Lit Think Core Values: Relevance
The media we choose doesn't matter if students can't relate to its message
Welcome to From the Teacher’s Desk, where we take turns further reflecting on our episodes and applications to the classroom.
In preparation for presenting at two conferences this year, we took time to think about what we wanted to stand for as a podcast team. When we came up with five core values, we felt it just as important to spend some time in our blog parsing out what exactly these ideas mean in our daily work at Lit Think.
This week, I am looking at our third value: relevance. But what exactly does that mean to our team?
Why Relevance
Nearly every junior high or high school teacher has heard the question at least once in their teaching career: “What does this have to do with our lives?”
The implication is usually that whatever we are studying in our class at a given time has nothing to do with their current problems and very little to do with their future career goals. And I get it. It’s been over 25 years since I was in high school, and I still don’t understand the purpose of geometry proofs (My apologies to math teachers out there - algebra made far more sense to me).
As teachers, we strive to find relevant material for our students because we want them to connect with the work and see the bigger picture of the world they live in. We want them to see themselves in the work and embrace the diversity of human experiences. As citizens of a pluralistic society, we want them to understand that there are universal truths in art and that there are stories from different ages and cultures that speak to their personal struggles and situations.
And that means consistently bridging the gap between past and present, letting go of our darlings when they fail to pass that test for our students (There is a reason I haven’t taught A Separate Peace, which I love, for years). Why do we need to do this? Because research shows that the more relevant the material and presentation, the more students will learn. It truly is best teaching practice.
What We Mean by Relevance
For something to be relevant, it has to speak to the moment in which we are living. That does not mean that it has to be modern or new, a belief that we are often fighting against with our students, but it does mean that we have to determine if students will be able to look past the age of a piece and see the value to them today.
There is art that captures a specific moment in time and years later is seen as dated and irrelevant in a new age. These pieces are time capsules of cultural events and attitudes, helping us better understand the past and providing lessons about progress in a modern age. I grew up watching the holiday classic Holiday Inn, but I haven’t touched it in years because I better understand the implications of the Blackface number. Old Westerns dominated AMC for years, but then viewers began to see more clearly the racism and misogyny captured in these white hero stories. John Hughes films were the voice of a generation, but I would no longer feel comfortable showing them to a class of high school students.
Classics can be relevant to our students. There is a reason that Alicia and I still love Shakespeare: his themes are universal despite the difficult language. Even the problematic elements (racism, misogyny, classism) are presented in such a way that teachers can have rich conversations about how much things have changed and how much they have not.
There is a reason why people still attend Star Trek conventions and visit Star Wars at Disney: the television shows and movies that are part of both universes speak to universal themes that are often ahead of their times. And being up-to-date on modern films and adaptations helps us demonstrate to our students that these themes bridge the gaps between generations and the art produced over time.
How We Live It
Alicia and I consistently look for media that bridges generational gaps and can be used with both modern and classic literature.
Want to do that for yourself? Here are some of the episodes from past seasons that highlight authentic storytelling:
Hiding Behind Words (Cyrano, 2021)
Bah-Hum Muppet (A Muppet Christmas Carol, 1992)
The Road to Hades (Hadestown, 2016)
Lit Think Princess (The Princess Bride, 1987)
More Resources
And if you want some great, quick conversation starters to talk about authentic storytelling in your classroom, I highly recommend these resources:
Check out this article from Education Week highlighting ways to make learning relevant to your students.
Teachers often struggle with how to best teach Huckleberry Finn in the 21st century. I have used this particular satire analysis project to show how satire works over time as we were reading through the novel.
While I used this assignment when teaching The Grapes of Wrath, it could be modified with any classic novel to help students better understand universal themes in a piece of literature.
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