Something to Consider While Diversifying Reading Curriculum

*Author’s note: In an effort to make this piece somewhat readable, I focused on race. The ideas that I discuss in this piece could (and should) easily be applied to issues of gender, sexuality, neurodiversity, etc.*

In recent years, English departments have tried to diversify reading curriculum by incorporating texts that are written by people other than white men. As people continue to protest the injustice that Black people face, I suspect that schools will place even more of an emphasis on a diverse reading curriculum moving forward. Of course, I fully support the diversification of book rooms; very few of the “classics” incorporate voices of people of color. As a result, students mostly read books that feature white characters as the main character or are written from a white perspective. Given that schools in the United States are becoming more racially diverse than ever, the need for representation in literature is especially pressing. However, I think that schools need to be really careful about how they diversify reading curriculum. Otherwise, they could potentially do more harm than good.

First, let’s think about how many different roles white characters get to play in English class. They get to be:

• Heroic (Beowulf, The Odyssey)
• Villainous (Dracula)
• Mentally ill (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Of Mice and Men)
• Supernatural (Macbeth)
• Coquettish (Pride and Prejudice)
• Oppressed (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984)
• Prodigious (Ender’s Game)
• Misunderstood/angsty (Hamlet)
• Rich (The Great Gatsby)
• Poor (The Grapes of Wrath)
• Romantic (Romeo and Juliet)
• Barbaric (Lord of the Flies)
• Brave (To Kill a Mockingbird)
• Ostracized (The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible)

I could go on, but you get the point. Although the literary canon is not diverse in terms of the authorship, I posit that it’s actually tremendously diverse in terms of the types of stories being told. As you can see from the list above, students are introduced to a wide array of story arcs and themes through the literature. The diversity of these stories depicts the intricacies of the human experience. That’s the whole point of literature. We teach these books because we want young people to think about the past, present, and future world, as well as their place within those worlds.

Here’s the problem: the vast majority of the characters who get to act out these stories in books are white. As a result, white people are depicted as fascinating, multi-dimensional, complex human beings worthy of deep admiration, analysis, scrutiny, and thought. Conversely, people of color are often limited to narratives about their experience of navigating a white-dominated society as people of color. Very rarely do people of color get to play the main character in these complex story arcs (of course, many classic novels do not incorporate any people of color at all). Instead, they are usually background characters who minimally contribute to the story. Think Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, whose fate is almost entirely determined by white people. Think Tituba in The Crucible, a slave who is manipulated by white people into confessing to witchcraft.

A great parallel can be seen in film. Why was the Black community so excited about Black Panther? Well, actually, there are many reasons to love that film (see: incredible soundtrack, cinematography, special effects, plot, acting, etc.). But another reason that the movie was so monumental was that at long last, a cinematic blockbuster depicted a Black superhero facing off against a Black supervillain. The trope of good vs. evil has been present in film and literature since their inception, but that story is so often told using white characters (Batman vs. The Joker, Harry Potter vs. Voldemort). Rarely do Black people get to participate in this basic, human story without the involvement of white characters. The same idea applies for a movie like Crazy Rich Asians. If the cast of the movie had entirely white, no one really would have cared very much; it would have been yet another rom-com pumped out by the Hollywood machine. But because Asian people were finally allowed to play the main characters rather than a snarky side character, the Asian community was thrilled. At long last, Asians were finally seen as more than just the know-it-all math geeks who played piano. We were young people trying to figure out love, just like everyone else.

I want to be clear: I am not advocating for colorblindness, and I certainly do not want stories about people of color struggling against oppression to be taken away. Stories about racial injustice matter. Stories that describe the experience of people of color matter. Texts like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Letter from Birmingham Jail need to stay. But I want the educational community to progress a few steps further. We need to think about the themes we want to teach to our students and alternatives to the classics that have been taught for centuries. If we only teach literature in which people of color are oppressed and marginalized, we can potentially re-emphasize ugly stereotypes. Times have changed. Student demographics have changed. Student interests have changed. We need to be brave enough to change the way we teach literature.

