Should literature choices be left up to the English teachers?
Don’t get me wrong, while I think that Shakespeare should be taught to highschool students, I also think that there are other books which should be considered other than the old school classics. Books which comment on society and its values are just as important. Spending one day, if that much, on the works of Johnathan Swift, (A Modest Proposal) is not nearly enough.
I think that works like Slaughterhouse-Five, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Catch-22 should have some place in the classroom, and should be focused on. Critical thinking is on the top of many lists of goals for students to achieve. Teaching books like these would demand that students learn at least the first steps of critical thinking and allow them to examine the world in which they live much deeper.
Should such an important thing be left to only the English department?
March 10, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I think that critical thinking should be part of a wide range of subjects, and that English Literature should be about teaching Anglophone literature, not morality. Like Wilde, said, there is no such thing as an immoral book: books are well-written, or badly-written, that is all. Politics, History, Philosophy and Religious Education all teach students to think critically and analytically, as do translation & grammar elements of MFL and Classics.
March 11, 2009 at 5:07 am
Oh, I totally agree! All four of those books have had a profound effect on my life. Studying Shakespeare has basically taught me nothing more than how to read Shakespeare.