This week I had six people in my training class at work. The age range in the room was between 20 - 35. While I was training, I was emailed a trivia question, so I decided to pose it to them. The trivia question was about Robert Louis Stevenson, and each one of them looked at me with blank expressions, and then finally asked "Who is he??"
I was scandalized! Did they really not know who he was?
"If you didn't study him in school, who did you study?" I cried!
Between the six of them, the only book they could remember studying was "Of Mice and Men."
3 comments:
Future English Teachers, unite against the forces of ignorance in our land! I'm ready to push back against the encroaching darkness! I'll have to give myself little pep talks like this every morning when I'm in the midst of it, no doubt.
Ha ha - I think I'll have to start by pushing back the barriers of ignorance in my own head. After indignantly expostulating about one of the foremost American writers, I read that he was Scottish. Sigh. And I'm taking American Lit right now, too!
I agree with the previous poster about "Of Mice and Men." Actually, I've never read a Steinbeck book that I liked.
I re-read "Treasure Island" just a couple years ago. It's a great story, and it's too bad your trainees have missed out on it.
Love you, Linds.
--DJ
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