Jump to content

Menu

Shocked that this book is on the Grade 11 common core reading list. Scary!


Recommended Posts

And I go back to the people who said, if this book was about animal cruelty, a lot of people would have an issue with it but don't seemed fazed by the actual content.  Yes, it does exist.  Does that mean when need to subject our children to graphic descriptions of it?  My answer is NO!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 594
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

OK...I'll take it a step further.  Rape is very much a part of life for many many women.  I think the worldwide stats are 1:3 women experience abuse in some form.  1:5 college women experience forced sex.  Incest is a part of far more children's lives than I would wish. In my family, my uncle didn't think it mattered because I was adopted.  Call it the Woody Allen syndrome.  93% of kids who are abused under the age of 18 know their abuser.  A 16/17 year old should know that.  It can be discussed. 

 

Life is messy.  Life is violent for many.  Right now in Syria, human rights orgs tell us that rape is a tool of war.  Prisoners have their family members of both sexes raped in front of them.  That's reality.  That should be part of the discussion in saying do we intervene.  All wars involve rape.  If you are studying history with your kids, and you don't talk about the rape of Nanking, or the rapes that occurred after liberation in Europe. You are doing them a disservice.  You are not giving them an accurate picture of what war really is...what it does to people.  It's far more than just deaths.   Heck, we have a problem right now with American soldiers raping other soldiers.  You can't hide people from the messy things in life... and IMHO, if you are doing that to a soon-to-be-adult, you are doing them a disservice.  

 

This is so, so, so true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the book is something every 16 year old should read.  It's more than sex.  Sex is part of the plot, just as sex is part of life.  

"Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing"

 

 

I graduated from high school 25+ years ago.  I doubt high schoolers have changed much.  They still know a lot more about sex that their parents think...and are far more interested in sex than their parents think... even if they come from "conservative" families.  However, just because they read about sex, does not necessarily mean they're having sex.  Sex in the context of a well-written plot is fine.  It does not constitute pornography IMHO.  Heck, knowing that there's something in the book that some parents are upset about might actually get the kids to read it. :)

 

If you're really worried about your kids sexuality, then be far more concerned with sex ed and how it is taught.  Abstinence-only is the worst for ensuring healthy sexuality and pregnancy prevention.  It can also be quite damaging.  Elizabeth Smart had a lot to say about how she was raised...and how her feeling that she was damaged and nobody would want her kept her a victim.  It's worth the read/watch. 

 

When Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins University panel last week, she explained one of the factors deterring her from escaping her attacker: She felt so worthless after being raped that she felt unfit to return to her society, which had communicated some hard and fast rules about premarital sexual contact.

“I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence,†Smart told the panel. “And she said, ‘Imagine you’re a stick of gum. When you eHIngage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times, you’re going to become an old piece of gum, and who is going to want you after that?’ Well, that’s terrible. No one should ever say that. But for me, I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum.’ Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value.† 

 

The most popular book among all the girls (especially the ones from very conservative families) when I was in middle school was Judy Blume's "Forever."  I read that, and far more explicit work.  It didn't affect my virginity one iota.  Having sexual feelings as a 16/17 year old is completely normal.  Reading about sex is also normal.  Being curious about sex is completely normal.  Just because a book mentions genitals and sexual intercourse does not make it pornography.  

I thought I was done but I have to say this.

RAPE IS NOT SEX!!!!!  Being interested in sex is so completely different from being raped it shouldn't'even be mentioned in the same sentence!!!!

 

And I'm going to repeat myself for the people here who can't seem to grasp this simple concept.

 

ITS NOT ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE BOOK.

ITS NOT ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE BOOK.

ITS NOT ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE BOOK.

ITS NOT ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE BOOK.

 

ITS ABOUT THE GRAPHIC DETAILS TOLD FROM THE ABUSERS PERSPECYIVE THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

Not one person has been able to say what value those descriptions add to the story other than to say it helps us understand the abuser. Someone even stated thAt he was sexually abused also. Some of us here must be more intelligent than others because apparently we can read books THAT ARE ABOUT INCEST without these TRASHY, PORNOGRAPHIC, SATANIC descriptions and understand very clearly that the abuser is . A disturbed individual. 

 

One more time:

 

ITS NOT ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE BOOK.

ITS NOT ABOUT THE CC ONTENT OF THE BOOK.

