The Death and Resurrection of a Coherent Literature Curriculum
What Secondary English Teachers Can Do
By (author) Sandra Stotsky
Publication date:
15 June 2012Length of book:
164 pagesPublisher
R&L EducationDimensions:
236x158mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781610485579
This book is addressed to teachers who know that the secondary literature curriculum in our public schools is in shambles. Unless experienced and well-read English teachers can develop coherent and increasingly demanding literature curricula in their schools, average high school students will remain at about the fifth or sixth grade reading level—where they now are to judge from several independent sources. This book seeks to challenge education policy makers, test developers, and educators who discourage the assignment of appropriately difficult works to high school students and make construction of a coherent literature curriculum impossible. It first traces the history of the literature curriculum in our middle schools and high schools and shows how it has been diminished and distorted in the past half-century. It then offers examples of coherent literature curricula and spells out the cognitive principles upon which coherence is based. Finally, it suggests what English teachers in our public schools could do to develop a literature curriculum that gives all their students an adequate basis for participation in an English-speaking civic culture.
The Death and Resurrection of a Coherent Literature Curriculum is a timely and measured study of a problem that only seems to get worse. Reading scores for high school students are flat since the early 1970s and down since the early 1990s. Writing scores are also down in recent years. Remediation classes in college are packed. Stotsky explains why. It's not because of budget cuts, or a rising multi-ethnic student population, or too much text-based accountability. It's because of certain ideas and attitudes that came forward in the 1960s and prevailed in the highest centers of professional power and influence in education—in English departments in our colleges and universities and in English education and reading departments in schools of education. Using abundant historical material, Stotsky recounts a troubling tale of the abandonment of our national literary heritage, the substitution of sentimental aims for academic aims, and the intimidation of people who raised doubts about those changes as they happened. She also finds some hope in the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Her final chapters chart a path toward restoration of a coherent and demanding literature curriculum in our public schools, and support for those secondary English teachers who are confident of its content and eager to produce more knowledgeable and skilled graduates. This study should be on the syllabus of every English education course in the country.