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Should We Be Disrupting Texts?

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There’s been a debate raging in education circles about whether it’s time to cast so-called great books out of the curriculum. The supposed classics like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby are so freighted with racism and sexism that, for the sake of our students, it’s time to get rid of them.

Educators organized around the hashtag #DisruptTexts have been arguing that the high school English curriculum needs to be transformed. Posts on the group’s website have claimed that required texts are overwhelmingly written by White male authors, excluding voices from many marginalized communities and turning off our most vulnerable students.

There has been a backlash ever since the Wall Street Journal ran an article about how one school district removed The Odyssey from its coursework. Critics of such curriculum change—let’s call them Classicists—have insisted that the Disruptors want to lower standards, reduce student achievement and, possibly, bring about the end of Western Civilization.

As the battle between Classicists and Disruptors continues unabated, I find myself feeling much like Odysseus himself, trying to navigate a safe course between Charybdis and Scylla. Which is to say, despite the vitriol being spewed on social media, I am sympathetic to elements of both sides of the argument.

As an educator who has taught English as a Second Language for thirty years, I am all too aware of the perils of forcing struggling readers to wrestle with complex texts before they are ready. And I have witnessed the magic of students from diverse backgrounds becoming engaged readers when they discover authors who reflect their lives and circumstances.

Yet at the same time, I think that all children should be exposed to our rich cultural heritage. Books as diverse as Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass, The Fire Next Time and Beloved are not just dusty paperweights on an English teacher’s desk, they are essential markers of our collective psyche. What makes the classics classic is that they can help each generation understand what it means to be an American.

In fact, I think the best method for resolving the tensions between the Classicists and the Disruptors is to view the English curriculum through this framework. We should select and juxtapose the texts that will both illuminate the aspirations and puncture the illusions that define our society. This, by necessity, will be a more inclusive curriculum.

What I offer below is a model for how outstanding texts both classic and contemporary, by authors both privileged and marginalized, can be taught together. I organized these writings in thematic pairs, some more likely than others.

I don’t offer these sets of stories, essays, speeches and novels as required readings. Instead, I present them as one possible template for a new curriculum, a new vision of American writing. If nothing else, I hope to show how the Disruptors and the Classicists might collaborate.

After all, our children are counting on it.

 

I’m Nobody, Who Are You?

The Autobiography of Fredrick Douglas

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickenson

Emily Dickinson lived a cloistered life yet wrote a collection of terse visionary poems that essentially redefined how we can comprehend our place in the world. Douglas was born into slavery, yet managed to learn to read, escape to Canada and eventually become an eloquent abolitionist. Dickinson penned the famous verse I’m nobody/ who are you? while Douglas confronted the country that denied him his personhood.

 

Songs of Joy and Despair

“Song of Myself” —Walt Whitman

Between the World and Me—Ta-Nehisi Coates

In “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman imagined a new kind of person who can emerge in America’s democracy. Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a rejoinder for those who were left out of that vision. Between the World and Me shows the anguish of composing the song of your own self when all you can hear are cries of despair.

 

The Cage of Gender

The Feminine Mystique—Betty Friedan

“The Capital of the World”—Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway was obsessed the constant need to prove his masculinity. The young Spanish waiter in “The Capital of the World,” risks his life because he wants to be a bullfighter. Betty Friedan’s classic tract is about the spiritual death faced by women who were trapped being housewives. As different as these texts may seem, they both illustrate the ways men and women have suffered when caged in extreme gender roles.

 

Innocence and Experience  

“Young Goodman Brown”—Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Letter from a Region of My Mind”—James Baldwin

“Young Goodman Brown” tells the story of a Puritan who is corrupted by a bizarre ceremony in the forest and loses his religious certitude. “Letters from a Region of My Mind” describes how the persistence of racism and segregation can destroy anyone’s faith. Baldwin’s essay is a dark and eloquent reflection on how a Black man can cope and attempt to preserve his spirit in the face of discrimination and hatred.

 

Children Left Behind

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”—Ursula K. Le Guin

“Fiesta, 1980”—Junot Diaz

Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” paints a portrait of a utopian city that has just one flaw: a child is required to suffer for the society to function. Junot Diaz is an avowed science fiction geek but his story “Fiesta, 1980,” shows a boy who has no hope of escaping to a futuristic paradise. Struggling to come to grips with the tensions of his immigrant family, the young narrator struggles to avoid getting sick any time he leaves home.

 

I, Too, Sing America

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

The House on Mango Street—Sandra Cisneros

Langston Hughes was the bard of the Harlem Renaissance. His poem, “I, Too” was a lyrical and scathing reminder that, despite Jim Crow, African Americans were indeed Americans. In Sandra Cisnero’s novel, The House On Mango Street, the young narrator, Esperanza, is struggling to discover her own place in America. Both Hughes and Cisneros document the plight of people who are outsiders through no fault of their own, determined to show that their stories are central to the American story.

 

Overcoming

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—Maya Angelou

To Kill a Mockingbird—Harper Lee

Harper Lee’s novel is both the story of a White lawyer determined to protect the legal rights of a Black defendant. Maya Angelou’s memoir is a searing account of growing up in a world where you have no rights. To Kill a Mockingbird remains a noble invocation to decency in a cruel world. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings offers solace to those who survive the cruelty but also a reminder of scars that may never heal.

 

A Promise Waiting to Be Fulfilled

The Declaration of Independence—Thomas Jefferson

“I Have a Dream”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thomas Jefferson was, of course, the slaveholder who wrote of freedom. His hypocrisies were bottomless but his vision remains irresistible. The Declaration has been called the American Creed, a promise still not fulfilled. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech directly quoted from it as he called on Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act. These two documents have set a standard we all still aspire to meet.

 

This post has been republished on Medium.

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