 

Btw, I don't believe the book should be banned. Toni morrison does have the same rights as the rest of us. Even pedophiles have rights, they even have web sites and groups where they promote sex between adults as nd children as "beautiful"

Perhaps some of you think your children ( they ARE children no matter what their age and most parents want to protect them their whole lives) check those out as w ell. While you're at it, get them a job in a strip club, maybe hang out with some drug dealers, maybe move in with t h a family that beats their kids. After all reading  book like A Child Call e d It that doesn't have all the graphicdetails from the mother (who did beat the child. True story) point of view certainly wouldn't help your children understand how sick she is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So a year or two later when they read it in a class with college freshmen they will get more out of it some how?

 

 

:iagree: I would rather they read it in in high school where there is more of a support structure if they should need it.

 

I agree with the bolded. As I said in one of my previous posts, I would think carefully before assigning this book to a class, juniors or seniors, because each class and each individual is different. I considered assigning my sophmores Speak last year, then I found out that one of the girls had some issues in her past that made this a book that she should perhaps not be assigned. I decided that since I, at that point, did not know the students very well I would assign a different book. I would have had no issues assigning Speak to my previous sophmore class. A colleague wanted to show a student group a movie in which one of the characters father commits suicide. One of the girls had a father who had just attempted suicide and was in the hospital. The teacher and I discussed it and decided that she would warn the whole class that there was a suicide in the movie and that she would talk to the girl specifically and give everyone the option to not watch the movie. I would tell students that this book has uncomfortable scenes of a sexual nature and let them decide if they thought they could cope with it.

 

 

 

 

:iagree:

 

Why can't we compare the Bible to this stuff. I find the Bible VERY disturbing, but for cultural literacy I might require students to read parts of it.

The bible does not have the graphic details. Duh. Why is that so difficult to comprehend?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I couldn't have said it better. I also had no idea how callused our society has become that they think this is good literature. There are TONS of much better books out there to read.

Do you not see how insulting this is to those of us who think the book important? Or are you trying to be insulting?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I couldn't have said it better. I also had no idea how callused our society has become that they think this is good literature. There are TONS of much better books out there to read.

I'm still waiting to see some titles of these books that would be suitable examples, albeit less graphic or "real", one could substitute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course it's about the content of the book.  I thought that objectors thought the content was too explicit for teenagers.  :confused1:

 

A few people have been saying that they think the book can't possibly have any redeeming value for any reader if it includes such explicit content.  Many people have tried to show that it does, indeed, have a lot of value.  And that value is very much tied to the explicit content, but that isn't the whole thing, of course, and it's a complex book with lots of "content."

 

What in the world are we even talking about if it's not the content of the book?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TRASHY, PORNOGRAPHIC, SATANIC 

 

 

Perhaps some of you think your children ( they ARE children no matter what their age and most parents want to protect them their whole lives) check those out as w ell. While you're at it, get them a job in a strip club, maybe hang out with some drug dealers, maybe move in with t h a family that beats their kids. 

 

The more you talk this way, the less likely the people you are arguing with are to give your opinion any credence. Hysterics and hypebole are not legitimate argumentative strategies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My grandmother still refers to her 40 year olds as her "kids". This is not some strange custom...I would say most or even close to all people refer to their offspring as kids or children. I suppose I could call me 17 year old my "semi adopted son who was born in '96 whom is not yet of governmental legal age however behaves in an adult manner, except when he plays video games." though I generally I respond with "him? Yeah he's my kid."

 

I find it odd you've made the choice to focus in on that.

Most of the people defending the book have chosen to focus on EVERYTHING except the real point of the problem as a way to distract people from the real problem with this book.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The bible does not have the graphic details. Duh. Why is that so difficult to comprehend?

 

Honestly, I would rather my kids read a book that portrays incest, rape, and child abuse as profoundly damaging and sad (and graphic) than a book that portrays plague, slavery, crucifixion, and punishment as love.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm still waiting to see some titles of these books that would be suitable examples, albeit less graphic or "real", one could substitute.

 

But there is no direct substitute, of course.  I said above, I think it would be fine for a parent individually in a homeschool or to ask for a book for their own minor child in a class to substitute a book that covers some of the same territory and has a similar literary value and complexity.  But there's nothing that's *the same* and which would cover all the same themes.  I'm not sure why we would need to try to come up with such a book.  The fact that people have suggested other books that don't come close seems like a good argument for putting this book on a syllabus in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course it's about the content of the book.  I thought that objectors thought the content was too explicit for teenagers.  :confused1:

 

A few people have been saying that they think the book can't possibly have any redeeming value for any reader if it includes such explicit content.  Many people have tried to show that it does, indeed, have a lot of value.  And that value is very much tied to the explicit content, but that isn't the whole thing, of course, and it's a complex book with lots of "content."

