WOOHOO!!! To Kill a Mockingbird literature test is finally over! Here's a song I want to dedicate to TKAM:
(sung to the tune of What a friend I have in Jesus)
When this test is gone and over,
Oh, how happy I will be!
No more boring annotations,
No more literature for me.
No more TKAM essay writing,
No more studying prejudice.
When this test is gone and over,
How I'll sleep and how I'll dream!
Well, that song pretty much sums up what I have to think about TKAM. Personally, I feel that TKAM is not very suitable to teach in Hwa Chong at a sec 2 level. Here is what happened what I first took out the book:
- "WOW! So thick! I don't fell like reading it already"
- I look at the synopsis and think, "I don’t know what will happen in the story at all!"
- “Why is the first two pages about the history of some weird old guy from some fictional American town?"
- “Hey, I think I’ll just leave this book alone until my teacher instructs me to read it.”
Even after analyzing the book in class, I still am not able to appreciate the book. If you ask me, Animal Farm is so much more interesting and captivating than TKAM. As people who have just reached teen-hood, I feel that we do not really find much importance in knowing about prejudice or moral courage, let alone take interest in it. Adults might think that it is of utmost importance to educate teenagers on the proper kinds of courage so that teenagers would not get into fights or start arguments, but instead have the courage to walk away. However, how effective can a literature book be in educating teenagers?
Yes, it is one of the greatest novels of all time. Yes, it has won the praise of many critics. However, I feel that it has not won over us teenagers. It is common to hear a swear word associated with the boredom of studying TKAM in class every morning, and sometimes on Facebook. This 'phenomenal' is not only confined to HC. There are many people from other schools such as RI or NY who post complains about the book on facebook.
The most compelling reason why this book is not suitable to be taught is because it not only did not serve its purpose of eradicating prejudice, it in fact made many of us more prejudiced. Many of the racist and ostracizing terms from the book were introduced into our vocabulary. Was TKAM counter-productive?
Personally, I think that Lord of the Flies would be more suitable to be taught in school. Although it has a violent nature, it is still acceptable to teenagers nowadays, who think nothing of playing violent video games that involve killing innocent people. Furthermore, its theme of savagery will prove to us that violence will get us nowhere. Its plentiful and varied vocabulary will serve to improve our english language skills (based on the first chapter. I am not sure whether the rest of the book is as such).
