people.
3. The understanding that literature has the power to convey essential truths about ourselves and our experiences.
4. The ability to understand and analyze symbols, metaphors, and images; the ability to see subtext.
5. The ability to argue, to defend their arguments with evidence, and to express that argument on paper with a personal writing style.
I think I’d be satisfied with that.
That, and the knowledge that Hamlet is a play. Not a novel.
To be fair, I was not a great high school student, so I might not be an excellent barometer of what a student will or won’t remember about high school.
I think what you remember has a lot to do with who taught it. I remember snippets of things from Biology (football coach), but that mostly involves me convincing the teacher to assign different homework or to change the parameters on tests. I remember all 4 Shakespeare plays that I read, but that’s probably because 3 of them were with Mrs. Fulgham, who was excellent. I remember history from Mr. Jones. I remember film/photography with Aronoff. But…a lot of the rest is a blur. I remember learning in AP US History, but I barely remember what I learned – mostly I remember cramming for tests and writing notes for exams. But, it may be a comfort to you to know that, like me, some of your senior English students will remember you, they’ll remember your lessons, and they’ll remember the books they loved while in your class. I’m a better writer because of high school senior year English, and there are 4-5 books I still pick up and re-read, or will expound upon enthusiastically at the drop of a hat, that I was introduced to that year. Also – excellent choice of song.
I had Jones, too, and Mrs. Fulgham. In fact, my English teachers were all consistently good, if not always inspiring. I still don’t remember what we learned, only that I must have learned somehow. I’m probably a better writer because of high school, but I don’t actually REMEMBER the experience.
I might also just have a rotten memory.
I think your objectives as an English teacher are perfect. A really good teacher connects with the students and teaches more than just her subject. I’ve been out of school much, much longer than you and I too remember band, hanging out in the music room, concerts and my wonderful teacher. I disliked my English teacher so much that I took the English Regents a semester early and didn’t go to English for the rest of the year. Which is too bad because I dearly love to read.