English Teachers: What’s your three?
I was on the way home from the grocery store this afternoon when I heard a discussion about educational issues on the local news radio station. Issues they discussed were dropout rates nationwide, “throwing money at the problem,” studies meant to improve education for all students and where the state of Washington goes from here.
Distracted from the conversation, I began thinking about my own soon-to-be pursuit of a teaching certificate. I hope to teach English in high school sometime over the next couple of years.
I then was further distracted, not really listening to the radio at this point. I asked myself if I only had three books to cover in a class, what would those three be? I came up with the following:
1. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Class and materialism as a value system in the prosperous, bootlegging time before the Great Depression. Is this The Great American Novel? To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath and The Catcher in the Rye, among others, may have something to say about that, but this is definitely in the championship game to decide it all.
2. 1984, George Orwell
In this post-9/11 world, I wanted to make sure some kind of dystopian novel was in the three. It seems this genre is a huge part of our culture, seen every day in books, movies and television. I don’t see any way to avoid having one of these novels in the classroom while keeping a straight face.
And it was a tough decision within this genre. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley could round out the Big Three of dystopian lit. Try to pick just one.
It’s a tough call, but I think one has to go with 1984. It’s the Babe Ruth of totalitarian, dystopian novels.
3. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Things are more global nowadays. There is a book on the list by an American and a Brit, and it’s good to give a spot to someone who does not come from a Western viewpoint. This is not political correctness – which I hate - but rather a way for kids to explore storytelling within the English language by someone who did not grow up the same way they did. I think that’s important, unless our society is going for narrower viewpoints.
There are dozens of other books that come to mind for this list, but these are the three I’m going with.
So, if you teach English in high school, what would your three be?
