Young Adult Literature: Monsters' Ink: How Walter Dean Myers Made Frankenstein Fun

Author(s): Nathan Phillips

Source: The English Journal , May, 2003, Vol. 92, No. 5, The Power of Imagination (May,
2003), pp. 87-90
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3650441

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 YoungAdult twenty-first century teenage audience. My students
immediately gave the novel a chance because they
were familiar with the popular culture version of

Literature Victor Frankenstein's monster. Though they didn't

know that their image of the monster came from
James Whale's 1931 film starring Boris Karloff, stu-
dents approached the novel with at least some back-
ground knowledge.
Shelley's novel begins with letters from
CHRIS CROWE, EDITOR Robert Walton, an Arctic Ocean ship captain, to his
sister in England. After Walton discovers Victor
Frankenstein floating alone on an ice floe, the re-
Joan Kaywell's multi-volume series Adolescent Lit-mainder of the story is in Victor's voice, as related to
erature as a Complement to the Classics and Sarah
Walton. Frankenstein's framed story and first-person
K. Herz's From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridgesnarrative appealed to my students, but once we were
between Young Adult Literature and the Classics
into the novel, I found that they needed support to
have helped teachers find effective ways to use YAunderstand its structure and language.
books to prepare students for reading canonical lit- As we read, I wanted my students to see that
erature. These books have made this "milk before literature can be a way for us to discuss important is-
meat" approach well known in the YA world, and sues. My purpose in reading Frankenstein was not to
many teachers now use YA books as bridges to the focus on its historical importance or context as a Ro-
study of the classics. mantic and Gothic novel, but to point out the con-
The following article by Nathan Phillips, an nection that the book had to my students' lives. We
English teacher at Lone Peak High School in discussed many contemporary issues that Shelley ad-
Alpine, Utah, describes an effective but new twist dresses. For instance, we talked about the personal
on the use of YA books as bridges to the classics. implications of our choices. My students discussed
how the novel would have turned out differently had
Victor listened to his concerned family and not ig-
Monsters' Ink: How Walter Dean Myers nored them while he worked on creating the mon-
Made Frankenstein Fun ster. We debated the effects of keeping a secret, as
Victor does about the creation of the monster.
Nathan Phillips
Shelley's novel also includes other social is-
Lone Peak High School
Highland, Utah
sues of contemporary importance. Victor, appalled
[email protected] 2.ut.us by the ugliness of his creation, abandons it immedi-
ately after its "birth." Certainly child abandonment
Early in my first year of teaching, I chose a novel I and the responsibility of parents (especially fathers)
wanted to tackle with my senior English class. I was to the children they create are two of the most im-
limited to teaching the novels available in our school portant social questions facing modern America. We
collection, so when I saw Mary Shelley's Frankenstein also read recent articles from newsmagazines and
on the shelves, I was excited and decided to teach it; newspapers on the debate over stem cell research
I'd studied it in college and enjoyed it. I recognize and cloning. Victor's monster is essentially a cloned
that this is perhaps the worst reason to teach a classic human being, and the story can be read as a cau-
to teenagers ("I liked it so they will"), but from my tionary tale about the effects of human cloning.
studies I found that other teachers had success using Because September 11 had happened so re-
Frankenstein in their classes. (See end note.) cently, I noticed for the first time that Shelley in-
I was drawn to Frankenstein as a reader, and cludes a female Muslim character with an oppressive
I thought my students would be drawn to it because, father. I was pleased to find a great deal of informa-
despite its 1818 publication date, Frankenstein is a tion on the subjugation of women in present-day
novel written for today. Though Shelley's language Muslim countries; we read together a Time maga-
is admittedly a challenge, the novel's characters, zine piece about the status of women in Islam and a
themes, and plot match the expectations of the companion editorial by Hillary Clinton stating her

