Transcript Less is More

Less is More:
Teaching Literature with Short
Texts
Presented by Kimberly Hill Campbell
International Reading Association
May 2008
“Lamb to the Slaughter”
Yet a story’s very shortness ensures its
largeness of accomplishment, its
selfhood, and purity.
--Lorrie Moore
I believe much of teachers’ insistence that students read
innumerable books in one semester derives from a
misunderstanding we sometimes have about reading. In
my wanderings throughout the world there were not a
few times when young students spoke to me about their
struggles with extensive bibliographies, more to be
devoured than truly read or studied…. Insistence on a
quantity of reading without internalization of texts
proposed for understanding rather than mechanical
memorization reveals a magical view of the written word,
a view that must be superseded.
--Paulo Freire
Making the Case for Short
Texts
 More Reading Choices
 More Relevance to Adolescents’ Lives
 More Possibilities for Differentiated
Instruction
 More Effective Writing Models
 Consistent with NCTE/IRA Standards
Embracing Genre with Short
Texts
 Short Stories
 Essays
 Memoir
 Poetry
 Children’s Literature and Picture Books
 Graphic Novels
Essays
The essay can do anything a poem can do, and
everything a short story can do--everything but fake it.
--Annie Dillard
Why essays?
 Essays demonstrate to students that
this genre exists beyond the world of
school.
 Essays provide models for students’
own essay writing.
 Essays allow for the exploration of
writing craft and theme in an
accessible, nonfiction format.
What moves me most is an essay in
which the writer turns something over
and over in his or her head, and in
examining it finds a bit of truth about
human nature and life and the
experience of inhabiting this planet.
--Susan Orlean
It is not simply that we need
information, but that we want to
savor it, carry it with us, feel the
heft of it under our arm. We like
the thing [book] itself.
--Anna Quindlen
“Three Interesting Lists of
Books” by Anna Quindlen
 “Ten Big Thick Books that Could Take
You a Whole Summer to Read (But
Aren’t Beach Books)”
 “The Ten Books One Would Save in a
Fire (If One Could Save Only Ten)”
 “Ten Nonfiction Books That Help Us
Understand the World”
A Passion for Books: A Book Lover’s
Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore,
and Lists on Collecting, Reading,
Borrowing, Lending, Caring For, and
Appreciating Books
Edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan
Recommended Essay
Collections
 Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now
by Maya Angelou
 Guys Write for Guys Read, edited by Jon
Scieszka
 Sports Illustrated: Fifty Years of Great Sports
Writing
 “Pop of King” by Stephen King in
Entertainment Weekly
 40 Model Essays: A Portable Anthology,
edited by Jane E. Aaron
The goal is to produce, at graduation,
every single child in America who can
read and read well, and who will read
broadly, who will read for fun, who will
read for enlightenment, for work, who will
read for safety, who will read to get
information in emergency situations, who
will read for information, who will read to
make intelligent political decisions, and
who will read for cultural understanding.
--Laurie Halse Anderson