Here are some concrete steps we can take to make English class more inclusive through more diverse literature:

1. If you are a parent, rethink the idea that your own education was the best and only way to learn.

Think of the scene in The Incredibles 2, in which Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible attempts to help his son with his math homework. Bob insists that there is one way to complete the problem, which is the way he had learned back in the day. His son, Dash, tries to explain that he is learning to solve the problem a different way. Chaos ensues as Bob wrestles with the idea that math has changed since he was in school.

The same idea applies in literature. “Well, I read The Old Man and the Sea in high school. You should too!” I’m not discounting the merits of classic literature. For decades, teachers have crafted incredibly meaningful lessons around those texts. However, there are other books out there that are not considered to be canon but have the potential to be just as (if not more) meaningful in the classroom. So when teachers begin to teach texts that are unfamiliar to you, please don’t send life-threatening letters to our administration. Different does not necessarily mean incorrect.

2. If you are a teacher, be willing to start from scratch (or at least augment).

After one year of teaching, I know this much: creating quality lessons is a lot of work. Stitching those lessons into a coherent unit that covers weeks is even more difficult. Teachers pour dozens of hours into prepping these lessons, and it’s not easy to simply throw them out. I completely understand when a teacher says that they have been teaching the same unit on The Great Gatsby for the the past twenty years. Why change it? It’s worked wonderfully well in the past, and it will probably work well in the future.

There are ways for teachers to take what they already have and modify it so that other texts could fit within the learning objectives of the unit. Some teachers are starting to embrace concept-based curriculum, centering units around themes that could be taught with a variety of texts and media rather than one singular novel. I think that’s a step in the right direction. School leaders just need to be willing to incorporate these new texts into curriculum.

Diversifying curriculum may also help mitigate an increasingly prevalent problem: students’ unwillingness to read. Many teachers have noticed that students are reading less and Sparknoting more. There are many reasons that students are becoming less and less excited to read. The rise of technology and the decrease in attention span certainly plays a role. Inability to manage time and stress could be another. Some of those factors fall outside of teachers’ control, but something that teachers can control is the books that they assign. I taught five sections of “regular” English this past year (not honors or AP). I thought that my students simply didn’t like reading, and that I would have to scratch and claw just for them to open their books and put down their phones. I was surprised at how many students actually liked reading when they were interested and invested in the story. More often than not, they were interested in stories in which they could see themselves. On that note…

3. Listen to students.

No, students are not trained to teach English. Yes, English teachers know what students need at the end of the day. But teachers need to be careful about steamrolling student opinions. If a class seems to universally dislike a text, something may be wrong. Teachers should ask themselves, “Could I expose my students to the same concepts and themes in this story through a different set of characters? If so, what text could I use as an alternative? If not, is the text that I assigned absolutely indispensable?”

I am not asking teachers to completely bend to the whims of students. Students still need to be pushed and challenged. But teachers can still challenge students with texts that incorporate more characters of color. I’ll reiterate my point: students need to see that people of color are multi-dimensional beings, not just pawns of oppression. I believe that giving students more of a voice in the curriculum can lead to great progress. I, for one, am willing to sacrifice tradition for higher engagement.

4. Re-assess the over-representation of British literature.

From 7th to 12th grade, I was assigned a text by Shakespeare in every single grade except for one. Don’t get me wrong; Shakespeare was a genius who touched on timeless themes. But do we need to teach Shakespeare every year? Can’t those themes be taught using different texts?

Some of you may be surprised to know that 12th grade English in Virginia is supposed to be largely focused on British literature. Here is standard 12.4 as provided by the Virginia Department of Education:

“12.4: The student will read, comprehend, and analyze the development of British literature and literature of other cultures.”

Notice how “other cultures” (i.e. literally anywhere outside of Great Britain) is combined into one amorphous mass. Never mind that a story about Nigerian child soldiers is completely different than one about a Japanese internment camp. “Other cultures” is inclusive enough, right??!!

I struggle to understand why there needs to be an entire year dedicated to British literature.

In upcoming discussions with colleagues about reading curriculum, teachers need to be cognizant about their goals. Simply tossing in a few authors of color into the curriculum is not enough. We need to admit to ourselves that white people and white characters have dominated the current literary curriculum. We need to find alternatives to those texts, alternatives that depict people of color as more than just victims of racial oppression. People of color, just like white people, can be the prisms through which students ponder the complexities of humanity. The literature needs to reflect as such.