ENGLISH Journal

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belief that the US has an obligation to aid these op- Monster begins after the action has taken place; its
pressed women. For my students, almost entirely main character takes the reader back in time and
middle- and upper-class suburban whites, Franken- tells the story.
stein afforded us the opportunity to look at the world, The structure of the novel makes it ideal for

discuss our opinions, and understand other people in-class read alouds, and this is how I approached it.
(and each other) better. Our school is on a block schedule with eighty-
I don't include this explanation of the cur- minute periods. During the three weeks we spent
riculum I followed and my rationale for teaching the reading Monster, we would devote about half of each
novel to defend my choice. Rather, I want to make period to it, while focusing the other half of the pe-
the point that, although I chose a classic novel that riod on an unrelated writing assignment. Each day
was relevant to my students and supported our study we arranged the room like a courtroom, and I as-
of the book with many activities to show them its rel- signed parts. Students acted out their roles as they
evance, I could still claim only limited success. My read their parts in the movie script. Whoever was
students didn't really like reading Frankenstein. reading the journal entries, the narration (script di-
Though I had hoped that the class would rections), or flashbacks remained off stage. Only
enjoy the novel, toward the end of our study of the courtroom action was performed. We rotated parts
book, when I could see that interest was waning, I each day, though some students became class fa-
carefully considered how I could keep them from vorites in playing their roles and kept their parts
forever hating it. I decided to turn to a tool I'd from day to day.
learned to use in my undergraduate adolescent lit-
erature class. The concept is well known-Donald
R. Gallo mentions it in his recent "How Classics
Create an Aliterate Society" (EJ, January 2001): Though I had hoped that the class
"Consider pairing teen novels with one or more of
your classics." Joan F. Kaywell has edited four vol- would enjoy the novel, toward
umes of Adolescent Literature as a Complement to
the Classics, detailing the use of YA books to intro-
duce students to classic novels. And in their book
the end of our study of the book,
From Hinton to Hamlet, Gallo and Sarah Herz call
when I could see that interest
it "building bridges."
The bridge metaphor is apt. I wanted my stu-
dents to have access in the future to the world they'd was waning, I carefully
been introduced to in Frankenstein. I knew, how-
ever, that most of them would think of Frankenstein
considered how I could keep
only as another boring classic novel they read (or
were assigned to read) in high school, without re-
membering much of the important and engaging
them from forever hating it.
thinking they'd done during our class. I knew that if
Frankenstein wasn't a book that they liked, they
wouldn't want to remember it later. So, we built a Reading the novel aloud in class was incred-
bridge back to the novel. ibly successful. The following exchanges represent
In thinking about which YA novel to bridge the attitude of all my students during this project:
to Frankenstein, Walter Dean Myers's Monster
* Sarah stopped by my room one morning
came to mind. I'd read the novel in my adolescent before classes had started and told me she
literature class, and it seemed an ideal choice for
would be a few minutes late to third pe-
my backwards bridge. Like Frankenstein, Monster riod. Then she threatened me: "If you start
has a unique structure and first person voice. The Monster before I get there, I'll never for-
novel is written in journal entries from sixteen-year- give you."
old Steve Harmon, interspersed with a movie script * Another morning Laura came in to apolo-
that Steve is writing about his experience of being gize that she would miss class entirely for a
on trial for felony murder. Also like Frankenstein, student council activity. "Can I borrow

