Today’s
RTW Question from YA Highway: If you had the power to change school
curriculums, which books would you be sure high school students were required
to read?
I
love this question because it’s one I’ve thought about a lot; I had a great
English teacher for AP English both junior and senior years who introduced me
to the classics and I loved (most of) them. But I was that type of student. But for so many teens it’s more important to
get them reading a book they’ll find interesting—and find a way to include a
bit of a lesson, too. As disappointing as I find it, Shakespeare and Austen
just aren’t everyone’s cup of tea!
Here
are my suggestions—and yes, I couldn’t help but include a few classics!
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wide
Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
This pairing is so important that both my
high school teacher and a college
professor taught it. And although I don’t love Wide Sargasso Sea reading the two books side-by-side is a great
study in retellings, feminism, racism, and all sorts of possibilities.
You by Charles Benoit
Ever since I read Charles’ debut teen novel
I’ve wanted to send it to my high school with a big “USE THIS” note. This is
the perfect book for students—especially boys—on in a non-AP English track; it’s
compelling, gripping, and gritty. And it’s written entirely in second person,
which is a great way for classes to discuss point of view.
Go Ask Alice
Or a more contemporary story about teen
issues like drug use, suicide, pressures to be perfect. Perhaps Thirteen Reasons Why, or novels by Ellen
Hopkins and Amy Reed. Great classroom discussions!
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
We read a lot of Holocaust literature in my
middle and high schools—The Diary of Anne
Frank, Maus by Art Spiegelman, Night,
Dawn, and Day by Elie Wiesel. By
the end of each Holocaust unit I felt desensitized because the discussions were
so repetitive. The Book Thief, though, adds a really interesting and new
perspective to this literature.
And,
in addition to Jane Eyre you’d have
to keep some Shakespeare, at least one Dickens, one Austen, The Canterbury Tales, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby,
a poetry unit, and I’m sure there are
other classic curriculum choices I’m forgetting!
