I just finished Death's Daughter, by Amber Benson.

le nubian, thanks for the amazon links! that's PRECISELY what my students could use. Not the Bible, but really a reader of select passages of the Bible.

And if none of those things happened and I still didn't get the reference (and I'm sure that has happened) it probably wasn't that important.

Unless, of course, you are working with a group of kids reading "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," who have no idea who Lazarus is and it shows up as one of the essays on the AP exam they have paid $80+ to take. Then it sort of is that important.

(Granted, I hate Prufrock and many of them loved it because they did love the untangling of the allusions).

Or, a better example is that my students had no idea who the sirens are because Greek Mythology is no longer part of the CA Standards for English (I think for history they are, but in 6th grade). So they don't read the Odyssey anymore and Clash of the Titans has not been on constant replay on TNT for 10 years. When they took an exam (from the 90s) that asked them to compare Homer's sirens to Atwood's version, they flailed. So we did a 3 hour thing on mythology to cover most of the basics.

The gaps can be important. Unfortunately, I never know what gaps appear nor do I know what is on this year's test.

Granted, I hate Prufrock

Say it ain't so, Kat!

Mind you, I always have to read the notation on Eliot because while I think I'm getting the allusions I invariably interpret them wrong.

"It'll show up on a test" is not a good way of defining "important." I know how this all works is not your fault -- the system in general is what I'm ranting about. Because it's about training kids to pass tests.

many of them loved it because they did love the untangling of the allusions

I'm confused. If reading Prufock made them go "I need to look this stuff up because I don't understand the references" that's exactly what I'm advocating for.

You are right. In general, just because it'll show up on a test is not important. Except for those kids who have opted to take AP, 90% of the point of the entire class is to pass the test so they can test out of whichever class in college. The fact that they learn to write quickly and succinctly is an extra bonus for when they are trying to finish a 3-page paper in their Contemporary Russia class in 45 minutes so they can make it before Last Call on a Tuesday night is just a bonus.

Reading Prufrock didn't make them go look it up. It made the kids who already KNEW the references enjoy it and the kids who didn't know it decide that yes, again, they still hate poetry. Your argument that drudgery begets drudgery is certainly true. But also kids, especially those in poor and under-served schools generally miss out on some of the basic cultural crap and instead of thinking "hmmm... I should figure out who Lazarus is (and hey, how does the Martha of the Lazarus story, relate to the Marthas of The Handmaid's Tale ?) they often start with "I don't get it" and then just put the book away.

In the 10 years I've been teaching, I have encountered many students who do need to be taught directly, particularly the crap of things like greek mythology, or biblical allusions, or subject-verb agreement. Often well-meaning teachers anticipate that students either osmotically get it from their reading or from family dinner conversations or that the confusion would spark an interest (I am doing a disservice to one of Lisa Delpit's arguements, but it's not that easy. Sometimes explicit instruction with its extreme drudgery actually matters and helps kids who aren't from dominant culture families, as all but one of my students are, access curriculum.

All of that is obviously one of my rants....

I first read the Gospels a few years ago, on a trip to Italy, when I realized that I had no idea what half the paintings in the museums were supposed to be. So I read the Gospels from the bible in the hotel room, and understood the paintings, and also suddenly understood what my tenth-grade English teacher had meant when she said something about a character's initials being JC being important, when we got to the part where he goes to prison for something that someone else did, and is smiling as he's dragged off. (I had no clue what she meant when she said it, but was in a Mood that day and didn't want to ask.) Also helped me figure out what John Irving was on about for most of A Prayer for Owen Meany. (I loved the book the first time I read it, but again, had no idea why Owen's sacrifice would mean anything for the main character as a Christian.)

Seeing the buzz across LJ: Amazon removes GLBT content from their sales ranking.

"American Psycho" is Bret Easton Ellis' story of a sadistic murderer. "Unfriendly Fire" is a well-reviewed empirical analysis of military policy. But it's "Unfriendly Fire" that does not have a sales rank -- which means it would not show up in Amazon's bestseller lists, even if it sold more copies than the Twilight series. In some cases, being de-ranked also means being removed from Amazon's search results.

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is Google-bombing "amazon rank" in response.

I saw that. It's also been Slashdotted. At the moment, at least, CNN has the story via a link on their home page to The CNET article.

No idea whether this person is fucking with everyone, but he claims to be responsible.