Canon Analysis

Photo Courtesy davis144

InXXXXXX High School’s Freshmen English course the following literary works will be studied this year: The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird, “The Necklace”, “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Gift of the Magi.” The entire “canon” is drawn from Learning Life’s Lessons Through Literature developed by Macomb Intermediate School District.  The entire curriculum is divided into units that center around a particular theme (all of which have to do with “life lessons”), for example To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on Inter-Relationships and Self-Reliance.  Each unit has supplemental selections that help develop the theme and student understanding.  Macomb developed the lesson plans by closely following the Michigan Merit Curriculum model for English 9.  Compare the Macomb ISD curriculum with the model from the Michigan Merit Curriculum from the unit on To Kill a Mockingbird:

Macomb ISD

Michigan Merit Curriculum model

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee “Jocks and Prejudice”, Nicholas Kristof “At Duke, a Scandal In Search of Meaning,” Anna Applebaum “Tough Questions in Durham,” Eugene Robinson “Keeping the Duke Scandal in Context” letters to editor Washington Post “Duke Men’s Lacrosse Team is Reinstated, and Warned,” Viv Bernstein and Juliet Macur Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, Barak Goodman Freedom’s Children ,Ellen Levine “Freedom” Langston Hughes “A Christmas Memory” Truman Copote “The Death of Emmett Till,” Bob Dylan Freedom Summer, Deborah Wiles Mississippi Trial 1955, Chris Crowe Getting Away With Murder, Chris Crowe

Narrative Text Realistic Contemporary Fiction, Novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Informational Text Opinion/Editorial “Jocks and Prejudice,” Nicholas D. Kristof, N.Y. Times, 6-11-06, http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/pdf/kristof611.pdf “At Duke, a Scandal In Search of Meaning,” Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 4-26-06 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042501589.html “Tough Questions in Durham,” Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, 4-25-06 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/24/AR2006042401395.html “Keeping the Duke Scandal in Context,” letters to the editor, 5-2-06 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101396.html “Duke Men’s Lacrosse Team Is Reinstated, and Warned,” Viv Bernstein and Juliet Macur, The New York Times, 6-6-06, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/sports/sportsspecial1/06duke.html?_r=1&oref=slogin “Duke Prosecutor Nifong Preps for His Own Trial” http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3100160&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312 “Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day”, Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times,1-30-06 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30lee.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The reading material is almost identical.  The units also follow the same suggestions, both the Michigan Merit Curriculum Model and the Macomb ISD model have the same thematic units.  The almost identical reading selections and thematic units did not happen by coincidence.

Since the introduction of “No Child Left behind” and the Michigan Promise schools have been under pressure to make sure that their students can meet proficiency levels on various standardized testing.  The schools are concerned about meeting proficiency for their Annual Yearly Progress reports in order to continue to get needed funding, and they need students to meet the requirements for the Michigan Merit Award.  If the students do not meet the proficiency levels then their parents will seek schools that have better testing scores and again schools will lose out on money.  Consequently, many of the schools, as well as the Macomb ISD, have adopted the recommended curriculum suggested by the state.  This was the rational Burr Oak High School used when the purchased the materials from the Macomb ISD.  However, XXXXXXX High  School does not have a policy that teachers are bound to instruct their classes solely from Macomb’s lesson plans, the plans were purchased as a resource.

XXXXXXX High School does not have a defined canon as matter of policy.  The only policy the district has focuses on the teaching of Michigan ELA Content Expectations.   The teachers need to ensure that all students can pass 70% of all the Content Expectations.  Grading is based on mastery levels of the content expectations.  How the contents are taught and what texts are used to teach the expectations is left up to the teacher and the limitations of budget.  Given that XXXXXXX High School has no defined policy, the question as to why this year’s English 9 class will be reading the selections they are reading needs to be addressed.  The short answer is that it was convenient for me as an instructor to follow the curriculum developed by the Macomb ISD.  An entire year of lesson plans has already been created and as a new teacher, it makes sense to follow a curriculum that I know will meet the state requirements.  The second short answer is that the school does not have much of a budget to purchase new materials, so using materials that are already purchased is cost effective.  I have been able to answer why I chose the materials and I have been able to answer why Macomb ISD chose to create lesson plans on the subjects, but I have not answered why the state chose texts it recommends.

The texts the state chose are far from progressive or contemporary.  According to “On the Margins in a High-Performing High School: Policy and the Struggling Reader,” Judith Franzak alludes to the teaching of Romeo and Juliet and The Odyssey as a phantom policy that “”every single freshman in every single high school’ was expected to read.” (Franzak 486.)  As far as a “traditional” canon exists, I believe that these two stories have secured their place in the freshman English courses in the United States.  I tend to agree with the teacher Alison Ames that  teaching these stories is a way of “conveying cultural capital” (Franzak 487).   The stories that have been chosen by the state are stories that appear on many standardized tests and are the stories that “everyone reads.”  Therefore, if a student wants to be able to gain acceptance into the educated culture, then they need to read these materials.  There is some evidence that lessons are receiving less traditional influences in the choices of supplemental material.    The Macomb ISD has poems and short stories written by minorities or from the perspective of minorities.  However, these materials are only taught in support of the main texts which are fairly homogenous in cultural diversity.

While I would like to include more diversity in the subjects I teach to the students. I do not foresee being able to make any radical changes to the main texts this year, due to budgetary constraints.  I have moved away from following Macomb’s plan and focused more on 21^st Century Skills as an emphasis in my instruction, which heavily stresses the need to understand diverse cultures in order to be competitive in a continuously shrinking world.