If you could design the English Curriculum..

"I know it's one of the most widely contested novels, but I can't for the life of me understand the rationale of those who think it's controversial."

Like The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, the standard challenge is apparently its use of racial epithets.

Myself, I find it problematic as required reading because it's simultaneously more mature (being about rape and false accusations for racist reasons) yet less sophisticated than Huck Finn. Huck Finn is more appropriate for advanced late elementary students, while those old enough to read about things like rape should be tackling The Metamorphoses.

Got it in one, Rottweiler.

However, I'd point out that some students may have the reading comprehension level to understand plot, characterization, authorial intent, and so on, while not having the maturity to grapple with deeper philosophical issues. And vice versa. I'm not entirely comfortable saying Huck Finn is a better choice across the board than TKAM.

True enough.

Don't know. You could do some excellent stuff with 1984/Brave New World, compare and contrast.

I wouldn't say "You must read this and only this, one chapter at a time" but give them a selection, maybe five books, to pick from; that makes it easy enough to read them all or to have read them all foro the teacher and also give enough choice.

They say artworks are often wrongly forgotten, but rarely wrongly remembered, if by that you mean that it is wrong to remember them, as opposed to being remembered in the wrong way, which is quite frequent. And by they I mean the guy who writes TARDIS Eruditorium. But I trust his judgement. And it seems true.

I'd put more emphasis on writing than on analysis, definitely.

Give teachers plenty of discretion, ha.

I'm going to try to craft a response without soapboxing OR writing a novel of my own... we'll see how that goes!

An appropriately well-crafted curriculum for language study should be much more than a list of books. And unfortunately, any time spent teaching a particular work or skill is time spent NOT teaching something else. There is so much out there to explore and simply not enough time, even over a very full life, to truly delve into all of it. That applies to all disciplines, though.

It sounds like what you're asking is "what books should everyone have read in English class by the conclusion of mandatory education?" With that in mind, here are my suggestions for American students:

Secondary school: Brave New World, Huck Finn, The Scarlet Letter, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, To Kill a Mockingbird, Treasure Island

Primary school: Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, Just So Stories, Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, Charlotte's Web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

i think you just described the curriculum of the prep school i work at...minus possibly The Hobbit

What's the logic behind your inclusions?

In early modern Britain and America, 5 and 6-year-olds were taught English phonics, grammar, and enough vocabulary to read The Bible before being tossed into Latin. So my idea of grade levels may seem precocious.

By the latter part of first grade, they should have progressed through the different levels of picture books and be tackling an English version of Aesop's fables.

Once they're reading Aesop proficiently, book choices should be focused on getting them culturally literate in chronological order. First they'd be ready to tackle chapters of The Bible (New International Readers Version), specifically Genesis, Exodus and Numbers (skipping the chapters that are law rather than narrative), Joshua (first half), Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Daniel (first half), Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Thus they'll be familiar with Jewish myth and history from Adam and Eve to the reign of Artaxerxes I.

Then they could handle Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome, which cover Greek myth and history from the Titans to 146 BC and Romulus to the fall of the Western Empire, respectively, in about 30 10-page biographies. When they know the Greeks and Romans, assign I Maccabees, Luke, and Acts.

Next, most of the key child-suitable stories we've inherited from the middle ages are fairy tales. So have them read those, say from Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. This would also be the time to learn the Matter of Britain. Perhaps the teacher could read them Howard Pyle's Story of King Arthur and His Knights, so they don't balk at the vocabulary trying to read it themselves.

Now for novels. Start with a fairly easy modern classic. I suggest Little House On The Prairie, which gives a child's-eye view of the important story of American expansion. They should also read The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and move on to The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, a great book that will introduce them to the problem of racism against blacks (as Little House deals with relations with natives, but better). Assign them A Christmas Carol, Dickens' easiest novel and most influential. They should read The Jungle Book. Robinson Crusoe is essential, as is Treasure Island. They're also going to need an elementary-age book of modern history from Columbus to decolonization to grasp the historical context of these stories.

Also, they should be reading poetry as well as novels, so that they'll be ready to jump into the Classical epics when they start middle school.

EDIT: And I'd make the last reading of fifth grade The Diary Anne Of Frank (1947 edition - not the Definitive Edition at that age), so they get a child's-eye view of evil in the 20th century at the end of learning about modern times.

edited 12th Dec '11 7:45:17 PM by Rottweiler

Shoving the fundaments of the Western culture down children's throats won't do much for them if they don't understand 90% of what they're reading. I don't know what kind of Bible studies classes you've had, but, in my experience, the useful ones are those that focus on the subtext far more than the literal narrative. If you absolutely insist, tell your kids a couple of key stories - the ones that are structured like myths and legends - but I don't think it's necessary. If and when they have a thirst for it, they will find it rewarding. Not before.

Well I read The Bible and enjoyed the narrative books from age 8 on but not group study until 13 (and rejected Christianity soon after, heh), so we're talking about two different levels of reading here.

