I would put the complexity of William F. Buckley up against any of his fiction-writing contemporaries. For that matter, I would put Sowell or Mark Steyn up against any modern writer.
We have had a devolution of the spoken and written language, but it has happened across all purposes and genres. It is a time-based phenomenon, not a genre-based one. Patrick Henry was every bit as complex as the playwrights of his day. William Jennings Bryan's brilliant oratory was poetry. Fiction has become debased in today's society, but non-fiction could only fall so far while still meeting its objectives.
John McWhorter, in his book Doing Our Own Thing calls out the culture as the culprit. Certainly, this is far more likely to be the case than the excess of scientific texts and a dearth of dime-store novels.
Buckley? Bryan? Henry? I think, for sure, the last two are perfectly acceptable for elementary students - Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" speech is important in understanding the revolutionary spirit surrounding our break with England. W.J. Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech is one of the most brilliant examples of American oration possible. In fact, I would introduce elementary students to many of the founders and speakers up through the beginning of the twentieth century. There is much a young mind can learn from Daniel Webster.
I remember reading The Scarlet Letter when I was in fourth grade. I'm sure it added nothing to my young mind. However, the next year, I read my science text, cover to cover, before school the first week of school was over.
Also, it is wise to remember that we are probably all exceptional readers. I'm not quite my cousin who read All the President's Men when he was six, but when I read something is not the wisest guide for suitable ages.
I'm going to have to ask you to stick to one metric.
It seems that you want to a sliding scale of difficulty for fiction, but a monolith of difficulty for non-fiction.
If, as y'all are insisting, we assume that first-graders will be assigned Milton Friedman's Marginal Utility of Money and Elasticities of Demand or Whitehead and Russel's Principia Mathematica, then we must also assume that they will be asked to pick up Dostoevsky from the fiction shelf... maybe even in Russian.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 01:26 am (UTC)We have had a devolution of the spoken and written language, but it has happened across all purposes and genres. It is a time-based phenomenon, not a genre-based one. Patrick Henry was every bit as complex as the playwrights of his day. William Jennings Bryan's brilliant oratory was poetry. Fiction has become debased in today's society, but non-fiction could only fall so far while still meeting its objectives.
John McWhorter, in his book Doing Our Own Thing calls out the culture as the culprit. Certainly, this is far more likely to be the case than the excess of scientific texts and a dearth of dime-store novels.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 02:47 am (UTC)I remember reading The Scarlet Letter when I was in fourth grade. I'm sure it added nothing to my young mind. However, the next year, I read my science text, cover to cover, before school the first week of school was over.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 03:11 am (UTC)Also, it is wise to remember that we are probably all exceptional readers. I'm not quite my cousin who read All the President's Men when he was six, but when I read something is not the wisest guide for suitable ages.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 03:33 am (UTC)I'm going to have to ask you to stick to one metric.
It seems that you want to a sliding scale of difficulty for fiction, but a monolith of difficulty for non-fiction.
If, as y'all are insisting, we assume that first-graders will be assigned Milton Friedman's Marginal Utility of Money and Elasticities of Demand or Whitehead and Russel's Principia Mathematica, then we must also assume that they will be asked to pick up Dostoevsky from the fiction shelf... maybe even in Russian.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-05 09:28 pm (UTC)