{"id":261,"date":"2013-04-16T17:06:28","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T17:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/?p=261"},"modified":"2015-10-22T19:05:37","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T19:05:37","slug":"a-novel-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/2013\/04\/16\/a-novel-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"A Novel Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the academic year, grade twelve English students examined numerous media articles and broadcasts questioning the place of literature in 21<sup>st<\/sup> century curriculum design.\u00a0\u00a0 Does literature, and all that it can bring, belong on a contemporary syllabus? \u00a0In an age of rapid technological innovation, decreasing attention spans, job training now driving education reforms across North America, is there room for Shakespeare, Plath, Hawthorne, and Williams?\u00a0 Will their voices still be relevant, comprehensible even, to a new breed of student who is being told to prepare for jobs that don\u2019t yet exist and don&#8217;t require literary studies?<\/p>\n<p>Should literature be shelved, once and for all?\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>My students don&#8217;t think so. \u00a0Their voices offer a counterpoint to the academic discourse that claims literature is dead.\u00a0 They have taken to the Internet.\u00a0 They are reading, writing, and fighting for fiction, using their 21<sup>st<\/sup> century skills and digital dexterity to show that, even in an age of rapid-fire innovation (or perhaps because of it), literature, and the challenge to critical thinking it offers, is now needed more than ever.<\/p>\n<p>They can tell you, better than I can.<\/p>\n<p>Through blogging, students share and respond to one another&#8217;s <a title=\"Goodbye, Mr Gatsby\" href=\"http:\/\/fightforfiction.blogspot.ca\/2013\/04\/good-bye-mrgatsby.html\" target=\"_blank\">farewell letters<\/a> to favorite authors and characters,\u00a0<a title=\"A's I am from Books\" href=\"http:\/\/literature4every1.blogspot.ca\/2013\/04\/i-am-from-books.html\" target=\"_blank\">poems<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Student Reflection on education\" href=\"http:\/\/ssblog12.blogspot.ca\/2013\/04\/reflection-on-education.html\" target=\"_blank\">rumination on education<\/a>, and examinations on\u00a0<a title=\"Value of Literature-Chris\" href=\"http:\/\/bloggerman321.blogspot.ca\/2013\/04\/removing-of-classic-literature.html\" target=\"_blank\">the role English literature plays<\/a> in their lives.<\/p>\n<p>For more on our story, please click <a title=\"Action Plan\" href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/2013\/01\/21\/fictional-educations-and-the-new-curriculum\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> for an overview of our project and links to related articles and broadcasts. Student blogs are up and running, and the excitement surrounding this project has created opportunities for further sharing and research within the school community.\u00a0 Next week, I will be presenting this action plan at a full-faculty meeting.<\/p>\n<p>As always, we welcome your feedback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the academic year, grade twelve English students examined numerous media articles and broadcasts questioning the place of literature in 21st century curriculum design.\u00a0\u00a0 Does literature, and all that it can bring, belong on a contemporary syllabus? \u00a0In an age of rapid technological innovation, decreasing attention spans, job training now driving education reforms across North &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/2013\/04\/16\/a-novel-idea\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Novel Idea&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,41],"tags":[14,22,18,23,12],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","category-defense-of-literature","tag-21st-century-syllabus","tag-english","tag-literature","tag-personalized-learning","tag-word-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}