I don't know that jumping into a study of the symbolic subtext of a great book on first reading is the best pedagogy. Starting students on a book they've never read before and having them search it for symbolism seems to be how many high school teachers destroy enjoyment of reading.

However, I can see a case for holding The Bible back til the same age as they tackle Homer and Ovid. All three are full of adult themes. Then they'd already be able to reason about the morals of stories. But how common it is for students to balk at contemporary pedagogy makes me think that hunting for deeper meanings like allegory is best put off until like the third reading of a great book.

"I don't know that jumping into a study of the symbolic subtext of a great book on first reading is the best pedagogy."

You're right - it isn't. It shouldn't be taught to children in the first place.

I hadn't touched the Bible itself until I was in high school (I was familiar with some of its basic points from other media and some of the stories being told to me orally), and I don't see that my understanding of it is weaker than that of those who have been forced into Sunday school at an early age.

edited 12th Dec '11 8:44:25 PM by kashchei

"You're right - it isn't. It shouldn't be taught to children in the first place."

Okay, so you'd agree that teaching literature on that level shouldn't be done in high school.

My sense is that elementary children enjoy stories on the literal level, from puberty they reason about the morals of stories, and only adults care about deeper levels of subtext. The best books for children, then, would be those that are exciting stories on the literal level and yet merit being mined for subtext (fairy tales, Huck Finn, etc.). It's planting a seed.

"Okay, so you'd agree that teaching literature on that level shouldn't be done in high school."

Not sure. I took college-level literature classes in high school, and most people in them seemed able to handle the idea of texts being deeply layered quite well. I've also taken college courses in which lit majors had next to no idea how to extrapolate anything that was beneath the surface narrative. I think the instructor's proficiency at gauging his students' skills and interest is key, and I'm wary of putting a concrete bracket around any age group that features high variation in psychological development.

Well, I'm with Rott on this. A basic foundation in the bible and the history of the church is really fundamental for understanding anything in the western literary canon. Greek myth helps a lot too. It puts everything in context. It's not that I feel like every one should have to read the canon, but that every one should be prepared if they want to read it.

This is what makes it all easier to understand. The primary focus should be on the stories naturally. The stories aren't any harder to understand than any of the fables we tell little children anyway. The only real concern is adult themes, which I don't take terribly seriously. Children can handle a lot more than we hand them.

I see a lot of people either making lists of things they like or intentionally being eclectic in order to avoid a percieved "narrowness" of literary types. Now, I'm all about anti stuffiness, but in a way such lists are very narrow, focusing on works from a very narrow band of history, close to your own, without any of the context thst brought us to where we are, having the set of values we currently hold, reading the kind of stories that are written today.

So, it really depend on how you want to go about it. Essentially, focusing on the west or not. English classes are incredibly western centric, since that's a large part of what gets translated into English, but the major canon of large literate cultures usually have translations available in the public domain. That itself isn't much of an excuse. Any attempt to cover foreign cultures has to start with some basic coverage of their culture, history and religion, often covering the sacred texts, at least to the same depth of covering greek and christian myths in the western canon. In other words, it'd be very hard to cover more than a little of it well, and impossible to cover it all.

If we focus on the west then we have to cover the bible (at least a semester's worth), greek myth (at least a semester's worth), greek history, jewish history, and the history of the church. They don't need to be covered in depth, but the basics need to be ground in. After that, Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, (poetry read in class, plays seen outside of class or on video, with some preparatory teaching before to provide historical backqround and such.) covered briefly. Some coverage of greek philosophy, then enlightenment philosophy, perhaps as bookends to the history of the church. After that, I'm liable to let them read mostly whatever they want. Perhaps with pressure to make sure there's a little variety and challenge. Regular reports on books in front of class that need to be presented well so every one learns something would be good, but there's merit in comics, and modern poetry, and romantic poetry, and the kama sutra,and modern comedy and literary satire, and fairy tales. No reason to narrow it down so long as they understand enough history to understand what they're reading, or ideally understand how to learn enough to understand anything they might read.

edited 13th Dec '11 11:36:08 PM by Roman

"Well, I'm with Rott on this. A basic foundation in the bible and the history of the church is really fundamental for understanding anything in the western literary canon. Greek myth helps a lot too. It puts everything in context. It's not that I feel like every one should have to read the canon, but that every one should be prepared if they want to read it."

I agree with that; I just don't see why it's a necessary regimen from the age of eight.

Like I said, stories of the bible are actually about as simple as most other fables we tell little children. Same with a good chunk of greek myth.

edited 13th Dec '11 11:42:23 PM by Roman

The plots aren't that complex, but the morality is. If all you give a shit about is being able to identify allusions, then fine, but I was under the impression that we were talking about the philosophical underpinnings of Western texts, in which interpreting the Fall as unfortunate/fortunate, fault of man/woman, brought on by a malicious/beneficent serpent is a little more relevant than knowing plot points A, B, and C.

