Rue, Racism, & Reading: Using The Hunger Games to Talk About Comprehension Skills
Last year’s release of The Hunger Games garnered a great deal of media attention. The movie, adapted from Suzanne Collin’s science fiction novel(s), portrays a dystopian future where young children from each ‘district’ are selected to fight to the death as means of entertainment. The movie and novel have received high praise from critics such as Roger Ebert and The New York Times. The Hunger Games, while critically acclaimed, raised controversy in various corners of the Internet — fans of the young-adult novels voiced their concern and disappointment over the characters Rue, Thresh and Cinna being portrayed by African-American actors.
Public Controversy
This public discontent raises a number of concerns, including issues of representations of race and diversity in today’s media, and that Lenny Kravitz playing Cinna is more ‘shocking’ than the idea that this story is about child violence. While issues of race and violence are at the forefront of this discussion, this situation also opens up a literary “can of worms.” Tweets such as “And for the record, im still pissed that rue is black. Like you think she [Collins] might have mentioned that..? Is that just me, or...[sic]” are alarming because Collins does “mention that.” In fact, Collins describes the racial characteristics in detail:
Again, while the assumption that The Hunger Games characters would be white is undeniably a comment on our culture’s attitude toward race, the misreading (or even lack of reading) of crucial character details speaks to great issues of our culture’s reading and comprehension skills. Sasha Hoffman, writer for The Examiner, explores this issue of poor reading strategies in relation to current technology in her article The Hunger Games Controversy: How Did Some Fans Misread the Book? Hoffman poses these questions:
“How many young adult readers actually comprehend what they are reading—and how many are just surface readers looking for instant gratification? With the ubiquitous use of digital technology, from iPhones to Facebook and Twitter, kids scan the Internet, publish opinions and share information without thinking and without validating the sources. Has it become acceptable to believe blindly what is written on the Internet—without questioning? How much does this relate to how young adults read—are many of them seeing what they want to see, without looking deeper?”
This discussion of technology as a means of instant gratification is no stranger to literacy; the rise in smart technology and eReaders has proven both beneficial and detrimental to children’s reading skills and comprehension. Have we as a culture become so ingrained in this notion of “instant gratification” that we overlook main details of plot and character development?
Character Visualization
A main goal of teaching literacy and comprehension to young readers is the skill of visualization. Visualization is the ability to create images, worlds and mental models while reading, and is an essential element of language comprehension, engagement and critical thinking. Honing students’ visualization skills is an important step in teaching them to be independent readers. Studies indicate that without this skill of visualization, “reading cannot be said to be reading.” Overlooking important character details speaks to the skill of the reader. If saying that visualization is a, if not the, critical component of reading, did disappointed Hunger Games fans truly read the book?
Picturing characters from famous works of literature is nothing new. The Composites is a blog that uses forensic software to accurately (and creepily) imagine the appearance of famous literary characters using descriptive language from the stories themselves. While The Composites has yet to tackle characters from The Hunger Games, notable descriptions include Daisy Buchanan from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby -
In the Classroom
Teaching your students to be visual readers is an important part of building their comprehension skills, and is also valuable in creating a community of motivated and engaged readers. These skills are especially crucial with the implementation of The Common Core Standards, the nation’s education reform initiative that places incredible importance on English-Language Arts skills across content areas. Use The Hunger Games as a teachable moment about literacy. Have students create character profiles using descriptive language from the text, an activity that forces students to critically examine the text, teaching them to be better readers. You can use The Hunger Games to teach other content as well — Tracee Orman’s Hunger Games Lessons provides invaluable resources to teachers looking to use Collins’ novels in their classroom.
What do you think about the issues surrounding character visualization and reading comprehension? Is this something you've explored with your own students? Join the conversation on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtags #hgteacher or #popreading