Book-lists? Classics, YAL, topical novels, free choice? The dilemma of using the right texts for the right reasons

 

‘The old can talk till they’re blue in the face about the spiritual satisfaction to be found in art and literature, but when you’re young there’s a lot more fun to be got out of being with a girl than by listening to a sonata’ (S. Maugham, in the 1920s)

When it comes to selecting texts for class, teachers always face the same dilemmas: should we choose books the learners will like? Books that learners will relate to? Books that are educational, say, of the historical type? Books that have a pedagogical bend, for example about racism or bullying? Books that are well-known, books that have won a prize, books from famous authors, books from the canon? Or should we, perhaps, let the learners themselves decide what to read? From their own choice, or from a list compiled by a teacher, usually comprising dozens of titles if not many more?

 All those aspects of the ‘text-selection dilemma’ are problematic for one or another reason. All of them require further differences being made, which all complexifies the issue. That issue is important though, as we must be clear about our intent in the literature class: what do we want to achieve, in the end, and can the text we selected serve that purpose? Or, of course: why did I select (put on a list, got the school to buy) this text and not another?

And as usual, what we need in order to make choices is to identify clearly what’s at stake, and to define what we mean.

 Educational, pedagogical books (one-topic books) have their advantages, but they also often have a crucial flaw: by focusing on one societal issue, they give readers very little room to move. They also make it almost impossible to step out of that issue should the discussion around it become difficult: if the novel you’re reading is explicitly about racism, that’s pretty much all you can discuss, and it can be difficult and awkward to suddenly introduce a different topic. Ideally, a teacher of English could work with a teacher a History, say, bringing different perspectives to the text and its context. This happens at some schools I know, but could probably happen more. Another problem with books like that can be a lack of subtlety and/or complexity: if the topic is, say, racism, no-one can disagree that racism is bad (or at least, no-one will dare disagree in public). So such a text can quickly become more a pamphlet than a rich source where investigating the roots of racism, its manifestations and nuances is just not possible. But to combat evil, we must understand it, not just be told it’s evil.

 

Books that are well-known (or have won a prize) can be bad, boring, useless, poorly written, badly plotted, and of no use to you – the teacher – whatsoever. Books that won prizes ditto, of course. Those can also be difficult, or too long, or too topical, or too extreme – or all four at the same time. And they are often too slow-paced as well. We all know that at school, pupils’ criteria for choosing a book tend to be size-oriented (how many pages?), and that a lack of pace, jumbled narrative and convoluted syntax are off-putting. We should also ask ourselves why well-known books are on the list: is it for what can be done with the text, or for their cultural value?

 

Books from the canon have their special place in this discussion because of the weight of history – and therefore culture – on their spine: I recently wrote about this specific problem HERE. They obviously also suffer from the Book-that-won-a-prize syndrome: it may be hip to read, but is it good to teach with? These are very different things. You may want to expose your learners to that canon, but you must also understand the limitations of working with those works – you might contribute to the beefing up of their cultural capital, but is that the same as using the text to think and explore the world?

 

Then of course there are the books learners like: after all, we want them to read, so let’s get them to read by giving them what they already know. That is an excellent idea, but it must not be confused with you, the teacher, doing something with that reading. In other words, this type of reading might be great for concentration, habit-forming, linguistic skills even, but you will never be able to discuss anything on the basis of those books, for the simple reason that every learner will have made a different choice.

And there’s also the question of curiosity here: if you don’t introduce learners to texts they will never otherwise read, when will they encounter those texts? If you, the teacher, do not introduce the different, the new, the Other, how will you activate pupils’ sense of curiosity (which very often needs to be developed)? If John has read Harry Potter three times, what good will it do to read it a fourth? Or to read a carbon-copy of Harry Potter?

It really often sounds as if, for this approach, what matters is to read – not to think about it, not to discuss it, not to learn from it: just reading words on a page. Is that not a moral stance? Or, at best, a linguistic one? (i.e. it’s good for language development). It might be fine to go for this, but it’s crucial to realise the limits of such an approach as well: those limits do not have to be seen in a negative light, but they are there nonetheless.

 

Books that learners can relate to is another thorny one of course: finding one text that, say, 25 learners will relate to seems a tall order, unless you choose a text without asperities, without complexity. And genre will be an issue, characterisation too, narration as well. So the teacher often ends up projecting their taste onto the learners, and what the teacher thinks learners can relate to, is what the teacher ends up expecting they will. There’s also the problem (which I wrote about here) of knowing what the pupils don’t know, and thereby misjudging the difficulty of a text.

At this point I can’t resist quoting one of the legends of classical piano playing, Josef Lhevinne (who died in 1944): ‘The [piano] teacher often makes the mistake of living up in the clouds with Beethoven, Bach, Chopin and Brahms, never realising that the pupil is very much upon the earth, and that no matter how grandly the teacher may play, the pupil must have practical assistance within his grasp’. Indeed: Jane Austen might be great, but it’s not about you, the teacher: it’s about what you do with the text and the pupils. It’s not about your taste: it’s about your goals. Do not confuse the idealisation of literature with its use in class.

 

Books put on a list by a teacher (or a team thereof) is a difficult one as well: well-meant as a guide and array of possibilities, they often suffer from an over-abundance of titles – too much choice kills choice. They also commonly remain in place for ever (if only because many are titles once bought by the school library), and often originate in one teacher’s liking (I once saw a list with four titles by Philip Roth…Four!). And they usually lack coherence, trying to cover all grounds but without continuity. And anyway: how many books on that list will the teachers have read? What do they do with those they haven’t read then? They can’t discuss them, they can’t help the learners get through them: those texts are not used for their value as teaching-tools, they fall in another categories: one of those above.

 

By this point you are wondering how on earth anyone can choose anything for any group of leaners: this is no good, that is no good – should we give up on any of those approaches? Should we just chuck books in the bin?

No, of course: we have to move away from the either/or approach, and realise there are many shades in-between. As I have argued elsewhere (click here), text selection should first and foremost be dictated by your aims: what do you want to achieve with your learners? What do you want them to do, develop, learn and achieve?

Surely it cannot be ‘literary taste’: that is built over time and effort, and reading a couple of books a year simply won’t do.
‘Reading is fun’ is a teacher-centred, moralistic approach (most people don’t think it’s fun at all, and in fact reading is hard work).
‘Reading motivation’ hits the same snag: how can you motivate someone to invest hours of highly-focused concentration multiple times a week, when tik-tok calls?
‘Linguistics aims’ are fine of course, but then any text would do, including non-fiction. Ditto ‘knowledge about the world’.

But when it comes to using a text, milking it for all it’s worth – when it comes to thinking about the world, opening your eyes, opening your mind – then text-selection is bound by one rule only: how is that text going to help me discuss what I want to discuss? How can I use this text so that it becomes an instrument in the service of my (social, societal, citizenship-related) goals? And whatever the status of the texts you are considering, nothing matters more than that one question: is it a good instrument?

 I don’t use a saw to cut my nails: same difference.