High School Canon Analysis

Who should choose the books for the class to read, teachers or students? I support the decision to let students pick the reading for next school year. The first reason is that students will be more focused on the book because they like it. Next, students will get good grades because they have actually read it. Lastly, they understand it more because they picked their level.

Sending kids to school knowing that they are going for educational purposes and then restricting them on what they can and cannot learn is hypocritical. Schools should be allowed to keep Fahrenheit 451 in their curriculum. Controversial issues are brought up everyday in and out of school and issues, like profanity, included in a book gives the story emotion and sets the tone. Timothy Jay, a psychologist and linguist, argues,

In recent years, changes have been made because social issues and the dramatic increase of minority in the communities. An example of these changes is primarily due to the large migration of English Language Learners that are entering the school systems. This is a positive change for the social studies education. However, this can overload the teacher and curriculum that is bursting at the seams with programs that lack clear purpose (Pace,J.L.,2011). This is why the NCATE had embodied that all teacher programs be aligned with professional and ethical standards to prepare teachers to facilitate learning that will enable our students to acquire the knowledge and be productive citizens that can compete in society.

Adopted by forty-two out states in 2010, the Common Core State Standard Initiative strives to provide an educational structure which details what English language arts and mathematics should be taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The initiative is the federal government’s attempt to ensure all students who graduate from high school are adequately prepared to enter a two or four year college or the workforce. Despite their intentions, the Common Core has caused much controversy in the education community. The thought behind Common Core is very valid and has the potential to help students, however changes must be made to unrealistic standards and wordy statements. Common Core must first be rewritten so that the language is clear and can be easily understood by the general public. Next ask experts on childhood development and elementary school teachers to review the standards and rewrite standards they see as unneeded or irrelevant as well as unrealistic.

The Street of the Canon by Josefina Niggli and Chee’s Daughter by Juanita Platero and Siyowin Miller ,they both depict how the two main characters, Pepe Gonzalez and Chee embark on a “personal” journey or adventure they experienced. Pepe Gonzalez talks about the events that led to the people of San Juan Iglesias and the people of Hidalgo to not speak anymore. Chee, the father of little embarks on the events that led to losing the possession of his daughter to Old Man Fat and his wife.

In the late sixteenth century, a religious reform arose among the church of England. The puritanism reform brought foundation to the religious, intellectual, and social structure in New England. Puritanism closely relates to the Amish which is a christian church that connects to the protestant reformation also in the sixteenth century Europe. The puritanism and Amish both are hundreds of years old as is the American Literary Canon. This canon consists of american literature from different authors at different times. The Judgement by Beverly Lewis should be a part of the literary canon because it opens deeper perceptions about the lives of the Amish women. It also provides insight for readers to the complex struggles Amish women faced with religion, society, culture and the self.

“To appear in the Norton or Oxford anthology is to have achieved, not exactly greatness but what is more important, certainly-status and accessibility to a reading public. And that is why, of course, it matters that so few women writers have managed to gain entrance to such anthologies” (Landow). If our nation were to follow the Norton or Oxford anthology, we would be mainly limited to the point of views of males, and we would only see the issues and themes that they try to portray through their writing. We would become oblivious to other issues that different genders and races have to go through. There are plenty of books which discuss these issues, but they were banned due to many different reasons. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is banned due to racist slurs that make the majority of the public uncomfortable. The book is banned even though the many themes in the novel can still be applied to today. If a national curriculum were to be put in place, would our nation choose these banned books to be required text or would they steer clear of these texts to avoid

The literary canon is those works considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the most important to read and study, which collectively constitute the “masterpieces” of literature. (Meyer 2175) In the past there has been much debate on whether non-fiction should be considered for inclusion in the canon, but non-fiction writers being considered part of the canon is not unheard of, and is already a reality – George Orwell, Henry David Thoreau, Ernest Hemingway- all had a significant body of non-fictional work and are well respected, well established members. Sonja Livingston’s work is part of a genre called creative non-fiction. As stated in his article for The Writer, Lee Gutkind states, “Creative nonfiction-also called "new

