Haha are there good *fiction* writers who're not empathetic?? I wonder. Well, I get bored by super-plotted-out epics with cardboard characters, but yeah I guess ok. I forget not everyone writes character studies about ~~~feelings. :> Anyway, the whole conversation we had at the Writing Center about 'writing quality' wasn't really satisfying to me 'cause it was so much from the tutor's perspective, even though the director is a poet. I can never turn off my 'writer self', who thinks of writing as sucky or not-as-sucky-but-still-sucky (the only way I'm not super-critical is if I'm either having my buttons pushed or am tutoring). So people thinking they're bad writers due to insecurity alone, or people being super-impressed by others who seem to 'have it easy'-- while I do understand both, I have to snort at it. What? Everyone sucks. The only people who don't suck know that they also suck. That is my line & I'm stickin' to it. I guess the true disappointment in that discussion was how people used the idea of 'good writing' non-critically; that is to say, they dismissed it as unimportant rather than deconstructing it. This is why people run away from workshops. Chickens. :> Yeah yeah, I'm a sensitive and loving tutor. :D
Anyway, I'm curious as to your opinion (even of just a few paragraphs) now, so here (http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Adventures-Pretty-Harper-Trophy/dp/0064401782). I agree with you that being a teacher implies a responsibility to push past discomfort, and some did try (well, at least most of them kept reading, anyway-- I just threw Harry Potter across the room and stopped reading at my first try). It was funny, 'cause one girl said she *didn't* look things up to empathize better with the common experience of disadvantaged readers. I think she's well-intentioned but confused about how best to help. Like you said, trying to educate yourself is always the #1 best idea.
I dunno if they all wanna teach YA per se, maybe they just liked this project option better than the others for the class. Certainly, I wonder about the teaching chops of people who just can't use their imagination very well (I mean, err, well, you can *not like* it as a genre, but when you just don't get it, it seems that's the issue). I do think being familiar with background & context helps, and one girl (interestingly, the one minority in our group) said she'd have benefited from an intro session on the ideas before she read it. That said, as a college student, doing research on what you read by yourself should be second nature. :/ Well, it was second nature to me when I was 12, but still.
There definitely was some rejection going on, and that did concern me. There was some entitlement, too-- like, 'why should I have to read this stuff?' or 'why should I have to push myself when I don't choose to?'. It's funny, 'cause these are some of the same girls who feel good about themselves reading stories set in Afghanistan or going to teach abroad 'cause it's such an 'experience'. I really think that fetishizing alienness and avoiding it are flip-sides of the same coin.
And yeah, it's hard to imagine being great with the reality of a book's subject if you can't identify with the fictional aspect. I guess this is where 'tolerance' and bullshit stuff like 'color-blindness' and 'we're all just people' comes in. Not that we're not just people, but all the privilege on display definitely made me uncomfortable. But what made me more uncomfortable is how they didn't realize it at all. And it's not like it's a great book, but I mean, I'm pretty sure if the characters were white, they wouldn't feel this intensely negative. It still sort of boggles my mind that reading about a different world can be that traumatic-- there was actually a white student last quarter who declared she had to stop reading Stendhal's 'Charterhouse of Parma' 'cause she didn't know anything about 19th century France or Italy. I mean, I didn't finish that book either ('cause I get distracted easily), but it's just so amazing to me that not feeling one can relate *personally* to a culture has this traumatic effect on people.
no subject
Anyway, I'm curious as to your opinion (even of just a few paragraphs) now, so here (http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Adventures-Pretty-Harper-Trophy/dp/0064401782). I agree with you that being a teacher implies a responsibility to push past discomfort, and some did try (well, at least most of them kept reading, anyway-- I just threw Harry Potter across the room and stopped reading at my first try). It was funny, 'cause one girl said she *didn't* look things up to empathize better with the common experience of disadvantaged readers. I think she's well-intentioned but confused about how best to help. Like you said, trying to educate yourself is always the #1 best idea.
I dunno if they all wanna teach YA per se, maybe they just liked this project option better than the others for the class. Certainly, I wonder about the teaching chops of people who just can't use their imagination very well (I mean, err, well, you can *not like* it as a genre, but when you just don't get it, it seems that's the issue). I do think being familiar with background & context helps, and one girl (interestingly, the one minority in our group) said she'd have benefited from an intro session on the ideas before she read it. That said, as a college student, doing research on what you read by yourself should be second nature. :/ Well, it was second nature to me when I was 12, but still.
There definitely was some rejection going on, and that did concern me. There was some entitlement, too-- like, 'why should I have to read this stuff?' or 'why should I have to push myself when I don't choose to?'. It's funny, 'cause these are some of the same girls who feel good about themselves reading stories set in Afghanistan or going to teach abroad 'cause it's such an 'experience'. I really think that fetishizing alienness and avoiding it are flip-sides of the same coin.
And yeah, it's hard to imagine being great with the reality of a book's subject if you can't identify with the fictional aspect. I guess this is where 'tolerance' and bullshit stuff like 'color-blindness' and 'we're all just people' comes in. Not that we're not just people, but all the privilege on display definitely made me uncomfortable. But what made me more uncomfortable is how they didn't realize it at all. And it's not like it's a great book, but I mean, I'm pretty sure if the characters were white, they wouldn't feel this intensely negative. It still sort of boggles my mind that reading about a different world can be that traumatic-- there was actually a white student last quarter who declared she had to stop reading Stendhal's 'Charterhouse of Parma' 'cause she didn't know anything about 19th century France or Italy. I mean, I didn't finish that book either ('cause I get distracted easily), but it's just so amazing to me that not feeling one can relate *personally* to a culture has this traumatic effect on people.