The way it was for me, was that all that stuff would get stuck in my subconcious right next to Disney cartoons and Aesop's fables. I knew a little of the morality your talking about because my dad brought it up once when I was six or so. But basically, having that in the back of my head helped me come to grips with that kind of philosophy as I was reading other texts. Sort of like how I learned the vast majority of my vocabulary by understanding how unfamiliar words fit in the context of a sentence.

In a general sense, I'm looking for stories with a variety of styles in terms of topic, style, setting, era/period, POV character, and so on. I also streamlined it fairly tightly to allow for some choice at the district and individual level - and to keep in mind that language arts isn't the only subject taught!

I'm also leaving out (AFAIK) works in translation, which I realize takes out a lot of what you might consider foundational literature. I agree with you about its importance, but it isn't English literature. Works from pre-modern cultures should be studied as part of the history curriculum, and revisited in language class in places where they connect most directly with the English work being studied.

I also didn't include any Shakespeare on my reading list; in my ideal curriculum, drama would be taught by watching and responding to live performances. I'd love, love, love to take my classes on a field trip to watch a community theater group at practice.

I do think your grade levels are precocious for required-for-all reading. We were assigned Tom Sawyer in 7th grade and Huck Finn in 8th; I think younger students connect quite strongly with the idea of "fair" and "not fair," but they often aren't yet experienced enough to be able to examine Twain's style and in particular his use of diction. I've seen Huck taught well as part of American Literature (11th grade here). Likewise, The Diary of Anne Frank is also often taught at the upper end of middle school or the lower end of high school, given that it was written when Anne was about that age.

Finally, research shows that choice reading is the best way to raise comprehension levels, so a well-stocked school would include novel collections in each classroom.

"Okay, so you'd agree that teaching literature on that level shouldn't be done in high school."

I don't know that I agree, here. I do agree that working on symbolic subtext while you're trying just to understand what's going on is a bad idea. However, at the high school level, students ought to be capable of reading beyond the surface. They're developmentally able to look at what words an author used and compare them to other words the author chose NOT to use, and to think about possible reasons for those choices.

However, before they can get to that point, they need to be able to understand what the author is saying with those words! So, some works should be chosen to challenge students' reading comprehension ability - chosen specifically because they're hard to read. Others should be easier to understand, allowing students to move past a basic understanding to study theme and style.

WHEW. Okay. Sermon over. (For now, anyway.)

Stories at a primary school level should start out relatively easy to read, and then become relatively challenging, but above all, they must tell an interesting story. Those books completely focused on teaching phonetic principles are only of use to the show-offs who don't need them anyway, but read a six-year-old some Roald Dahl once or twice a week, and he'll double up on literacy out of sheer impatience.

Bumping this because the thread is interesting enough and deserves to stay on top.

Anyway, I can't say much about the English Curriculum because our school is not English. I can only talk about the Russian one. So, as for the Russian curriculum: throw Leo Tolstoy out (morally bankrupt garbage, War And Peace especially) and, as much as I like him, throw Dostoevsky out as well because he was an epileptic, and his books can strengthen epilepsy in epileptic children.

EDIT: I take back the word "garbage". Tolstoy is actually not garbage and that's what makes his subtle lies doubly dangerous.

edited 21st Jan '12 3:02:47 PM by Muzozavr

What sort of ages are we talking about? If I could redesign the A-level English Lit course (a bit like A Ps in America but, I think, way more depth) which is taken between the ages of 17 and 18, there'd be a module in:

Y1: Modernism - Exam on T S Eliot's poetry and To The Lighthouse Victorian - 1,500 word coursework piece on any theme in Victorian literature of the student/teacher's choice Practical Criticism - Exam comprising a close reading of an unseen text
Y2: Epic - Exam on prescribed extracts from Paradise Lost and The Faerie Queene Shakespearean - Any 3 plays written by Shakespeare and his contemporaries of the student's choice done comparatively as a 2,000 word coursework piece; teachers could guide the selection process or prescribe specific plays as appropriate to the ability level of the class Practical Criticism - Exam comprising a close reading of two unseen texts

edited 22nd Jan '12 4:39:34 AM by Bajazeth

Eh? How does a book strengthen epilepsy?

It doesn't work that way... If it did I would be profoundly worse at this point more than likely epilepsy wise. And really that's just perplexing...

edited 21st Jan '12 10:53:49 PM by Aondeug

Politics and the English Language would be required reading for everyone. Not so much because of its literary merits, but because of the very important lessons on the use of language it contains.

I do love that essay - I've been careful to be concrete, though I don't think I always put enough thought into my cliches - but I just don't get his general beef against Latinate words.

Hm, reading it again, he writes rather like a humorless version of Mark Twain. I guess that's as good an argument for Anglo-Saxon words as anything is.