The educational system in the United States was originally developed using concepts from around the world, created using ingenuitive ideas from countries such as China, Japan, and Korea. However, as the United States quickly moved into position as the leading country for state-directed educational standards, America looked less and less to the systems of other nations and more into how we could improve what was locally and currently being applied in education. Consequently, an improved type of education instruction was officially launched in 2010. These new state standards, practically titled Common Core, were declared to focus on developing a child’s skills in reasoning, problem solving, communication, and competition (Conrad, et al. 52). While the standards are professed to be an extremely practical and beneficial method of teaching today, there are issues which have recently surfaced and raised some concerns. The Common Core State Standards are emerging as the subjects of a provocative controversy in society today as they prompt discussion on global economic efficiency, nationwide academic standards, and the ultimate well-being of school-age children.

Why should high schoolers be forced to read a book that isn’t interesting to them? Often times they either do not apply to real life situations or even teach anything that a teenager would understand. So, the high schooler skims through the book and does not pay attention to any detail. High school classrooms need better books that can teach history in a fun way, and add some interesting things to which students can reflect and think on. A book read in high school, should allow the students to think critically about the text they are reading, should include some references to history, and incorporate themes that are understandable and relatable to a high school student’s life. This makes a book want to be read as well as enjoyable. The

Education in the United States is in an abysmal state. It continues to spiral downward as students and educators fail to meet standards. The standards are then altered on a patchwork basis throughout the states. The goal is no longer to have a high standard educational system. The goal now is to maintain the status quo, allowing students and educators to strive for the minimum. There is no common approach to achieve success. Incipit Tragoedia, in comes the Common Core, agreed upon by educators, politicians, and

“Without Common Core we (America) are not where we want or need to be.” The New York Times reported this in August, 2013. Currently, every state sets its own curriculum for its schools. The result is that the United States ranks “25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading compared to students in 27 industrialized countries.” Without national standards, students depend upon the luck of where they were born or schooled to get a comprehensive education that will prepare them for life. If the United States is

I was interested in reading a book from a well-known author and an author I am familiar with. Ms. McMillan is an American Author is probably known best for her works (well at least to me) Waiting To Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Both of these novels were also adapted into films starring Angela Basset and other well-known actors of color. That is another reason I wanted to read this novel, it was a diverse piece of work. Currently I am trying to include a lot of diversity into my own works and library. As a woman of color it’s important that representation is out there. However, and do not get me wrong in every single piece of work I wrote includes representation in some way!

According to the prompt, “Students in high school English classes in the United States can read texts that vary widely from school to school” (Prompt). In today’s world, different countries and nations vary in ways. However, one variation between countries that has came to notice, would be the fact that most nations have a defined national school curriculum, while other countries, such as the United States, do not (Prompt). This also means that students in countries other than the United States may all read the same books in high school, while students in the U.S. could read different texts in wide range from school to school (Prompt). The United States’s choice to not have a set English class reading curriculum for high schools has both, its advantages and disadvantages. Some individuals feel that this is positive because it creates diversity from classroom to classroom across the United States, while others feel that it is negative because having the same reading curriculum would ensure that students are gaining the same education and are reading material that is appropriate. However, high school English classes should not all have the same reading curriculum because it will limit the amount of opportunity for students, as well as it would exclude non popular and more recent pieces of writing.

Numerous nations have a concrete national school syllabus. However, some do not, such as the United States. Consequently, students enrolled in an English class, within the United States, read a miscellany of texts, which differentiate from school to school. Due to the fact that some nations have a stipulated national school curriculum, those nations enforce that all students read the same texts. This ultimately poses the question whether all students of high school English should be required to read definite texts or books. There should not be specific texts that all students of high school English must read, due to the fact it hinders cultural insight, and literary canon books are beginning to abate.