 

What in the world are we even talking about if it's not the content of the book?

So you are saying the book would not be as well written if the author did not put those descriptions of raping a child in there? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE THEME/ISSUE/WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT!!! I feel like you guys aren't listening to us. it's about the graphic sexual descriptions that some of us feel are unnecessary.

 

I'm listening. And I understand that the very explicit detail is extremely uncomfortable, especially when it springs off a page at you, *especially* when it's in the middle of a blog post that is urging you to be enraged by the filth you are about to find there.

 

But it isn't an erotic depiction of sexual intercourse that's designed to titillate. It isn't a bodice ripper (which your child can get for $1 at any used bookstore in town), it isn't Fifty Shades of Grey with erections and climaxes and anal beads. It's a depiction of a horrifying crime, but from the perspective of the criminal who doesn't fully think he's doing anything wrong. Much like the quote from Crime and Punishment I posted earlier in the thread, with the man who coldly premeditates murder, and watches the results of his axe with interest. Can you white out those passages and still have a work with the same power to engender emotion in the reader?

 

I totally get saying "I don't wish to read nor encourage my children to read this particular book if it contains these particular passages." I will not accept saying that "This level of detail is unnecessary." Who are you to say?

 

The more this discussion continues the more I wish I had a teenager. One who, as SWB suggests, "has read Aristotle and Plato on human freedom, Thomas Jefferson on liberty, Frederick Douglass on slavery, and Martin Luther King, Jr., on civil rights". How fabulous an essay assignment would this conversation be for a rhetoric-stage student? "Does the sex in the plot of The Bluest Eye add anything to the author's message? Is the level of sexually explicit detail necessary, or unnecessary?"

 

Funny thing is, I don't think I could accept an essay in response to that question from a student who HADN'T READ THE BOOK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So you are saying the book would not be as well written if the author did not put those descriptions of raping a child in there? 

 

Yes.  The explicit content is integral to the unique qualities of the book, including the high quality of the writing and the innovativeness of Toni Morrison's writing in general.  She won the Pulitzer and the Nobel prizes because her writing is unflinching, not in spite of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't, by the way, read anything by Morrison in years...  but this conversation has put me in the mood to.  And also made me look forward to when my kids are at an age for this sort of depth in writing.  Not that I don't love the Island of the Blue Dolphins, Wrinkle in Time, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes age that we're actually in...  Just that I am excited to sink my teeth into this stuff again as a teacher down the road.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Obviously that's been happening otherwise they wouldn't keep asking what's wrong with letting kids know about sex u algebra abuse.

 

My powers of divination have failed me. Is someone abusing algebra? Let me at them...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I couldn't have said it better.  I also had no idea how callused our society has become that they think this is good literature.  There are TONS of much better books out there to read.

 

You are making a value judgement on something you have not read.  You cannot argue something you know nothing about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes.  The explicit content is integral to the unique qualities of the book, including the high quality of the writing and the innovativeness of Toni Morrison's writing in general.  She won the Pulitzer and the Nobel prizes because her writing is unflinching, not in spite of it.

And that's is MY point, those details are so graphic, why would you WANT that in your mind?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are making a value judgement on something you have not read.  You cannot argue something you know nothing about.

 

I think I recall from upthread that it's OK to do this if you're American.  :tongue_smilie:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

And while I have never read The Bluest Eye, I have read other books by Toni Morrison and enjoyed them.  I probably would get something out of Bluest Eye and find it an interesting read.  HOWEVER, I would never in a million years want my teenager reading this, especially not in a classroom, where a teacher that I don't know is leading a discussion which could go any number of ways that I'd prefer it not go. 

 

 

It seems clear that if you don't want your student watching these scenes in a movie (even a good movie), you would not want them reading them, either.  At least not without your close supervision.  Many parents in the PS system may be completely unaware of what book their child is reading in English at any given moment.

 

I agree with the above quote.  I am not a prude, by any sense of the word. I read my fair share of things in high school, remember Flowers in the Attic, Clan of the Cave Bear, et al?  I remember the shock of watching Deliverance in my senior AP English Lit. class.  With that said, I wouldn't feel comfortable letting my daughter or son, read something this explicit as a classroom assignment with the intent of discussing it in the classroom.  College, well yes, of course; high school, no.  I read a lot of Toni Morrison and love her work, most of which was introduced to me in a sophomore college literature discussion.

