/lit/ - Literature

>>8281046
dam shaniqua you got mad insight for be sayin that stuff i tink. its all white people and blax who have guilt about the blaxness who say, we got to read samuel taylor cole-ridge instead of the liner notes to P diddys Forever. i be cry cause i want to talk about the real live po-po-poetry thats happenin in the street. all i can say is just listen to all the rap you can. dont evwn do your homework. rap is the best homework shaniqua it will take you far. note that like the richest ever writer, the harry pothead lady, haha, she's like, what? nothin compared to fiddy i bet moneywise.

>>8281046
>Remember what my father told me.
>"See a nigger pull the trigger"
>Proceed to go home and jerk off to hentai then read 'No Excuses!' by Brian Tracy.

>tfw in highschool my favorite author was Lovecraft and my teacher put me onto Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare
>tfw this thread makes no sense

>>8281069
>anecdotal outlier
>therefore the stereotype is invalid

Now you see my dear

>>8281073
I doubt you've ever seen that "stereotype" in action, so it might as well be invalid.

You might actually do better talking about white liberal college girls, they're the main ones spouting the "le dead white man" meme.

I'll say teaching black kids made me racist. They actually do this shit, except the fat girl would also be pulling the weave of the girl in the light blue shirt and the the guys in back would be on their phones literally making calls or punching each other.

>you will never analyse Cypress Hill lyrics with Nabokov

>>8281046
these kids are right to wonder, especially since english poetry is complete shit

I wonder this too. After all, future English will probably resemble ebonics, and hip-hop legends like Nas will be revered the same way Shakespeare etc. are now. Don't we want our students to be ahead of the times, rather than behind them?

I did.

Now shut up, nigger.

>>8281228
>"masquerade" instead of "mask"

i cringe every time to be honest

>>8281234
Yeah I can't help but notice that every time I post it.

>>8281075
There is so much pain in Bloom's face. I want to give him a hug.

>conservative dad never cared about literature
>"shakespeare is for fags"
>present day
>he reads an article about people wanting to replace shakespeare and milton with minority poets
>suddenly becomes interested in literature
>asks me at length about my opinions on shakespeare

>>8281261
Unfortunately this.

I'm conservative on lots of issues, but older conservatives are Christ retards and intellectual fairies

>>8281251
Doesn't look like all that boring-style literature helped him on the ultimate quest he shares with us all, eh? The quest to not be a sad sack of shit? Lmao!

Maybe if he'd spent all his time scrutinizing Kanye tweets instead of trying to care about dead-boring and literally dead fags from like 5000,000 BC, he/d be better.

>>8281052
You're the least funny try hard faggot of all time.

>>8281282
i wasnt actually joking? :(? what do you mean?

Well as an arab , i have to agree with shaniqua. Anglo poetry is shit especially compared to ours and to persian poetry

>>8281268
>complaining about older, wiser people

You know how I know you're underage?

>if you can bring in rap lyrics that are as thematically dense as Paradise Lost then we can read that instead

Actual urban teacher here

Increasingly, we ARE teaching rappers and contrasting them to people like Langston Hughes, Dunbar, etc. because African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has increasingly taken a dominance in society, because teaching has become very centered on culturally relevant pedagogy, and because thanks to broken systems theoughout our country with parents in jail, working insane hours, etc, kids aren't able to read as well, so we use stuff like this to help pique their interest before we move into harder, more dense classics

Not to say some rappers aren't incredibky dense though

>>8281430
>christian fanfiction
>worth reading for high schoolers
lel

Death Grips' niggas on the moon is far more complex and dense than PL anyway

>>8281430
>teaching Paradise Lost in High School

What are you doing

>>8281046
>Who decided which dudes was worth learnin'?

What a good, critical question.

>ayo teach why we gotta learn 'bout dese dead ass crackas? when we finna learn 'bout when we was kangz an shiet?

>regardless of whether this particular post is bait, this is what millennials ACTUALLY believe:

>>8281433

>>8281467
niggas on the moon tackles the narrator's own blackness, their perceptions of how others see them and they view themselves, their place in society as an Other to the white norm, coming to terms with sex/masturbation as a meaningless act of escapism, etc etc

You can't even try to tell me it's not infinitely more relevant than PL

>>8281430
t. failed humanities student turned highschool teacher, who likely wouldn't understand Paradise Lost himself if he tried just reading it and didn't cram critic pieces about it beforehand

>>8281488
the point of education is to provide a survey of particular subject and PL is infinitely more relevant to the development of english literature than some rapper hollering about race and sex.

>>8281521
Gee, thanks for informing me of that non-teacher

>survey of a subject
lel this isn't a shitty college course

>>8281488
I'm inclined to agree, but how are you going to squeeze this into the curriculum in todays political climate?

>>8281086
as a black british person who attended a single-sex private school, my experience was the opposite. asian and african students worked the hardest while white girls spent all lesson checking their phones, fixing their hair and talking about boys

>>8281234
In black culture its pronounced 'max'.

>>8281528
Most schools are doing this or some variance of this. Maybe with more traditional and accepted texts like Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, or even a smaller name like Nella Larsen. But especially in an urban school, you can get away with quite a bit if you know what you're doing

You obviously probably can't do a whole curriculum on it, but a day or two with it as a side piece to say the evolution of poetry would work out

>>8281524
i'm teaching you right now so that makes me a teacher, squirt.

honestly though PL is too advanced for high school but again saying that a few minute long rap song is "far more complex and dense" than a cornerstone of english lit is retarded.

and now comes the part where you explain how you were only pretending to be retarded.

>>8281541
Yeah, I can believe that white girls are retards. Asian girls work hard, black girls are hit or miss.

