328: English, Style, Technology

1. How to Successfully Pair Young Adult Literature with the Classics

3. “become familiar with the masterpieces of literature”

4. “identify with fictional characters in human situations as a means of relating to others”

6. Unfortunately, many adult readers object to adolescents reading The Chocolate War because of its language, sexuality, violence, and most of all, its lack of a positive role model.

7. Step one: Defending The Chocolate War In her essay, “The Misfortune of a Man Like Ourselves: Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War as Aristotelian Tragedy,” Kara Keeling explains that adults feel it is their responsibility to defend “vulnerable” and far too malleable adolescent readers form the “dark side of life.” Critics believe that Jerry is extremely easy to relate to, “thus the tragic conclusion of the novel” might “mirror the readers’ own potential fate,” which would cause hopelessness in the impressionable youth reading it. Keeling claims that instead of being depicted as realism, it should be categorized as a tragedy. Jerry is defeated at the end of the book, but Keeling raises the question, how is this any different from the classics that students are required to read; “Oedipus is blind. Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Romeo, and Juliet are all dead,” so, why are these tragedies acceptable?

8. Roberta Trites argues in Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature: “In the second chapter, Obie recognizes the religious symbolism of the football field’s goal posts: “The shadows of the goal posts sprawled on the field like grotesque crosses.” After being corrupted by Archie’s insidious evil, Obie loses that recognition: “He looked at the goal posts. They reminded him of something. He couldn’t remember.” Presumably, Obie no longer recognizes Christ and has lost the possibility of redemption. If Jerry has been crucified, it has been to expiate someone’s sins. Goober, at least, has seen what has happened; Goober knows that Jerry has died for his sins.” (15) “Although Jerry appears defeated by the novel’s end, the book still answers the question affirmatively: yes, he can disturb the universe. In fact, he should disturb the universe. Doing so may be painful, but Jerry has affected other people with the choices he has made. Even as he is being annihilated by those who oppose him, he is victorious because he has done what he has set out to do.” (6)

9. “The text is only one factor in learning. How we teach a text is far more important than whatwe choose to teach.” Pam Cole , Young Adult Literature in the 21st Century

11. Loneliness

12. Alienation

13. Revenge

14. Awareness of mortality

15. Decay

16. Corruption

17. Pessimism

18. IndecisionJohn Zainea (Chelsea High School teacher) says he’s been linking YAL since he began his career and “students can’t seem to be happier. They not only understand the major themes better, but they find the reading more enjoyable as a whole.”

19. Once you’ve found common themes use Jerry’s experiences to help students understand Hamlet’s and Prufrock’s. Step three: Linking For example, at the beginning of The Chocolate Warstudents discover that Jerry has lost his mother. As the book continues, they also learn that Jerry’s father works long hours causing a nearly nonexistent relationship between the two. When his father is around, their conversation is forced, superficial, and awkward. Jerry concludes that his father’s life is a disappointment and that his too will be the same. “You finish school, found an occupation, got married, became a father, watched your wife die, and then lived through days and nights that seemed to have no sunrises, no dawns and no dusks, nothing but a gray drabness” (64). One of the reasons Jerry refuses to sell the chocolates is because unlike his father, he is not willing to settle with his life being “fine.” He wants to escape the mundane routine of day to day living.

20. Now Connect to Hamlet

21. Similarly, in Act I of Hamlet students learn that King Hamlet has died. Hearing this news Prince Hamlet returns from school to mourn his father. Upon returning he learns that he seems to be the only one mourning. His mother is already remarried to Claudius, King Hamlet’s brother. Adding to the shock Hamlet hears whispers of the late king’s ghost being spotted. When Hamlet confronts the ghost of his father he learns that Claudius poisoned him while he slept and then hastily married Gertrude, so he could claim the crown. Like Jerry, Hamlet has lost one parent and is conflicted by the other. “She married:— O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good; But break my heart,—for I must hold my tongue” (1. 2. 160-164). Hamlet addresses his contempt for his mother and just like Jerry, his lack of any sort of meaningful dialogue with his surviving parent.

22. Now Connect to Prufrock

23. Although, Elliot’s narrator Alfred Prufrock does not lose a parent, he does experience the same dull repetitiveness that Jerry does. The same line appears twice in the poem, “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (line 15). The reiteration of the phrase fifteen lines later suggests that life is bland and unchanging. Prufrock is conscious of his vacuously boring surroundings, but he also struggles with the peer pressure that surrounds him. “The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin hen I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, then how should I begin” (56-59). Prufrock agonizes over his meritocracy and can feel the gazes of his peers upon him. He worries how he will dismiss their already formulated prejudices. Moreover, Elliot begins the poem with lines from Dante’s “Inferno,” implying that Prufrock is trapped in a hell on Earth; a hell in the form of a modern impersonal city packed full of monotony. This allusion furthers the many parallels letting students compare Prufrock’s hell to Jerry’s hell: high school.

24. Donald Gallo and Sarah Herz authors of From Hinton to Hamlet agree, “By linking YAL with the classics, we can see our students become developing readers, connection, comparing, and drawing parallels about the elements of literature they discover independently” (26). Teaching The Chocolate War, Hamlet, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” together as a tragedy unit offers a potluck of literature that gives students the necessary exposure to the classics while also providing a meaningful experience.

25. Works Cited Cole, Pamela Burress. Young Adult Literature in the 21st Century. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print. Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War. New York, N.Y.: Dell-Laurel Leaf, 2000. Print. Eliot, T. S. Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Warwick: Greville, 2008. Print. Herz, Sarah K., and Donald R. Gallo. From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature and the Classics. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996. Print. Keeling, Kara. ""The Misfortune of a Man Like Ourselves": Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War as Aristotelian Tragegdy." Alan Review 26.2 (1999). Print. NCTE. "Guideline on the Essentials of English." National Council of Teachers of English - Homepage. Web. 10 Jan. 2010. <http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/essentialsofenglish>. Shakespeare, William, Burton Raffel, and Harold Bloom. Hamlet. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Print. Trites, Roberta S. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature. Iowa: University of Iowa, 2000. Print.