What Should High Schoolers Read?

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

New York Times Opinion

New York Times, Journalism, News, Society & Culture, Ross Douthat

4.0 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Book banning has surged in America’s classrooms. The free speech advocacy organization PEN America has compiled a list of more than 1,500 reported instances of books being banned in public schools and libraries in less than a year. As students head back to school, what are the books we do and don’t want our kids to read? And what are the values America’s students are meant to take away from the pages of books? So on this episode of “The Argument,” Jane Coaston is talking to two writers and teachers to figure out what high school English syllabuses should look like in 2022. Kaitlyn Greenidge is a contributing Opinion writer and novelist who has taught high school English and creative writing, and designed English curriculums for for-profit companies. Esau McCaulley, also a contributing Opinion writer, is an associate professor at Wheaton College. Greenidge argues that at their best, English classes and the books read in them should be a place to find mutual understanding. “When you’re talking about what we should read in English class, you’re really talking about how to make a common language for people to talk across,” Greenidge says. But the question of whose stories are included in that common language — especially when it comes to what makes up the Western canon — is especially fraught. And to McCaulley, how teachers put a book in context is just as important as what their students are reading in the first place. “That’s what makes discussions around the canon complicated,” he says. "Because the teacher has to be able to see these texts as both powerful and profoundly broken, because they’re written by humans who often have those contradictions in themselves.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the argument. I'm Jane Kostin.
0:07.8	What should high schoolers read? It seems like a simple question, but it's not.
0:13.4	Book Bans are a historic high. Recently, the free speech group Pan America has recorded
0:18.2	more than 1,500 examples of books being banned to remove from schools. This isn't new
0:23.3	exactly. There have been debates over the adventures of Huckleberry Finn or to Kill a
0:27.4	Mockingbird. But now contemporary books like Gender Queer by Maya Covey and The Hate
0:32.5	You Give by Angie Thomas are under scrutiny too.
0:37.2	What students can access at school matters? To me, English class is one of the few spaces
0:41.7	we have left where students are forced to wrestle with big ideas, especially with people
0:45.9	who disagree with them. So today, I want to get into what we're really talking about
0:50.3	when we debate high school reading. What ideas and experiences are we saying are okay
0:55.0	or not to teach in the classroom? My guests today are Caitlin Greenage and Eatsoma
1:00.3	Colley. Caitlin is a contributing opinion writer and the author of Two Nobles, including
1:05.5	Liberty. She's helped design English curriculum for schools and taught writing for nearly
1:10.3	15 years. ESA is also a contributing opinion writer and a professor at Wheaton College.
1:15.9	He's the author of Rating While Black, African American biblical interpretation as an
1:20.4	exercise in hope.
1:27.9	Hi Caitlin, hi ESA. Hi. Hello. Thank you so much for joining me to talk about school.
1:33.9	It's funny, you know, when I graduated from high school, I was like, great, never have
1:37.3	to talk about school again. Never have to wake up at 6.30 in the morning again. Here
1:41.4	we are. So I thought it would be helpful to start out the conversation with a throwback
1:46.2	question just to get us grounded. Caitlin, what was high school English class like for you?
	...

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