 

Age appropriate = mature enough to understand and discuss the material.  I know kids are MUCH more exposed to these topics than we were, do they discuss these topics amongst each other in a mature fashion? Usually not.  Can't we set some standards on what is appropriate and when?  The practice of letting them figure it out on their own, has made morality in our culture go to the pot, imo.  We see and hear about it every, single day.

 

I do not support blatant censorship or banning of any media.  That is the path down a very, slippery slope.  What I do support is parent involvement in their child's education and expressing their standards, values, and morals to their children.  I am disappointed that pub. ed. exclaims how awful it is that parents don't want these topics in the classroom because they actually CARE what their children are exposed to, yet are pub. ed. is first to complain that parents don't get involved.   Can't have your cake and eat it too, I say. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may be a beautiful story and teach a valuable lesson, but the explicit description of the sexual acts is unnecessary to the plot and crosses the line of vulgarity. I read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. The main character was a prostitute. In the reading, you knew the pain of her life: the acts she committed, the shame, the degradation. However, no act was ever explicitly described. And, in the end, you come away knowing the lesson the author has for the reader.

I haven't read the responses after this, but I couldn't help but respond to this. Francine Rivers is not even in the same league with Tony Morrison. No offense, I like Francine Rivers for a beach read or something like that; but to compare that to the works of Morrison is ridiculous, in my opinion...

 

Now, do I think every 11th or 12th grader should read TBE, no. Not every student will be ready for that kind of topic or style of writing. I read TBE in college and it was a book that really changed my life. If your students will be taking lit. classes in college, they will meet up with this literature, just be aware.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that's is MY point, those details are so graphic, why would you WANT that in your mind?  

 

People have given many reasons already though...  to help understand abuse in general which can help us prevent it and empathize with those who have been abused, to read in the wake of abuse as part of a healing process, and to face that these issues are a part of our society...  And that's just for that particular part of the book.  As people have tried to say, the book is so much more than that one out of context scene.  It's worth reading in order to get to the depth of the book and discuss the issues of race and beauty and so forth as well.  People here talk a lot about joining the "great conversation" and I would argue that Ms. Morrison's work is part of that ongoing tradition of literature and ideas.  To be literate in a modern sense is to have read writers like Morrison as well as writers from long ago and long, long ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't the result the same for the child? I remember being told I could not read a book (White Fang) by a school librarian when I was... 7 or 8. I was already well into it and was so upset that I still remember it now. The book was "prohibited" because it was supposed to be above my reading level, not due to content. A teen whose parents ban a book s/he knows about and wants to read is going to feel much like a person who wants to read books banned by a government, I think.

Teens will pout and grumble about their parents being strict (BTDT) but there is a BIG difference between "my mom won't let me read ____" and the government banning a book to try to stop adults from reading it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes! Down with Algebra!!!!!!

 

:eek:

 

This is the most shocking thing I've read in this thread. I have to walk away before it gets nasty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Again, in many states 17 year olds ae legally adults. The fact that you want to control another adult is disturbing.

False. There are ZERO states in the U.S. where the legal age of majority is 17. There are several states where it is 19, and a few where it is 21. http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstakes101/a/agemajoristate.htm

 

I would say at least 18 AND having graduated from high school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awed to be in the presence of someone such as yourself. How does one make an educated guess after reading a few posts someone puts on a forum? Oh, I guess its probably the many, many years you have lived.

 

And I totally thought once you hit the 400th book, you were in fact a literary genius. 

 

I've read many posts by the person I was responding to, that is how it is an educated guess.

 

Nope, I'm not a literary genius despite the amount of books I have read.

 

BTW, you are not in my presence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You've never read Song of Soloman?

 

 

 

Since I find Song of Solomon arousing, it is pornography by the definition of some on this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK...I'll take it a step further.  Rape is very much a part of life for many many women.  I think the worldwide stats are 1:3 women experience abuse in some form.  1:5 college women experience forced sex.  Incest is a part of far more children's lives than I would wish. In my family, my uncle didn't think it mattered because I was adopted.  Call it the Woody Allen syndrome.  93% of kids who are abused under the age of 18 know their abuser.  A 16/17 year old should know that.  It can be discussed. 

