Thank you Twilight for being so universally popular

First of all, I should start off by saying that this is not a normal post. I wanted to break up my normally heavy posts with something a bit more light-hearted and fun. For those of you who are anxiously awaiting an update post about my life, that will be coming soon.  But for now, enjoy…

I would like to thank my friends Julia Poorman, Chelsea Magary, and Hannah Parsley for encouraging me to read the Twilight books during junior year of college, even when I was dead set against becoming ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. I spent a good amount of time in college trying to conceal my Twilight fan-status, out of fear of being mocked by my fellow English majors, but I can hide it no longer. Now, I will be the first to agree that the Twilight books are by no means great works of literature, but who would have thought that being a Twilighter would help me so much in my future teaching endeavors. Before my book-snob buddies…aka Jessica Hornburg  attack me about the quality of such literature, no i have not, nor will I teach these books in my classroom, but knowing these stories has definitely been helpful.

I don’t care who you are, or whether you think the Twilight books rock or not, there is a truth that can and should be acknowledged: Twilight is bigger than many of us can even fathom. It is universal. Edward, Bella, Jacob, and the whole gang are not just celebrities, but household names. This obsession reaches far past the borders of the United States. Twilight is universal, and hence, a great teaching tool.

I have used Twilight to discuss plot progression, character development, and to help the student I tutor understand the difference between internal and external conflict. Why? Because they all know about Twilight. It its like pulling teeth to get some of my students to read, and many claim to hate literature and reading. Most of my students can’t reference “To Kill and Mockingbird” or Jane Austen novels, but they have all either read the Twilight books or seen the movies.

Here is how class went a few weeks ago:

Me: “Can someone give me an example of conflict from a book or movie they like?

Students: blank stares

Me: Okay let’s pick a movie that most of you have seen? Have you all seen Twilight?

Students: Yes!!! (Some talking about how great it is, others talking about how lame it is–but they’ve still all seen it)

Me: Okay, so what are the problems in Twilight? What keeps the story from being perfect?

Student 1: Well, Edwards loves Bella, but he can’t be with her, because he wants to suck her blood.

Student 2: Bella’s dad doesn’t like Edward.

Student 3: Victoria wants to kill Bella, because Edward killed her partner James.

Student 4: Jacob loves Bella too, but Bella wants to be with Edward.

and it continued….

We continued with the Twilight examples, by categorizing each problem as either an example of man vs. man conflict, man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. society, etc. At the end of the class, my students seemed to have a thorough understanding of conflict.

So thank you Twilight. And to all the haters out there remember: Everything has its purpose.