A Modest Proposal (For Literature Curriculum)
(This is a short “essay” I wrote for my pedagogy course. I’m putting it here because I think it might be of interest to you all. No, this is not an “academic” essay. It should be relatively accessible.) Canonical Chronicle: Thoughts of Pop Literature and Literature Curriculum One of the principal concerns I have with the present course of pre-college education in literature in the United States—and elsewhere—is the incessant reliance on teaching literature through the limited scope of the Western Canon. Perhaps in other parts of the world this canonical reliance shifts to accommodate different worldviews or interests, but the reliance is still there; thus, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Western Europe seemingly rely on the Western Canon, the Middle East, India, China, and other Asian nations possibly rely on the Eastern Canon, and those left out of this either have their own unique approaches to literature, no approaches whatsoever, or must adopt the educational perspective of other nations as a means of becoming part of the global atmosphere1. These narrowed approaches leave literature in a particularly nasty place: nowhere. How can literature possibly survive in our youth in such rigid, inflexible systems? True, the Western Canon does, on occasion, change, introducing new works of literature2, but these changes do not seem to have much influence on literature curriculum across the country. The same “staples” of literature—style, approved content, etc.—are invoked in these additions. As a science fiction enthusiast, it has long been an uphill battle—in the snow, during a blizzard—to make the case for popular literature as necessary for literature curriculum in pre-college education. I don’t push for any particular kind of popular literature, even though I see science fiction as one of the most relevant and valuable genres in existence. Instead, my criticisms of modern literature curriculum are with its inability to foster proper attitudes in students towards the process of reading. Standardized education has created a system that relies on repetition, rather than on relevance. As much as Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain, and Austen are important figures in our literary history, they do not hold the same influence on students today as J. K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephen King, and others. This isn’t to say that students are only influenced by pop-literature icons; some of these students may find themselves attracted to writers like Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Margaraet Atwood, and others who have stormed onto the “literary fiction” scene in recent years, and who are largely unknown to the majority of present-day readers3. The point is that literature curriculum today is, I would argue, outdated in several ways: 1) in being focused on old, classic literature to the point of excess4; 2) in being largely unwilling to shift to more relevant literatures, such as those written by emerging and powerhouse writers of today; and 3) in being unable to accommodate the incredibly short-focused nature of pre-college students in “modern” culture. The result, based on personal experience as a former pre-college student and as the co-owner of a website for young writers, is that these rigid practices damage reading habits and perpetuate the relative assumption that literature has little meaning in our advanced, technology-driven society. Educational systems that are unable to see this are systems that fail students on a regular basis, creating learning conditions in which students do not see the value in what they are being taught. Why should a student learn about the crusades or world cultures or Charles Dickens when they fail to see the connection of that information to what matters to them now? Learning should be beneficial and self-replicating, rather than seen as a negative force or as simply a requirement that must be fulfilled because adults say so. What can be done about this? It took Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card almost twenty years to make its way into high school classrooms, and yet it is not as frequently taught as books like 1984 by George Orwell or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, both science fiction texts that, while fantastic and worthy of further study, are still a part of that “old/classical” world. Will it take just as long for books like Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, or Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie to work their way into pre-college curriculum? Will there have to be a tooth-and-nail fight to get these more relevant books (from the perspective of the students) into classrooms? Finally, there is the question of “how?” One approach, however chaotic, is the remarkably successful one adopted by Lorrie McNeill of Jonesboro, Georgia: The approach Ms. McNeill uses, in which students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading, is part of a movement to revolutionize the way literature is taught in America’s schools. While there is no clear consensus among English teachers, variations on the approach, known as reading workshop, are catching on5. To be fair, the success is not all that surprising, particularly if you’re someone who actually went through the draining experience of high school English. I find it more surprising that schools are only now beginning to adopt such programs. Letting kids choose what they want to read, as opposed to forcing them only to read what is required by the system in place, produces results that are not only not surprising, but astonishingly obvious: kids actually want to read. Why? There are probably complicated answers to that, but the most obvious is: kids who get to make a choice have a higher likelihood of enjoying that choice. The concern, then, is with the process of changing our methods of teaching literature, of meeting the demands of students as they change with the future. The classics should still be upheld, even revered for how they have shaped our past, but mixing the old with the new is a way of creating an amalgamated pedagogical monster that does for reading, and literature
Book Review Up: Unholy Domain by Dan Ronco
Not much to say. I didn’t like this one. You can see my reasons here. I think I’m getting pickier and pickier with each book I read…