 

Life is messy.  Life is violent for many.  Right now in Syria, human rights orgs tell us that rape is a tool of war.  Prisoners have their family members of both sexes raped in front of them.  That's reality.  That should be part of the discussion in saying do we intervene.  All wars involve rape.  If you are studying history with your kids, and you don't talk about the rape of Nanking, or the rapes that occurred after liberation in Europe. You are doing them a disservice.  You are not giving them an accurate picture of what war really is...what it does to people.  It's far more than just deaths.   Heck, we have a problem right now with American soldiers raping other soldiers.  You can't hide people from the messy things in life... and IMHO, if you are doing that to a soon-to-be-adult, you are doing them a disservice.

I have concerns about my ds reading this book or being assigned this book even if he was an 11th grade student. That does not mean that I am sheltering my kid from harsh realities of life though. We have had many ongoing conversations about the harsh things in life including the general subject matter of this book with the caveat that we have not painted a picture with our words of the nitty gritty details involved. FTR I think the book sounds like it has great literary value. I just do not think it is wise to assign it to high school students. I think very graphic depictions of brutality are not a good thing to fill a kid's head with. Sure some kids may be ready, but in school there is a large mix of kids so why risk using a book like this when there are tons of other very important books out there. For me it is not about the sex either;it is about the graphic depiction of violence. I am a strong proponent of sex education. I think kid's should be aware of the life including the good and the bad. I just do not think they need to have such graphic details especially while in secondary school.

 

It is disconcerting to me that some posters seem to be lumping those who have concerns about the book as overly protective parents who want to censor and ban books. This is not true in my case. I also have not used derogatory terms against the book or supporters of the book as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly, I would rather my kids read a book that portrays incest, rape, and child abuse as profoundly damaging and sad (and graphic) than a book that portrays plague, slavery, crucifixion, and punishment as love.

 

Or a book which portrays a man, who had an incestuous relationship with daughters, as righteous and godly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If your students will be taking lit. classes in college, they will meet up with this literature, just be aware.

Yes, but they will be older and more mature. There are plenty of challenging books without the age-inappropriate explicit language that an 11th grade class could cover instead of TBE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that is the equivalent of talk to the hand. I'm not Christian so I can't possibly understand. Right.

 

I think what she's getting at is that we should be careful about forming and voicing opinion as "definitive" based only a superficial understanding of excerpts from a larger work, those possibly taken out of context.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think what she's getting at is that we should be careful about forming and voicing opinion as "definitive" based only a superficial understanding of excerpts from a larger work, those possibly taken out of context.

 

LOL

 

Well either way, I do appreciate you all sharing. It has helped me to understand more of why on earth anything like this could be deemed appropriate, although I still don't agree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you scroll back through, I gave you four. I will rack my brain for some others.

HTH-

Mandy

 

Of the 4 you mentioned, 2 are for middle schoolers, one is a work of pop-sociology (not literature) which many people now find pretty offensive and nobody really takes seriously anymore except as a cultural milestone, and the final one is a simplistic beach read about dysfunctional cheerleaders past their prime set in the South in the 1960s but without any black people.  How on earth are any of these suitable replacements for a seminal work about dire poverty and disenfranchisement, written by one of the greatest novelists alive?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I would have to wonder about the kid/s in the class who have a predilection to become a pedophile or already have fantasies about pedophilia, reading this book describing the thought process of a pedophile and how he justifies what he is doing.  How would reading that book affect that/those kid/s?  Would it validate their feelings which they haven't yet acted on?  Would it encourage them to pursue their fantasies?

 

I don't think people just "become" pedophiles overnight.  I'm not saying they're born that way either.  However, many of them are abused children themselves.  So if potentially abused children are reading this book which describes how a pedophile thinks and feels about abusing kids and how it is "normal" for him.  How does that make the victims in the classroom feel or impact their future behavior?

 

To me, that is the real question and the real danger with this book.  I may be wrong, but I haven't heard of anyone addressing this issue.  

I did read a different article about this book and common core (can't remember where it was now and can't seem to locate it by googling) but this was one reason why several psychologists were having qualms about this book being used in middle/high school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

False. There are ZERO states in the U.S. where the legal age of majority is 17. There are several states where it is 19, and a few where it is 21. http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstakes101/a/agemajoristate.htm

 

I would say at least 18 AND having graduated from high school.

Did they change it?? I suddenly feel old.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...