Around the Water Cooler panelists answered the following question: Do you agree with changes to national English curriculum standards that call for replacing most fiction reading with nonfiction texts in classrooms?
Nants Foley: “I absolutely adore reading non-fiction. I know it has given my life a richness. I have traveled many places, met many friends and experienced profound joy and sorrow all within the confines of the two covers of a book.”
Louise Ledesma: “It is important for students to read both fiction and nonfiction. Students need to enjoy reading for pleasure. Unfortunately few young people take the time to read novels instead of texting. When I taught U.S. government, it was like pulling teeth to get them portions of primary documents such as Tocqueville. They need samples of nonfiction both past and present, but don’t drown then in it. Novels teach us our humanity and compassion.”
Julie Morris: “Novels transport us into unfamiliar places and situations, teaching important life lessons. They also improve our vocabulary. What would high school be without Atticus Finch’s lessons on integrity? Or Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley’s love story? The value of good fiction is its ability to teach us about humanity and ourselves. I don’t see how nonfiction or informational texts can do that.”
Jim West: “No. nonfiction tells you what is, fiction – good fiction – lets you use and expand your imagination.”
Mary Zanger: “I definitely do not agree. We might as well go back to the Rosetta stone. Now that was extraordinarily hi-tech informational non-fiction. But shall we keep Archimedes and Euclid and throw out Homer, Virgil and Aristotle? Shall we keep Newton, Faraday, Pasteur, Krebs, Nobel and Seaborg but discard Confucius, Buddha, the Old and New Testaments, Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Mozart? Thankfully we can keep Edison and Einstein. However, fiction created our culture, our ethics, our morality, our consciousness, and our imagination. Our heritage is our fiction as well as our nonfiction. We must keep and maintain both.”
Ruth Erickson: “If English was taught as a language in the same way that French or German or any other languages are taught, students would have a better understanding of THEIR language! National standardized tests show that California ranks fifth lowest in the U.S. for vocabulary, scoring separately from reading. Besides replacing most fiction in the curriculum, more emphasis needs to be placed on vocabulary and reading comprehension, and the basics in the students’ formative years. Many students do better when they read about facts rather than fiction!”
Richard Place: “Make room for the propaganda machine. Why read ‘1984’ when you can live it? Fahrenheit 451 is next but watch out for Katness Everdeen.”
