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What literature should be assigned in high school?
I was just struck by a thought: the butterfly effect of English curriculum choices is remarkable. For most people, high school is the last time they will ever read a work of literature (not Colleen Hoover). For every student that doesn't go on to major in English literature in university, high school is the last opportunity they will have to work through a novel in a guided and systematic way. For many, and I include myself here, high school and its assigned literature comes far too early. I "read" Macbeth in my final year, but my mind was elsewhere, on cheerleaders and college applications. I read Macbeth now and I am struck dum by its power and strangeness.
So what should we assign students in these high school English classes? Two perspectives:
1. The Argument from Greatness. We need to expose students to the most important and well-regarded writers with the one opportunity we have to do so by compulsion. If you're not forced read parts of Paradise Lost in high school, you'll likely never read it at all. Fine, you say, well then I don't get exposed to Milton, so what. My reply: it's MILTON! The obvious counterargument: if you force me to read Milton because he's great at the same time I'm hormonal and trying to lose my virginity, you'll only make me hate Milton and possibly turn me against all literature. I'm sure Harold Bloom would have some thoughts here.
2. The Argument from Exposure. We need to expose students to the greatest diversity in form, content, authorship, and era with the one opportunity we have to do so by compulsion. This doesn't conflict the Argument from Greatness in principle, but in practice it means that students will get a 'taste' of many things, but miss out on certain celebrated authors that would make Bloom wince. The limited time available in English class means that we must make value-decisions about including or removing certain authors, pitting them against each other. Diversity also means different things to different people. For Bloom, not assigning Hamlet would be akin to violating all Ten Commandments, but for someone else, it's a necessary removal to make room for Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith. And who's to say who's right or wrong?
Who deserves the limited attention of our formative minds? For some students it doesn't matter, but for others like me, the difference between being given Milton and being given T.S. Eliot at 17 years old was the difference between life and death. Milton was cold and incomprehensible, almost inhuman, while Alfred J. Prufrock was a friend I could lean on. I'm rambling now, but my central point is that these things really matter, so I hope the curriculum committees out there understand the power they hold.
I was just struck by a thought: the butterfly effect of English curriculum choices is remarkable. For most people, high school is the last time they will ever read a work of literature (not Colleen Hoover). For every student that doesn't go on to major in English literature in university, high school is the last opportunity they will have to work through a novel in a guided and systematic way. For many, and I include myself here, high school and its assigned literature comes far too early. I "read" Macbeth in my final year, but my mind was elsewhere, on cheerleaders and college applications. I read Macbeth now and I am struck dum by its power and strangeness.
So what should we assign students in these high school English classes? Two perspectives:
1. The Argument from Greatness. We need to expose students to the most important and well-regarded writers with the one opportunity we have to do so by compulsion. If you're not forced read parts of Paradise Lost in high school, you'll likely never read it at all. Fine, you say, well then I don't get exposed to Milton, so what. My reply: it's MILTON! The obvious counterargument: if you force me to read Milton because he's great at the same time I'm hormonal and trying to lose my virginity, you'll only make me hate Milton and possibly turn me against all literature. I'm sure Harold Bloom would have some thoughts here.
2. The Argument from Exposure. We need to expose students to the greatest diversity in form, content, authorship, and era with the one opportunity we have to do so by compulsion. This doesn't conflict the Argument from Greatness in principle, but in practice it means that students will get a 'taste' of many things, but miss out on certain celebrated authors that would make Bloom wince. The limited time available in English class means that we must make value-decisions about including or removing certain authors, pitting them against each other. Diversity also means different things to different people. For Bloom, not assigning Hamlet would be akin to violating all Ten Commandments, but for someone else, it's a necessary removal to make room for Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith. And who's to say who's right or wrong?
Who deserves the limited attention of our formative minds? For some students it doesn't matter, but for others like me, the difference between being given Milton and being given T.S. Eliot at 17 years old was the difference between life and death. Milton was cold and incomprehensible, almost inhuman, while Alfred J. Prufrock was a friend I could lean on. I'm rambling now, but my central point is that these things really matter, so I hope the curriculum committees out there understand the power they hold.
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