When I started tallying up all the books I have read so far in high school, I found that a majority of them shared something in common. While the stories were completely different, they were all written through the lens of the same kinds of authors: white males. This lack of diversity in books often leads students to feel a sense of disconnect and an inability to relate to certain reads.
“To Kill a Mockingbird”, “The Lord of the Flies”, and “The Great Gatsby” are all books that have been staples in the English curriculum and are taught almost every year for their respective grade levels. The books that are repeated and read the most are all by white men. With only 4% of MHS students being white and 48% of students being women, according to publicschoolreview.com, books written by only white authors will not resonate with a vast majority of the student population. Not only are students unable to see the full scope of what could have been going on in certain time periods, students also are not able to relate to the stories they read.
While the aforementioned books are seen as “classics,” that does not mean they should be repeatedly taught. What in fact makes a classic book a classic? Who decides this and why does that mean students need to read it? The age those books were written do not reflect the current times and, despite having valuable themes such as prejudice, civilization, and greed, they are not the only books with these same core topics. There are many books written by authors from different cultures, genders, and experiences that could illustrate topics in ways that show larger pictures than that of the current books in place.
When core books in the curriculum are written by white authors, students cannot properly learn about the experiences of other groups. Works like “To Kill a Mockingbird” show the experiences of Black men and women through the eyes of a white author. This inevitably causes there to be fabrication and does not truly show the experiences of Black people in that time period. Reading works written by the groups a story is about, allows students to read the truth and observe a fuller picture.
While MHS does make efforts to diversify the curriculum, the books that have been incorporated are still yet to be as widely taught as the “classics.” For example, “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros has been in the curriculum for many years but is still not as widely taught. When I asked my friends about books that they have read so far, books such as “The Great Gatsby” and “The Catcher in the Rye” were mentioned. While this is just my experience, it helps to illustrate how, despite having books in the curriculum that are written by diverse authors, the books that are being read are still predominantly by white males. This can be fixed by making some of the core books that are read each year having authors of different backgrounds.
Although some might argue that incorporating more diverse books into the curriculum will just be a hassle, as teachers will have to create new lesson plans to accommodate the new books, I would argue that it offers students more opportunities to learn about different people. The education system is built to inform students, so incorporating books that would inform students more about certain topics is worth it, even if it does cause the need for new lessons to be created.
The solution is obvious: more diverse books need to be incorporated into the curriculum. There have already been books found that have similar themes to “classics” but are written by more diverse authors, such as The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez. Although new lessons need to be created and some classes need to be restructured, students being able to relate with what they read and see the experiences of different groups is more important.