Revamping High School Reads

I think high school literature needs a serious update. There are the “classics” we’re always required to read—Romeo and Juliet, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men—and while they’re great books that have valuable themes, they’re also so stale. 

They’ve been assigned on a loop to kids, and their parents, and their parents' parents. Most high schoolers can’t connect with or don’t care about Jay Gatsby and Holden Caulfield: they’re all often white, very Eurocentric, and authored by men. Anyone who has read a book published in the last five to ten years knows that there’s finally been the beginning of an overdue shift from that.

Now, I’m not saying that we should go and flood the curriculum with the Barnes and Nobles YA section, but we could definitely find more relatable and varied material that high schoolers are actually excited to read. Getting books into classrooms that are written by authors of color telling their own stories would be a huge start. Students reading about characters who look and experience the world like them; have similar familial or peer situations; or even eat a cultural food that they recognize would help them be more engaged not only with the novel, but in the class itself. And all types of representation matter; seeing LGBTQ+ characters could start conversations and allow those in that group to feel more comfortable in school. I don’t think this is being talked about enough.  

It is necessary for everyone to have characters who reflect their identity be the focus and heroes of books—authored by writers who share and understand those identities. Teachers and school administration need to take the steps to get that literature in front of students from an early age.