M maY 2003

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 Monster, though? I don't want to miss what over to Frankenstein as well. We had built a bridge
we read today." backward to Shelley's novel, and students contin-
Douglas, by far my least motivated student ued to strengthen the link throughout our reading
(he seemed content to fail without com- of Monster by making their own connections to
pleting a single assignment), arrived at class Frankenstein.
early one day and asked if he could read I will teach Frankenstein again because I
out loud, requesting to take the part of the
think it's important that students discover that some
judge. When I told him he could, he
of the classics do apply to their lives. I think it's my
pumped his fist, whispered "Yes!" to him-
job as their teacher to introduce them to worlds that
self, and bragged to his friends when they
they might not otherwise choose to become famil-
got to class, "I'm the judge today."
iar with, or simply might not have access to. But
As we read, I had students keep track of ar- teaching Frankenstein along with Monster made the
guments for and against Steve Harmon as if they difference for my students.
were jurors. After completing the novel, I divided I'm not claiming that Monster is the only
my students into juries. Each jury had to come to a novel that works as a bridge to Frankenstein. In Kay-
unanimous verdict based on testimony and evidence well's Volume 2, Teri S. Lesesne has a complete
presented in the case, and each jury had lively dis- chapter on YA books that could be paired with
cussions as they tried to determine Steve's guilt or Frankenstein. I'm also not trying to persuade every
innocence. Some juries found him guilty, others not
teacher to use Frankenstein. In the end, it doesn't
matter what classic novel I choose to teach. What
guilty, and all backed up their cases with evidence
from the novel. matters is that I make the reading a meaningful, en-
Throughout this experience we discussed joyable, and memorable experience for my students.
Monster's similarity to Frankenstein. Suddenly stu- The backward bridge helps do that. In the future,
dents were making connections to Frankenstein on whatever our starting point and whatever our desti-
their own. Perhaps the most obvious connection is nation, if I build a bridge using YA literature, I know
the idea of a "monster." Students pointed out that my students will cross it enthusiastically.
both novels have an apparent monster, though a
sympathetic reader can see that both Victor's cre- Note
ation and Steve Harmon are not monsters at all. As
See Eileen A. Simmons's "Frankenstein for the Twenty-
we discussed the concept of a monster, students cre- First Century" and Anthony Backes's "Revisiting Frankenstein,'"
ated their own definitions and then checked them both in EJ April 1994, as well as earlier EJ articles from David
Poston (November 1989), Gladys V. Veidemanis (November
against a list we generated of real-world people often
1986), and "A Symposium on Pre-1900 Classics Worth Using in
referred to as monsters (Adolf Hitler, Osama bin School" (March 1983).
Laden, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, etc.).
Other themes in common:
Works Cited

* Just as Victor keeps secret from his family Backes, Anthony. "Revisiting Frankenstein: A Study in Read-
his creation of the monster, Steve keeps se- ing and Education." English Journal 83.4 (1994):
33-36.
cret his involvement in the robbery. Both
characters have families that are deeply af- Beyer, Lisa. "The Women of Islam." Time 3 Dec. 2001:
50-59.
fected by their choices, though in very
different ways. Clinton, Hillary. "New Hope for Afghanistan's Women."
Time Online Edition. 24 Nov. 2001. Time. 14
* Although Steve escapes legal punishment
in the end, students mentioned the mental Jan. 2002. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/
0,8599,185643,00.html.
and emotional torture he had to endure
Crapse, Larry. "Frankenstein. A Symposium on Pre-1900
during the trial as very similar to Victor's
Classics Worth Using in School." English Journal
experience. 72.3 (1983): 57.
Gallo, Donald R. "How Classics Create an Aliterate Society."
While reading Monster, students displayed
English Journal 90.3 (2001): 33-39.
enthusiasm that wasn't there during our reading of
Herz, Sarah K., with Donald R. Gallo. From Hinton to Ham-
Frankenstein. Yet, by the time our reading of Mon- let: Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature
ster came to a close, their excitement had carried and the Classics. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996.

EnGLISH journaL 0

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Kaywell, Joan E, ed. Adolescent Literature as a Complement Poston, David. "Exploring the Universe with John Milton
to the Classics, 4 vols. Norwood, MA: Christopher- and Mary Shelley." English Journal 78.7 (1989):
Gordon, 1993-1999. 28-33.

Lesesne, Teri S. "Exploring the Horror Within: Themes of Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Penguin Signet Clas-
the Duality of Humanity in Mary Shelley's Franken- sic, 1963.
stein and Ten Related Young Adult Novels." Ado- Simmons, Eileen A. "Frankenstein for the Twenty-First Cen-
lescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics.
tury: An Exploration of Contemporary Issues." En-
Vol. 2. Ed. Joan F Kaywell. Norwood, MA: Christo-
glish Journal 83.4 (1994): 30-32.
pher Gordon, 1995. 187-97.
Veidemanis, Gladys V "Frankenstein in the Classroom." En-
Myers, Walter Dean. Monster New York: HarperCollins,
1999.
glish Journal 75.7 (1986): 61-66.

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