"The attrition rate among those who are admitted to four-year colleges in this country is high. More than half drop out before graduation. Many of those who go on to graduate do just enough to get through. And many, if not most, students do not feel they were well prepared in high school for college work. Their English courses are particularly troublesome because they do not know how the literary texts they are assigned to read matter in general, or how these texts might matter to them personally if they could in fact read them. They do not enjoy literary analysis and find the search for “hidden meanings” mystifying. They do not know how to write formal English. Nor do they tend to understand what their humanities professors are talking about when they engage in the kind of theorizing that constitutes academic discourse in the humanities today. These are among the chief problems faced by those who teach literature at the college level..."
"How could students today come to college English classes prepared to argue about the interpretation of a text when, as I found in a review of K–12 English standards in 50 states, most states' literature standards betray the heavy hand of two major academic theories on reading and teaching literature: reader response and the new historicism (Stotsky 2005). The first compels equal respect for each student's subjective interpretation of a text, while the second is obsessed with the context and author of a text, not the text itself. The influence of reader response theory alone on at least two generations of elementary and secondary English teachers has been an unmitigated disaster, and its bitter fruits must be apparent in every college English class.
An English professor cannot expect students to argue about any one interpretation of a text when they have been taught for 12 years by teachers dutifully following a state dictate that says they are to “respond to literary works on the basis of personal insights and respect the different responses of others” ( Montana ) or “understand that a single text will elicit a wide variety of responses, each of which is valid from a personal, subjective perspective” ( Delaware ).
Nor can college students easily engage in an argument with a critic about a literary work they are studying when they have not learned that they must first read and try to understand what the author wrote.
.... It is almost impossible to undo in a few undergraduate English courses all those years of mistraining in literary study in K–12 with the solution he offers."
Here's a book review by a daughter of Trivium Pursuit's Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn on yet another book by early 20th century author Allen French:
"A review of the book, The Colonials: Being a narrative of events chiefly connected with the Siege and Evacuation of the town of Boston in New England, written by Allen French, published in 1902.
The year: 1772.
The setting: by the shores of Lake Huron in Michigan.
The characters: a young woodsman named Francis Ellery with his companion Benjy; a young English lieutenant; a young Indian captive, Alice Tudor; and an Indian named Anneb.
Frank wants to go to his home in Boston to get his inheritance from his dishonest uncle and see his younger brother, but he meets Alice, and she pleads with him to take her away from her captor Anneb and back home to her family in England. Frank bargains with Anneb for Alice. Anneb is a kind Indian and agrees to let Alice go as long as the English lieutenant will take her back along with Frank. The lieutenant is all too happy to have the girl to take care of -- too happy. He has villainous plans, but Frank and Benjy guess his plans and there is a fight in the lieutenant's cabin. The lieutenant is wounded in the forehead, and Benjy is wounded. At this moment the Indian Anneb shows himself in the door. He has guessed that those he had given Alice in the care of would fight over her, so he takes Alice and disappears with her into the night. Frank escapes with the wounded Benjy before he can be caught by the lieutenant's soldiers, but it is too late for Benjy, for the wound he received was a mortal wound. Before he dies, Benjy tells Frank that if he goes after the girl there will be nothing but trouble. But Frank remembers how Alice had pleaded with him and cannot bear the thought of her living her life with the Indians. He follows her and her captor into the wilderness. When he finally catches up with Anneb, his family, and Alice, he finds them nearly starving. Anneb (the only one fit to hunt for food) had broken his leg and the rest could not find food to eat in the cold winter. Frank stays with the Indians and Alice through the winter to hunt for them. Then an evil Indian (who was formerly known to Aneeb) wants Alice for a wife, and comes to their cabin. Of course Frank and Anneb will not give Alice up to him. The Indian returns a few days later with several other Indians, and the fight is on. All of the Indians are killed and Frank and Alice barely escape before their cabin is burned. Then begins the long track to the nearest friendly fort. Frank has no more bullets for his gun, and both Alice and he are nearly starved. There is one last piece of food, and Frank eats it so he will have the strength to pull Alice on the sled to the fort. He has the strength to pull her there, then collapses. Several days pass and Frank is still alive, although he looks as if he is dead. The men at the fort have contacted Alice's brother and decide to tell Alice that Frank is dead so that they can reunite her to her brother before he leaves for England. Truly believing that Frank is dead, Alice leaves. The men at the fort start to dig a grave, for they believe that they will need it soon. But will they?
The next part of the book begins several months later, in Boston. The city is full of British soldiers, and the war is pending. A stranger arrives in Boston and takes over as manager in the Ellery rope works. Everyone seems to like this stranger. He is so honest and upright.
Here this review must stop, or else I will give away the exciting story that then unfolds in Boston.
This book is one of the best books that I have read (or actually, heard, for Mom read it out loud to us). It is well written, the language is not too simplistic, it gives a good account of the history that was going on at that time, and, last but not least, it is a very captivating and exciting story that will not let you go until the end. I would recommend it for ages ten and up.
