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Originally Posted by Drolefille
But if the book was a classic would you teach it? Or the movie? And if you don't think the c-word is comparable, what about slurs against Hispanics or Asians? My question then is when do you introduce kids to things they actually haven't heard.
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Well, I don't know of anything that has repeated c-words and is a classic (except for maybe The Filth and the Fury) so kind of a moot point.
But yes, Hispanic/Asian slurs would be more on a par with HF. As to when is a good time to teach it, I'd say whenever it is that kids can say "naughty" words in general without laughing like Beavis and Butt-Head for an hour. When that is (having no direct access to adolescents these days) I don't know anymore.
I don't think you should teach a book JUST because it's a classic. "Classic" has become a pretty elastic definition, and there's YA fiction (and movies and TV shows) that's probably a LOT better for teaching whatever you want to put across than the classics. I mean, if I wanted to teach my students about homosexual stereotypes, I'd pop in the DVD of The Celluloid Closet.