Crafting a reading list with an eye toward political correctness
and with a blind eye toward a cohesive English curriculum has been
tried at Gilroy High School in recent years
– and it has failed.
Crafting a reading list with an eye toward political correctness and with a blind eye toward a cohesive English curriculum has been tried at Gilroy High School in recent years – and it has failed.
The reading list controversy that won’t go away will keep erupting until district officials and GHS administrators start over from scratch on the high school’s core reading list as part of an overhaul of the entire English curriculum.
Even GHS Principal Bob Bravo admits the list needs some work.
“… What we haven’t seen in a while is criteria that looks at the books as a whole,” Bravo told reporter Lori Stuenkel, adding that “there are some books that aren’t the best choices.”
What GHS needs is a brand new list that’s part of an overall English curriculum overhaul. The reading list and curriculum must meet the following criteria:
• It challenges students at the appropriate reading level;
• It includes all the books that professors at University of California and California State University schools will expect incoming freshman to have read, discussed, analyzed and understood;
• It is comparable to the reading lists of other respected public high schools in the Bay Area and state;
• It includes important anthologies;
• Parental input is an integral part of the process of crafting the core reading list and curriculum.
We don’t advocate shying away from controversial literature. We do advocate eliminating political correctness and ethnic diversity as driving forces behind reading list selections. If the core reading list isn’t sufficiently diverse, then perhaps alternate selections or elective courses focusing on Hispanic literature or works by women of color can be offered.
But overhauling the list addresses just one symptom. We need to fix the disease: a lack of a consistent, cohesive curriculum in the GHS English department.
Much emphasis has been placed on aligning Gilroy High School’s courses with state standards. Allowing books on a core reading list that are below a freshman reading level does not move the school toward achieving that goal. It does not challenge students to grasp more sophisticated literature.
Worse, allowing a department to flounder without a clear and consistent curriculum does a disservice to teachers and students, and is a failure of a basic GHS responsibility.
Let’s put an end to the festering reading list controversy. Let’s get the GHS English department squarely aligned with state standards and an appropriate reading list is just one part of that process. A reading list as part of an overall English curriculum that encourages high achievement, challenges students and reflects community – and especially parental – involvement is the prescription to cure what ails the GHS English department.
And whatever committee, task force or process is used to develop the reading list and curriculum, all participants must be prepared to check political correctness concerns at the conference room door.
