Educational Musings (4)

There have been many changes at work recently with regard to the choice of novels to teach and how to teach them, and they've made me think about what's important when it comes to teaching literature in high school. First, a few questions: what's the most important thing when teaching literature? is it interest on the part of the students? what about increasing breadth of reading? maybe a knowledge of the 'canon' of English literature? or it could be an increased knowledge of Canadian literature. As you can see, there are lots of things to try to figure out.

At the school where I work, we have had a pretty traditional set of novels for the students to read. In grade nine, they read The Chrysalids; in grade ten, Lord of the Flies; in grade eleven, it was always Catcher in the Rye, but when I started teaching it, I was teaching The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time because I couldn't stand the thought of reading about Holden any more. There was more choice in grade twelve: Fifth Business, Joy Luck Club, Handmaid's Tale, and most recently, The Kite Runner.

When I started teaching English at this school, I was a little horrified at how white washed and old the novels were. We were teaching nothing but DWEMs (Dead, White, European, Male) and that wasn't the population of the school at all. With a student population that was largely Asian and South Asian, why were were only reading about Europe and North American? Shouldn't the students see themselves reflected in the literature? I did work with with a couple of other teachers to add Kite Runner and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to the curriculum, but I think there is a long way to go.

There is now a move to stop teaching core novels and to only use literature circles. Literature circles are when students read different groups of novels at the same time. The books can be chosen for interest, or for reading level, or for a mixture. I'm intrigued with the idea of these circles, because I'm tired of hearing that the core novel is "boring" or "gay". I would love the students to want to read what we're reading. I'm nervous though, because I'm not sure that a group of 5 14 year olds will be able to draw the themes of the novel out the same way with much less guidance from me. A whole class working together to figure out what an author is trying to say can be more effective than a small group. I'm willing to give it a try, but I do have concerns.

To be honest, I'm spending tomorrow working with two other teachers to create a unit that incorporates "differentiated instruction" and we're planning to look at literature circles and see how we can build effective ones. Differentiated instruction basically means that we understand that students learn differently and our teaching methods should take this into consideration. Sounds fairly self-evident, doesn't it? I wish it were that simple. I really want my students to do the best they can, and I do want school to be enjoyable for the students, but I do think that teachers have expertise in their subjects, and that we do know what we're doing (well, most of us and most of the time). I worry that all this administrative meddling will ultimately do more harm than good.

Having all this written down, unfortunately, hasn't cleared up my thinking any. I'm just confused as I was before. I'll just keep on being the best teacher that I can be. I'll incorporate new techniques into my teaching if I really believe that they are going to help my students, but I'm wary of all the jargon and will think long and hard about how new thought is brought into my classroom.

If you had to pick books to teach to high school students, what would you pick and why? I'd love suggestions.