And this post is my thinking after reading through my freshmen students' letters about their reading histories in high school, the passions they have in life, and what their relationship has been to literature. The vast majority of them, like those I've taught before, experienced the Readicide that Kelly Gallagher has already published. Schools kill reading and destroy writing. Arriving into higher education, with more freedom to explore, more appreciation for original thinking and creativity, and the flavor of embracing curiosities, students reflect on reading in high school as abysmal, pointless, and a death-sentence. Similar to my own lineage as a reader, they loved to read at home, enjoyed it in elementary school, and slowly experienced the Death Eaters sucking out their souls from middle to high school.
I found it interesting that several of the students wrote that they still enjoy reading non-fiction, but that they never understood why high school teachers taught fictional texts (most pretended to read these books without reading them). This actually got me thinking about why writers make sh#t up in the first place and what makes them explore scenarios in untrue plots when, in reality, a lot of crazy sh#t happens in the real world. Ah, but a lot of writers don't make sh#t up and they write true stories from personal experiences, research, and biography. This writing is made up of the sh#t of life.
I find it complicated to answer these questions because I personally feel that every true story has fictional elements and much fiction is based off true life and lived experience (maybe that is why I chose to teach What is the What later this semester and Sherman Alexie this week). There's a blurring between the two and I don't know if any of us can accurately ever tell a TRUE story to capture actual truth. No, instead we can only write to capture partial truths through making sh#t up creatively and/or drawing on the sh#t in life that is interesting to share, honestly, with others.
It has left me pondering why we tell stories at all...why do we read them...why do we view them...why are they passed along? It seems to me that all stories, at their heart, are written to serve a purpose....to teach us something about our human experience, and/or to educate us with more accuracy of the day to day details we endure.
My English course this semester emphasizes fiction because that is the requirement. I'm somewhat questioning why this line is drawn and how literature, made-up sh#t, is more or less inferior/superior to other genres of writing. Why the differentiation? In either case, the author writes to communicate ideas to others, no? The genres provide structure for how ideas are communicated, but I'm not sure I have a solid answer to why it's done this way. Both my graduate students and my undergraduate students are questioning why teachers assign what they do in high school curriculum and it is interesting to read what they have to say. They are not fans of what they had to endure while in school.
Some of my students love watching sitcoms. This is fiction, but the stories resonate with them because there's truth that they connect to. Others love sports movies. Some of these are based on true stories but they are played by actors who share a fictional account of a story. Yes, these are filmic examples, but students read these narratives whether they are the "truth" or made-up sh#t to help them make meaning of their lives.
I was talking to my cousin last night who shared a story about an African friend who asks his students if an artist draws a guitar, and a writer writes about guitars, and a musician plays the guitar, and the craftsmen makes the guitar, doesn't it take them all, together, a part of the guitar's music? Why do we draw lines as we do? What does this do for us? What does it limit?
That's what I'm thinking about this morning. And it's only Tuesday. I think this post will be a part of tomorrow night's class.
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