Can a short little book such as Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince be used effectively in the Literature classroom? I have yet to meet anyone who actively dislikes the book, and it is short and simple enough to be easily digested even by readers who might face difficulty reading texts with slightly more complicated language. It can be used to introduce basic literary concepts such as personification (e.g. the flower, the fox) and metaphor (e.g. invisibility).
My only caveats: the book can be too simple for certain schools or profiles of students, and the episodic fable structure of the book can mislead students in thinking about how traditional narrative should develop. Otherwise, the book offers a great introductory text to get students interested in reading, and in thinking further about reading.
The Age of InnocenceEdith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence is one of four novels for which Literature students can answer an essay/passage-based question for the A-Levels. Set in 1870s New York, the novel dissects the arcane social rules of the upper classes amid a star-crossed affair between a gentleman and his bethrothed’s cousin.
Due to this central focus on extramarital infidelity, the novel can already be a controversial choice for the Singaporean A-Level classroom, let alone for secondary school students. Nonetheless, it must be remembered that the novel ultimately falls on the side of marriage over romance, and of social stability over individual freedom, and it can thus allow students to grapple with these complex ethical issues and thus expand their critical and empathetic capacities.
The novel can also present further hurdles that might hinder students’ ability to identify with it, since it sets itself in relatively unfamiliar historical, geographic and socioeconomic territory. (Linguistically, the novel uses relatively elegant vocabulary, but it also has a dry wit that can be lost on students who are not trained to keep a close eye on tone.)
Ender’s GameOrson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game shares many YA bestseller qualities with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, since it presents a maltreated kid who is whisked away to a faraway school, where he discovers his natural talents at a socially valued activity, his status as a fated hero against universal forces of villainy, and companions who stick with him against his bullying peers. However, it plants itself firmly in the sci-fi genre rather than fantasy, and hence represents a genre that I (and I suspect many Literature teachers) am largely unfamiliar with and hesitate to venture teaching.
Even more than Harry Potter, I worry that Ender’s Game can nurture dangerous fantasies of heroic superiority in young readers, since it asks readers to empathise with its misunderstood young protagonist partly by having them identify with his newfound social acceptance. Ender’s Game also ends with a thorny ethical dilemma about the brutal acts that people can commit when they have limited knowledge of others and their back is up against the wall. Thus, teachers must be alert in preparing this novel so that students will be able to grasp its complexities.
Hi Colin,
ReplyDeleteI like your suggestion on integrating 'The Little Prince' into the Literature classroom. The themes explored and perspectives offered through the lens of a child are intriguing, thought-provoking, and very refreshing. I myself have contemplated the possibility of using this text to teach Lit. Like you, though, I have certain reservations: would the themes explored and context be a little too detached/divorced from the realities of our children in SG? Otherwise, it's a great text and it'll get our students more interested in the whole notion of reading!
Hi Colin, thanks for highlighting both the possibilities and problems with teaching Ender's Game. It's a good point that we need to be alert to both when choosing any text for the classroom. Beyond context, thinking about the pedagogical possibilities is important for our choices.
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