Selecting Texts

July 10, 2008

For what purposes do we select texts for our students to read? Years ago, I sat in an English department meeting discussing reasons that the novel A Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane had been chosen years before as a core text for all American Literature courses in our elective program. Actually, the question was raised about the text, “Is the Red Badge of Courage working in your classes?” No, most of us agreed, so we quickly voted to end its tenure as a core (required) text in our program. In fact, we agreed that if students were reading a one thousand page novel (many were pouring over It by Stephen King) but would not at least saunter through a novel one tenth the length, then there must be a problem. Furthermore, Stephen Crane was unceremoniously deleted—none of his short stories or poems would be required. Admittedly, students in my class appeared disinterested in the text, so avoiding it through attrition would save me the dilemma of “teaching” the novel to students who did not like it. However, what assumptions did we hold about the dilemma that Red Badge presented and the decision to eliminate it from the core list?

First, a little more context. Department meetings usually provided us with just enough time to address logistical questions and organizational issues, e.g., coordinating district testing, school policies (dress code and tardies were two favorites), what courses to offer and who would teach them, etc. Discussing text selection fell into this category: it was something that had to be done and very little time was devoted to this occasional chore. At that meeting we also agreed to replace Red Badge with a choice of Black Boy by Richard Wright or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (we needed “more diversity” of texts).

So what were assumptions that prompted our decisions, i.e., what were the warrants for our claims about the texts selected as core, or ones deleted? First, a text needed to “work,” i.e., students should like the story (although “like” only suggested subjectivity—another teacher in our department loved Wuthering Heights, another core text for the British Literature course); length wasn’t a deciding factor; and diversity was an issue that we needed to address.