Re-reading some old favorites

Someone mentioned to me (not a student) that he would not like to take my class if we were reading some thing he had already studied before in high school. Works such as Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Red Badge of Courage are often the 'stand-bys' of high school literature. I taught all three of those novels at some level in my junior English classes. While I may agree that reading a novel a second time could be a little boring, think about this.

Even though high school students think they are adult (they really do!!), they are still under 18 and legally they are still children. Most of them are living in their parents' home or with relatives. Most of them spend the bulk of their time during the day going to school. The perspective that juniors bring to a novel is limited, based on their experiences, their travels, and their associations.

When an adult re-reads a novel for a college class, or on his own, new perspectives pop up. Ties can be made between the events of the plot in The Great Gatsby and the Roaring 20s. We can visualize the differences between the social classes because, well, we have been there. War is a much more powerful word when reading Red Badge of Courage now because so many of our family and friends, and maybe some of the students, have been deployed, not just once, but several times.

Adults often tell me that when they re-read a novel from their high school or middle school days, they notice many things that escaped them before. Just like those 8th graders that I accompanied on field trips to Gettysburg and Washington DC, not much is really remembered except the fun on the bus ride and staying in the hotel. My daughter, who is now 29, wants to return to D.C. so that she can really see the city and learn more about it---from an older perspective. So it is with re-reading literature.

Sit back and enjoy reading Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Red Badge of Courage. If you studied them before, be ready to have your eyes opened wide with new revelations!

Happy Reading!