But girls are never as difficult as boys

Black boys are garbage and mixed black they all get dragged down to that level

>>8281548
He said it was more relevant than PL, and to his students it is.

>>8281046
In truth the only instance where you would hear something like this is by one kid in the class who is seeking attention from other class mates thinking they're funny.

It's rarely entertained in my experience.


>tfw learned about search warrants in a law class using lyrics from "99 problems" by Jay z as a scenario

>>8281566
>tfw I first heard that phrase from my own teachers
>"heh there's more to it than just dead old white guys, cmon kids lets watch, etc"

I just wanted to learn history

>>8281052
is that from Infinite Jest?

>>8281555
>tfw I'm a black guy
>tfw im reading C&P, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Aleph simultaneously
>tfw every genuinely intelligent person I know is non-white except for several professors at school
>tfw I'm lurking this thread
inb4 "but you're not like the other black guys" as though you know any outside of class or Twitter/tumblr

being a friendless shut-in and partaking in social critique is not as congruent as you like to pretend

Honestly the best way to teach lit analysis is to get kids interested in it. Then they'll start doing it on their own, and will develop their own opinions about what the text says.

I think deciphering hiphop lyrics can be a good way to introduce kids to critical thinking and literary analysis. There's plenty of good shit out there that you can really dig into and have a good conversation about. Shakespeare is boring as fuck to high schoolers, but maybe looking at some Kendrick Lamar lyrics will get them to pay attention and get interested in the process.

>>8281557
this is what he said:

>>8281433
>niggas on the moon is far more complex and dense than PL anyway

and if we're going to form the curriculum based on relevance, we should be teaching them to balance a checkbook instead of either.

>>8281619
>and if we're going to form the curriculum based on relevance, we should be teaching them to balance a checkbook instead of either.

>>8281261
What's with the image? Why did someone need to caption this?

>>8281619
>balance a checkbook

OH YOURE ONE OF THOSE

also you didnt teach me shit buddy. An actual state-paid n certified teacher you most certainly are not, Mr. White 19 year old

>>8281619
>balancing checkbooks
>in this, the two-thousand and sixteenth year of our Lord

>>8281622
>>8281622
nice

>>8281431
This is a good post. I wish I could sit in on a class where the lesson's focus is to compare and contrast 90s hip-hop with literature.

>>8281635
Find any teacher worth a damn out in an urban setting yo

As big as hip hop is now, it happens in suburban settings too.

Notorious BIG, Big L, Nas, Yeezy, etc are all infinitely more important and culturally meaningful than any avant garde poet from the last 30 years, but people still get spooked cuz "hip hap"

>>8281627
Does this ring a bell anon? People have got music videos of this

>>8281629
i've taught you that defining coursework based of "relevance" would require prioritizing practical life skills over pop-culture sophistry.

>>8281631
>lmao i been had dat obama skrilla doe

>>8281431
>>8281635
>analyzes the lyrics to Deltron 3030 in lieu of reading BNW or 1984
it honestly covers all the necessary bases

>>8281640
Fair enough, I didn't know those were their names desu

>>8281637
>culture should cater to the tastes of adolescents

wew
ewe
wew

>>8281637
Although not 90s hip-hop, I think Kendrick Lamar should eventually be studied for his rhyming scheme, sense of rhythm and use of language in delivering a narrative.

>>8281642
Educational philosophers for centuries have discussed liberal arts over muh practicality and plenty more buddy

>>8281644
YES

>>8281651
>culture should cater to dead times

>>8281608
iq_by_country.png

>>8281660
>>8281651
>culture should cater
I don't think either of you understands the concept of culture

>>8281660
i'm not the one advocating for coursework based off "relevance" to a student's immediate psychological environment.

there is a history to the english language and it ought to be reflected in the assigned reading material. PL may be too complex for high school but something from canterbury tales (the miller's tale for example) would both be engaging for teens and more relevant to english literature as an overall academic discipline than the latest flavor-of-the-month pop-culture fad.

>dead times

the present is a product of the past.

>>8281676
what teachers choose to teach in the classroom has a very real impact in creating culture.

>>8281686
>THE CANTERBURY TALES

FUCKIN LEL

i bet you'd want it untranslated too eh?

Kids do not need a comprehensive overview of the English language you dolt. That's for English majors in college. For an overview, they just need mostly books that are mandated to be studied like Shakespeare for Elizabethian/early Modern period, Scarlet Letter for Romanticism, Gatsby and Hemingway for a glimpse into Modernism, whatever for contemporary

The point youmre missig is that your Paradife Loss fetish isn't relevant to kids nor even beyond essential in the development of English. It's an epic for english majors and lit geeks

>>8281708
the canterbury tales is great desu and no reading it in middle english for english majors and lit geeks.

also you've misunderstood me because i don't think PL should be taught to kids. my point is that basing curriculum off pop-culture is misguided because pop-culture is garbage.

a good teacher can make the canterbury tales engaging to high schoolers, mine did.

>tfw you are black and your favorite poets are Hart and Milton yet you come on /lit/ and see this

>>8281402
>Older = wiser

>>8281738
fuck outta here oreo muthafucka

>>8281555
I'm a white male. I was a shit student. I am a researcher at a good university and a responsible and faithful husband. If anyone tried to treat me like they treat highschool students I would do everything in my power to make their lives hell just like I did back then.

>>8281566
Yeah looking for attention because they are bored due to a failed system and they know that highschool is a waste of their time. It is a valid question and if you taught them how to analyze poetry they would probably start to value classics on their own.

>>8281619
I agree
Teaching culture should be secondary to teaching people how to function in society.

>>8281608
>only now reading crime and punishment