Hey slingson! Just thought I might add my 2 cents on this topic
English is probably my favourite subject right now and for the past two years, and I personally found Literature rather boring in the semester I had taken it. However, the one and only English teacher who taught me in Year 9 that has made me love English is ONLY teaching Literature for Year 11/12, meaning if I choose something else I would probably end up with some other teacher who would somehow probably make me hate him or her and the subject I take up.
I completely relate to finding literature to be rather boring compared to mainstream English , it seems to be a pretty consistent reaction with everyone in my lit class. Here's the thing about literature which (I think) is the main reason why it seems boring - everything you're analysing doesn't appear to have anything to do with the present, unlike in English where you do argument analysis and orals etc. For lit there are only two types of assessments you really need to learn:
close passage analysis and
literary perspectives. You do not learn about how everything applies to our daily lives, which makes it seem incredibly mundane.
As a lit student though (I may be slightly biased
) what I found was that once you get into the rhythm of the subject (sounds weird maybe, I don't know how else to describe it) it gets really interesting, especially since you get to do deeper layers of analysis you're never really expected to do in mainstream English. There's also an aspect of
freedom for lit - unlike English where you're expected to strictly follow a 'formula' of intro, 3 x body paragraphs, conclusion, you can write in whatever format you wish for literature.
About your teacher though, I don't think you should let whoever that's teaching dictate your feelings towards the subject. One thing I found out was that teachers - especially english/lit teachers are incredibly unreliable
Don't ever choose a subject for the teacher, as you are expected to learn independently throughout the year (especially for english/ subjects).
I personally find reading a bit of a chore which I hear is something I definitely don't want carrying into Literature.
Definitely true - you are expected to do a lot of independent reading for lit, and many teachers may not recommend you to study lit if you don't enjoy reading.
On another note though, literature isn't
only about reading, it's about analysing and taking apart everything you read bit by bit. I personally never read my texts actively in 1/2, but what I found was that students who read their set texts twenty times and annotated every single sentence weren't really the ones who did well.
Reading is only a part of lit - what really matters is your thought process and how 'deep' you dig into everything. Personally, I wouldn't say you have to
adore reading to qualify for lit. The most crucial thing is to have an analytical mindset and a solid understanding of the social and political backgrounds of whatever text you're studying.
Have you thought about doing
both English and lit for year 11? A lot of my friends did that, and that way they could have a solid understanding of both subjects and choose whichever one they like better (or keep both). Also both subjects are related anyway, so if you put in the work for one you'll see improvements in both.
Good luck!
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