Lit Up
eBook - ePub

Lit Up

  1. 286 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

About this book

A bestselling author and distinguished critic goes back to high school to find out whether books can shape lives
It's no secret that millions of American teenagers, caught up in social media, television, movies, and games, don't read seriously-they associate sustained reading with duty or work, not with pleasure. This indifference has become a grievous loss to our standing as a great nation--and a personal loss, too, for millions of teenagers who may turn into adults with limited understanding of themselves and the world.
Can teenagers be turned on to serious reading? What kind of teachers can do it, and what books? To find out, Denby sat in on a tenth-grade English class in a demanding New York public school for an entire academic year, and made frequent visits to a troubled inner-city public school in New Haven and to a respected public school in Westchester county. He read all the stories, poems, plays, and novels that the kids were reading, and creates an impassioned portrait of charismatic teachers at work, classroom dramas large and small, and fresh and inspiring encounters with the books themselves, including The Scarlet Letter, Brave New World, 1984, Slaughterhouse-Five, Notes From Underground, Long Way Gone and many more. Lit Up is a dramatic narrative that traces awkward and baffled beginnings but also exciting breakthroughs and the emergence of pleasure in reading. In a sea of bad news about education and the fate of the book, Denby reaffirms the power of great teachers and the importance and inspiration of great books.

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Yes, you can access Lit Up by David Denby in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Education Theory & Practice. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Introduction
  7. Chapter 1: Beacon, September: The First Days of English 10G
  8. Chapter 2: Beacon, October: Faulkner and Hawthorne
  9. Chapter 3: Beacon, October: Sylvia Plath and Confessions
  10. Chapter 4: Beacon, November: Nuts Matter, and Bolts, Too
  11. Chapter 5: Beacon, November: Huxley
  12. Chapter 6: Beacon, December and January: Orwell
  13. Chapter 7: Mamaroneck, All Year: Personal Choice
  14. Chapter 8: Beacon, January: Satire
  15. Chapter 9: Beacon, February: Coelho and Hesse
  16. Chapter 10: Beacon, February: Vonnegut
  17. Chapter 11: Beacon, March: Viktor E. Frankl
  18. Chapter 12: Hillhouse: The Year
  19. Chapter 13: Mamaroneck, Spring: Tenth-Grade English
  20. Chapter 14: Beacon, April and May: Dostoevsky
  21. Chapter 15: Beacon, May and June: Sartre and Beckett
  22. Note
  23. Afterword
  24. Appendix 1: Reading Lists
  25. Appendix 2: Beacon Students’ College List
  26. Bibliography
  27. Acknowledgments
  28. Index of Authors and Works
  29. About the Author
  30. Also by David Denby
  31. Newsletter Sign-up
  32. Contents
  33. Copyright