"Could modern teens relate to Anne better if she were sexually active?"
Sure, but what are they then relating to in that case? Part of the power of Anne Frank's diary is that she was a normal teenager amidst everything else that was going on, but it's her fate that makes hers such an important story, not whether or not she had sex with Peter; otherwise, she's just another teenager writing in a diary. We don't continue to read/teach Anne Frank because she happened to keep a diary. We do so b/c she happened to keep a diary and she was Jewish in Europe and in hiding and was killed in the Holocaust.
It seems to me that this misses the point of teaching Anne Frank to students - maybe a more contemporary "character" is easier to identify with, but isn't it also our job to teach kids to understand people who are different from them?
I'd like to give teens a little more credit that they can relate to someone on a variety of levels, and sex isn't a prerequisite for that.
"Could modern teens relate to Anne better if she were sexually active?"
Sure, but what are they then relating to in that case? Part of the power of Anne Frank's diary is that she was a normal teenager amidst everything else that was going on, but it's her fate that makes hers such an important story, not whether or not she had sex with Peter; otherwise, she's just another teenager writing in a diary. We don't continue to read/teach Anne Frank because she happened to keep a diary. We do so b/c she happened to keep a diary and she was Jewish in Europe and in hiding and was killed in the Holocaust.
It seems to me that this misses the point of teaching Anne Frank to students - maybe a more contemporary "character" is easier to identify with, but isn't it also our job to teach kids to understand people who are different from them?
I'd like to give teens a little more credit that they can relate to someone on a variety of levels, and sex isn't a prerequisite for that.