'Speak' called 'soft porn' by Missouri professor, Laurie Halse Anderson responds -- Over the weekend, the 1999 National Book Award-nominated young adult novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson was challenged in a Missouri high school by a local professor. Yesterday, the author of the novel responded to the professor's charges about her book.
Laurie Halse Anderson took to the same publication that printed Prof. Wes Scroggins's op-ed, "Filthy books demeaning to Republic education," to write her response. In another piece printed in the Springfield News Leader, "Description of 'Speak' story may mislead Republic's citizens," Ms. Anderson writes that her book has been mischaracterized by Prof. Scroggins who is an associate professor of Management at Missouri State University.
"I want to set the record straight," she writes.
Speak is a book about date rape and its traumatic after-effect on the life of a fictional teenage girl. The girl, a ninth-grader, becomes a selective mute in response to the shocking event that has happened to her. Prof. Scroggins writes about the novel this way:
"In high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography. One such book is called Speak. They also watch the movie.
"This is a book about a very dysfunctional family," Prof. Scroggins continues. "Schoolteachers are losers, adults are losers and the cheerleading squad scores more than the football team. They have sex on Saturday night and then are goddesses at church on Sunday morning. The cheer squad also gets their group-rate abortions at prom time. As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes."
Ms. Anderson counters his claim, explaining what she calls "Scroggins' technique of cherry-picking lines from books."
She elaborates:
"Scroggins made it seem as though those few lines about the cheerleaders were a major plot element. They're not. They are a brief ironic thought. He also complained that the adults in the book are "losers." That is how Melinda sees the adults who treat her badly. But it is an adult, her art teacher, who finally breaks through her wall of silence and helps her begin to heal."
She cites page 135 and quotes the line there directly to refute Prof. Scroggins's characterization of the scene:
"On page 135, Melinda is kissed by the senior she met at the party: "And I thought for just one minute there that I had a boyfriend, I would start high school with a boyfriend, older and stronger and ready to watch out for me.'"
"Not the same at all, is it?" Ms. Anderson adds.
The author quotes rape statistics of victims under the age of 18 from the U.S. Department of Justice. She adds that this is why "the book is taught all over America," to help raise awareness of rape, and date rape in particular, among young people.
Ms. Anderson concludes her article by asking the citizens of Republic, Missouri to read the books challenged by Prof. Scroggins and make up their own minds (he has also challenged Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler). To help them in the effort, she announced that she has donated 20 copies of all three novels to each of their area libraries.
According to the Riverfront Times, other authors have come to the defense of Speak, including Judy Blume, whose books have often been challenged over the years. She is encouraging her readers to write to Republic school officials and has also informed the National Coalition Against Censorship about the case.
Speak was adapted to a film starring Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame in 2004.
Comment below: What do you think? Is Prof. Scroggins out of line in calling Speak "soft pornography"? Where do school districts draw the line in responding to parents' concerns about the reading required by students in district classrooms? Let us know your thoughts in the Comment Section!
Comments
Calling Speak "soft porn" is entirely, almost wilfully, missing the point of the story. I first read this book when I was myself a freshman girl going into high school, and I can't overstate the positive impact it has had on me. In such a well-crafted work of fiction, especially one dealing with a painful and important subject like rape, it is unfair and misleading to take sound bytes and use them to craft an argument against the book. I hope others will agree with me in defending Speak.
Only gonna make ppl wanna read it more...hehe.
What a joke. These are classics. The moral of Speak and it's direction cannot be misconstrued with Prof. Wes Scroggins' opinions. Absolutely no fact beyond those two scenes and to exclude the rest of the novel is beyond comprehension. To have your own opinion is one matter, but to use it in an argument without taking the full context of the "entire" novel is complete ignorance. Example of his logic: If an armed citizen shot someone in the middle of the street and the police said they were going to take the citizen to jail, then that would be fine (In Wes Scroggins' case). The context of the situation is that the individual discharged his firearm because the victim tried rob the armed citizen at knife-point and he couldn't fend him off; there were three witnesses who all said the situation was in clear favor of the citizen, but the police did not ask the witnesses. You have to include all perspectives in the scope of the novel to be able to make a conscious decision in the end. I never considered this "soft pornography" and only someone with an unrefined taste for literature would babble about parts of the novel in order to prove their point of view. Do college graduates even read any sort of literature nowadays?
This man is a professor? WOW!
Schools must be really needy for teachers this man is dumb as a box of rocks!
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!