Blog Post #7
November 1, 2007
connorsa351
Bridge to Terabithia, written by Katherine Paterson, has the potential of becoming a controversial story to have students in an English class read. The first, and main issue in my opinion, would be the fact that Leslie dies at the end of the story. She is one of the main characters within the story, and her death is rather tragic and sudden to readers. I feel that many elementary students experience death in some way, either a family member, friend, or pet may have died, so I think a majority of students can find themselves relating to Leslie’s death. On the other hand, some students may be shocked and feel disturbed by having such an intense and dramatic death in a story they are reading for school. They may not know what to make of it, or understand why it had to happen. Another strong issue that may come about in discussing this story in the modern age would be the idea of Miss Edmunds taking Jess on a “fieldtrip” with just the two of them. Would students find this to be appropriate or awkward for both the teacher and student? Obviously in this day and age this type of field trip would be considered inappropriate, but would some students like the idea of it and would they do it if they had a chance. Another issue would be the frequent discussions about ideas pertaining to religion. It becomes very risky to discuss religion in classrooms, so would teachers simply ignore those pages and chapters, or would they have to find an appropriate way to discuss the material. They would have to be careful not to offend anyone in the classroom due to religion being such a sensitive and controversial topic.
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1.
martink852 | November 2, 2007 at 11:55 am
I think that is very true about discussing religion and death in a classroom. You never know what the children have been growing up with and you never want to offend anyone. I think religion is very controversial and i feel that the teacher doesn’t need to go into depth about the religion/beliefs that are apparent in the book, but she/he shouldn’t ignore something. As a teacher you don’t want to agree or disagree with anyones religous beliefs i feel. You never want to compare one student with another. Nice blog!
2.
wrightwanmer | November 2, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Although I have never actually read the book nor have I seen the movie, my nine-year-old daughter has and questioned some areas in the story. She felt that certain issues may not be appropriate for younger audiences due to the sudden death of the character Leslie or the fact that the teacher takes them alone on a field trip. In my own opinions, I think that the subject of religion may be questionable because of the whole idea behind seperation of church and state. Some students may feel uncomfortable discussing such issues in a classroom setting. This novel sounds with some of it’s gray areas of content, that it may be more suitable for older, more mature audiences. Nevertheless, it seems like both the book and the film are extremely popular among school-age children. I think what attracts individuals to this reading, especially children, is the idea of having a secret and magical place.
Leslie Wright
3.
jennifer | November 9, 2007 at 10:53 am
I like how you get at the less obvious potential controversies here. I’m wondering if you’ve found any information about the book as controversial in schools or libraries.