69传媒

69传媒 & Literacy

Payoff Seen in Using Popular Fiction To Promote 69传媒

By Karen Diegmueller 鈥 October 16, 1996 5 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

When a 9-year-old San Francisco girl went in search of a Nancy Drew book last spring, she discovered that the local public library system did not stock the popular series that has been around since 1930.

The novels about the amateur girl detective were not, in library officials鈥 view, worthy of their young readers鈥 time and attention.

Books such as these are typically not of the ilk that gets parents or school board members riled up because of perceived sexual innuendo or adult themes. Instead, they are of the genre that educators call popular, pulp, or just plain junk literature. And as much as teachers and parents wish youngsters would pick up Robert Louis Stevenson or Edith Wharton, these other books won鈥檛 go away.

Now, though, educators are going beyond just learning to live with such books; they are learning how to use popular fiction to entice students into reading and enjoying higher-quality literature.

Just this past weekend, educators, authors, librarians, and students planned to gather at the University of Maine in Orono to discuss the value of popular literature. More than 200 participants from the United States and Canada had signed up for the 69传媒 Stephen King Conference, named after the prolific horror writer from Maine.

The organizers acknowledged that they are battling an attitude that has persisted for decades. For instance, many of the teachers that Brenda M. Power, an associate professor of literacy education at the University of Maine, works with try to control their students鈥 reading choices. Ms. Power, the director of the conference, said those teachers have the conviction: 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 let my students bring in toys; why should I let them bring in books with poor plots and characterizations.鈥

鈥淩esearch shows that the key thing you want to do, if you want to produce a lifelong reader, is to help them connect with any book,鈥 she said. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e reading it grudgingly, if you鈥檙e not engaged at all, it鈥檚 not really reading.鈥

Exploiting the Genre

The Stephen King conference was inspired by a similar endeavor in 1993 when the University of Iowa brought 500 people to Iowa City for the Nancy Drew Conference.

In a book published last year by the University of Iowa Press, Bonnie S. Sunstein, an assistant professor of English education, described how participants testified to the impact the Nancy Drew books had on them as children.

An Ohio woman, for instance, spoke about how she and her sister devoured the books--during recess, after school, at the dinner table, and under their bedcovers.

And though many educators still maintain that such books are just fluff, others have awakened to the potential of using popular outlets such as paperback fiction and television to teach about literature.

For example, graduate associate Lisa-Anne Culp introduces her students to the classics via popular movies, paperbacks, and television shows in the literature class she teaches at the University of Arizona.

She takes a show like 鈥淭he Simpsons,鈥 the popular animated comedy, and has her class analyze it for plot, characterization, tone, dialogue, and setting.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a matter of easing people into something,鈥 said Ms. Culp, who believes the same method can be applied at the precollegiate level. 鈥淲hen I start talking to students about television sitcoms, what I really want to teach them is how to analyze literature. Sure, I can give them Aristotle鈥檚 Poetics. Half of them I鈥檓 going to lose. They鈥檙e not going to understand it.

鈥淚f I show them something familiar first, then they can take what they know and apply it to Aristotle,鈥 she said.

One day a week, Kimberly Campbell invited her secondary school students to bring a book of their choice to English class for silent reading. Only parents could impose restrictions on what the students chose, said Ms. Campbell, now the principal of Riverdale High School in Portland, Ore. Choices ranged from such modern popular fiction authors as Dean R. Koontz and Danielle Steele to Mark Twain and the classics.

Some educators, Ms. Campbell included, have found value in the very books that others belittle.

Take R.L. Stine, the author of the Goosebumps series. Brian Edmiston鈥檚 6-year-old son, Michael, introduced the assistant professor of education at Ohio State University to the author of these best-selling spooky tales. Michael had exhausted all the scary monsters that roamed through dinosaur stories, 鈥淏eauty and the Beast,鈥 the Gilgamesh tales, and Greek mythology before finding the Stine books.

鈥淛ust as adults will look at the dark side of humanity, you should explore that with your children,鈥 said Mr. Edmiston, who is writing a book about the topic.

Bucks Count, Too

Joel Shoemaker, a library media specialist at South East Junior High School in Iowa City, Iowa, makes some popular literature available to students. Arriving at the junior high from the elementary schools where such materials were unavailable, the students are 鈥渏ust panting to get at Stephen King,鈥 he said.

While he falls on the side that argues reading anything is better for students than reading nothing, Mr. Shoemaker still questions the usefulness of the pulp books.

He also has to be practical. Given curriculum mandates, he is able to spend less than 5 percent of his budget on paperback popular fiction.

The San Francisco public library also had cited limited resources for keeping Nancy Drew at bay. And library officials maintained that most of their young readers just weren鈥檛 interested. 鈥淣either the Nancy Drew nor the Hardy Boys nor the Oz books are big sellers here,鈥 Marcia Schneider, the director of community relations, said.

鈥淲e have maintained all along that the serials we already buy are the ones that kids want to read,鈥 she said, citing The Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley High, and Goosebumps.

Despite library officials鈥 belief that Nancy Drew doesn鈥檛 appeal to many of its young readers, the library went ahead and ordered some after the 9-year-old complained that she couldn鈥檛 find one of her favorite series and her plight was publicized.

And, like the heroine herself, some generous San Franciscans came to the rescue; the public has donated enough money to help the library carry Nancy Drew.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the October 16, 1996 edition of Education Week as Payoff Seen in Using Popular Fiction To Promote 69传媒

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69传媒
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What鈥檚 Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What鈥檚 Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide 鈥 elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

69传媒 & Literacy Opinion Boys Don't Love to Read. Could This Former Teacher Be on to Something?
Boys are falling behind in reading. Books with military-history themes may help reverse this trend.
7 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
69传媒 & Literacy Is Handwriting a Lost Art? What One College鈥檚 Kerfuffle Over Cursive Can Tell Us
Since 2014, there鈥檚 been a resurgence of cursive and handwriting education.
6 min read
A photograph of a close up of cursive handwriting that is undecipherable
E+
69传媒 & Literacy Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Student Literacy Data?
Answer 7 questions about the importance of student literacy data and how to collect and use it.
69传媒 & Literacy 69传媒 Interventions for Older 69传媒 May Be Missing a Key Component
Many older elementary and middle school students still struggle with foundational reading skills.
6 min read
An illustration of a high school student looking in to an open book with black, gray, and red letters circling about around him.
iStock/Getty