Why place so much focus on analysing literature at all? How about making sure students can actually read and write properly first - grammar, etc., coupled with self-learning techniques, so that they might actually want to read and learn more instead of watching Australian Idol? And if they do prefer to watch Australian Idol, why not encourage them to analyse it instead of passively absorbing the crap?

The purpose of school is to help prepare children and teenagers for their adult life. The skills they need most are self-learning techniques. When I was very young I used to love reading and using my imagination to get the most out of literature. By the end of High School, I found the prescribed 'analysis' of literature intolerable.

The following is an amazingly concise summary of the correct use of the English language: 'How to Speak and Write Correctly'. Although written in 1910, I honestly believe it would have been better to make me memorise this book back to front at school, then leave me to read and enjoy whatever I goddamn liked:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/hwswc10h.htm

Developing advanced vocabulary, grammar and foreign language skills is infinitely more important that dissecting 'texts', seeking possible interpretations.

Teach the kids the language skills, then leave them to it. If Shakespeare and Keats are really so awesome, then those writers will maintain a strong readership without much assistance.

Realist, as boy put through the NSW English syllabus recently, I can assure you that the biggest demotivation for boys is not the classics, but is rather having to ignore what is obvious and meaningful to criticise small, insignificant bits of the novel or play in order to prove inequality, rather than looking for the deep and profound insights that this book offers. Critical Theory tells you what the answer will be: that a minority is not equal to a majority. When facing an author who is saying some that is actually challenging, you're encouraged to launched speculative character-assassinations just to proved that they are biased and therefore not "promoting equality", rather than deal with their argument or ideas objectively. There's nothing to bore a boy like feminist (bashing men), post-colonialist (bashing white men), queer (bashing heterosexuals), eco (bashing white men who work), and psychological (bashing all confident men as "repressed") readings.

There's enough pop culture in the world, so much so that there's no point having more in English class rooms. To say English should deal with pop culture is like saying that the ABC should try to compete with the commercial networks to produce programs like Big Brother, rather than providing that which the market does not sustain, like regional and diverse programming, and highest quality news reporting.
So in English, all students are exposed to pop culture and deal with it instinctively, so teach them the best Australian poems, the best English literature, and give them something new, and therefore challenging in itself.

It's true that context is important, that was dealt with in traditional courses in English. In any student version of Shakespeare's plays there are explanitory notes in the left-hand margin to explain the quirks of the era. It didn't, however, say that because there were difined roles for the sexes that everything the Bard says is just biased towards men and women need to be given a greater voice in Shakespeare, and Shakespeare's works should be performed not in order to allow the profound words to be heard, but rather to highlight women's inequality.

Dear Kev - you really don't think hard enough about what you write. Your implication is that reading literature is the same for everyone, that different people will gather the same meanings from the same texts. This further implies that there really is only one right way of reading a text.
This is just ignorant, and makes it obvious that you are just on a soap box and toeing the same line as anyone who would like to have a go at educationalists who would like to see teaching and learning go beyond the traditional and increasingly old-fashioned and move into being understood as socially and culturally influenced. Indeed there is no better example of that than your own and others' rantings about what should be considered important to the curriculum.
Imagine an old-fashioned book club comprising people from all walks of life. Imagine the book of the week is Tim Winton's Couldstreet. Imagine if they all had the same opinion and the same way of anlaysing the text. What a boring and useless book club this would be! I know my analysis of the book would be different from other people's. I like to hear their opinions, and I like to imagine what others might make of the same text - I can learn from it. Is there really something wrong with asking school students to consider textual understanding in this way?? Or is there more danger in asking them to all have the same analytical understanding of Hamlet and requiring no more than that from them?

If human nature is so constant, we need never read 'Medea' or 'Oedipus', because 'Big Brother' and 'Desperate Housewives' would tell us everything we need to know.

Or failing that, at least some kind of 'True Crime' documentary about mothers who drive their sons crazy with lust before killing their kids in a bizarre revenge plot.

One of the values of literature is to teach us more about a time that we are not so familiar with, and contrasting the values of our current society with other societies as a means of better understanding our own values.

I'm sorry to say it, but reading IS ideological: we just can't help ourselves. That's why one person reads The Bible and uses it to form the basis of their belief system and another person can dismiss it as a "riveting roller-coaster ride full of war, betrayal and revenge".

Whether or not this forms part of the education system's attitude to teaching literature is largely (excuse the pun) academic: these semantic and semiotic debates rage around political cartoons, Letters to the Editor and indeed, Online Opinion pieces, every day.

It IS important to understand that Shakespeare lived in a society where attitudes were very different to today's (not least in regard to women and Judaism). It's also important to understand that Harper Lee writes with a perspective on segregation in the South of the United States.

By considering how others might construe a work, surely we have our own theories and beliefs tested in a way that either validates, strengthens or dismisses them? I'd like to think that considering some one else's point of view or reading of a text contributes to how I view things, for better or worse.

Seether, I agree with you entirely. I so wish Kev would respond to postings in this forum ... Perhaps he

Having read the article, it seems to be rather pointless.

As understood, the complaint regards the current teaching method - text/literature/culture being taught in a way that analyses the work from different perspectives.

If so, then what is the goal of this style of teaching? To invest an ability in students to think outside the norm? To realise that text/literature/culture have different meanings to different people perhaps?

If so, fine. What is wrong with teaching students to think?

On the other hand the author states “the fact that most of us read for more mundane reasons” and “...that people will go on valuing those writings that they judge best help them to realise what the world is and what people are...”.

If so, what is the problem? People choose what they like and what they want to read. All in all, the best of text/literature/culture will survive as a ‘classic’ and the rest will find itself slowly disappearing from the social conscience.

Nowhere is there any allegation that Shakespeare is more or less than ‘Idol’ – or BB for that matter. Nowhere does the author highlight a claim that the modern cultural icons are in any way superior to or equal to classics from Keats, Tolstoy, Homer or their luminaries.

Perhaps it is the simple fact that there is study of these modern icons is all that irks the author?

What does all this mean? Well, it seems nothing.

So the author doesn’t like the way teaching currently teaches. Well, put up some valid reasons why analysis over rote learning is bad. Convince us that our children are worse off for not learning a ‘correct’ answer rather than being asked to provide an answer and reasons for their claim.

As with most things on this planet, there are very few right ways to do things. What is best for some is not always best for others - unless of course you have a particular dogma, whether religious, economic or political to push…. hhhmmmmmm?