The Problem of Plagiarism: Asking Why - Part 3 of 5

In my last post, I attempted to investigate and complicate the way in which we commonly define plagiarism.  It is impossible, however, to discuss a more multifaceted understanding of plagiarism without then going on to consider how that understanding complicates our assumptions as to why students plagiarize. When we perceive plagiarism to very simply be cases in which students "steal" the words or ideas of others in order to pass them off as their own, we reduce the list of potential motivations down to laziness and deceitfulness.  Either a student couldn't be bothered to complete her own work or she just wanted to cheat the system and get away with literary theft.  If, however, we are going to consider plagiarism as occurring over a spectrum, as we did in my prior post, then we must be willing to consider the corresponding spectrum of situations and rationales that might prompt students to engage in these different kinds of plagiarism.

In her article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rebecca Moore Howard captures the danger in a simplistic rationale for why students plagiarize, saying, "by thinking of plagiarism as a unitary act rather than a collection of disparate activities, we risk categorizing all of our students as criminals." It is not only demoralizing and harmful to minimize all our students in this way; it is also inaccurate according to the often-quoted-in-this-blog Keith Hjortshoj and his co-author Katherine Gottschalk.  In their own classroom experiences, Hjortshoj and Gottschalk found that instances of plagiarism did not "correspond with integrity among the students" (Teaching Writing 118).  Drawing from their time teaching, they recount many instances in which an ethical and motivated student committed some form of plagiarism.  When reflecting on the numerous occasions in which they had to respond to plagiarism in their classrooms, Hjortshoj and Gottschalk say, "while all of these cases involve misrepresentation, their motivations and implications can be entirely different" (Teaching Writing 118).

Several recent scholars and organizations have begun theorizing on what exactly some of these different motivations might be.  Based on their research, I have compiled a list of just a few alternative reasons students could have for committing some degree of plagiarism.

• A General Lack of Ability: Jennifer Rabold has said, "I see plagiarism as an issue of students trying to enter the academic conversation unskillfully."  For a motivated student who wants very much to succeed in an assignment, but who does not have the skills to do so, it may be easy to either intentionally or unintentionally rely too heavily or incorrectly on outside sources.  As part of the process of further investigating this idea, the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA), Hjortshoj, and The Citation Project have identified a few specific skills-based pitfalls that students may fall into when attempting to incorporate outside information and voices into their writing.
  • Inability to Critically Read and Summarize Complex Sources: Work done by The Citation Project shows that, when citing sources in their papers, students summarized an outside work only 6% of the time, "indicating that they either could not or would not engage with extended passages of text."  The Citation Project's position on this is that plagiarism is unavoidable in situations where students are not able to critically read and interact with complex sources.
  • Lack of Established Personal Voice: When writing within the different academic disciplines, students are developing and exercising the ability to write using different voices and lenses required by the individual disciplines.  Students are being asked to write as experts in particular fields on particular topics, even though writing from that perspective and in that manner is very unfamiliar for them.  (I discuss this in more depth in my post on disciplinary literacy.) This lack of familiarity can cause students to lose track of where their ideas and words are original and where they borrow from outside sources.  Hjortshoj and Gottschalk explain this by saying, "The difficulties novice writers face in establishing an authoritative voice and position can make the task of quoting and citing real authorities very confusing.  Many students therefore drift into minor forms of plagiarism because the approach they have used does not give them a sense of position from which they can easily distinguish their ideas and voices from those of other writers" (Teaching Writing 119).
  • Confusion Surrounding the Technical Mechanics of Citation: It doesn't take much more than a casual thumbing through the most current MLA or APA handbook to establish that the list of rules governing correct documentation of the ideas of others is overwhelming for developing writers.  The WPA's Statement on Best Practices for Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism acknowledges that "students may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their texts."  A student writer may be genuinely overwhelmed or confused when trying to understand the guidelines and, as the WPA reminds us, "error is a natural part of learning."

• Cultural or Language Difference: American school systems and academics have a very specific understanding of what is appropriate and necessary when attributing credit for ideas and words.  This understanding is not objective and it is not shared equally on a global basis.  Hjortshoj and Gottschalk point out that "in some cultures... repeating what authorities say is almost a definition of learning."  It is understandably difficult for students coming from an international or multilingual background to understand what it means or why they would be asked to "take an independent or original perspective, especially when they truly have learned from others everything they know about the subject, including the language required to discuss it" (Teaching Writing 119).

• Time Constraints:  The modern American student has more demands on their time and attention than ever before.  A 2008 New York Times article reported that a high-performing high school had to enforce a lunch period after their students became so entrenched in extra-curricular activities, AP classes, and part-time jobs that they were skipping their midday meals.  The expectations on students to build resumes and accumulate accomplishments at an overwhelming rate have only grown since this article.  The WPA points out that students may make time-management or planning errors and "believe they have no choice but to plagiarize" in order to meet important deadlines.

This list is in no way meant to be comprehensive.  My only goal is to offer some different options to consider when thinking about why students fall into plagiarism.  While I emphatically acknowledge that blatant and intentional literary theft does indeed occur and demands response, I am attempting to advocate for the increasing number of student writers who authentically struggle with the ethics and complexities of citing sources.

In my admittedly limited experience and untested opinion, students are generally trying to learn, create good work, and live up to the expectations that are placed on them. The increasing levels of plagiarism in the academic system are much less an indication of decreasing interest levels and morality among students than they are of a sharp incline in the complexity of navigating outside sources.  The internet's limitless access to an impossible range of sources makes choosing, interacting with, and incorporating those sources a very challenging task.  This challenge is layered onto the already-difficult undertaking of composing a piece of academic writing.  Hjortshoj and Gottschalk identify that this process is, for almost all novice writers, characterized by "helplessness and confusion" (Teaching Writing 120).  Based on some of the research summarized in this post, it appears to be the case that this helplessness and confusion can fairly easily lapse into an incorrect use of the works of others.  I believe it is up to modern educators to remain sensitive to the variety of reasons students engage in different types of plagiarism.  This sensitivity is what leads to effective responses to plagiarism when it does occur, which is what I plan to address in my next post!

An Exploration of Literacy in the 21st Century

As high school English teachers, one of our major goals is to create literate students, equipped with flexible and complex writing and composition skills.  We want students to enter colleges and workplaces with a certain competence in formulating and articulating their thoughts, responses, and ideas.  But, in our current era of digital, globalized communication and technological workspaces, what does writing even mean anymore?  What does it mean to teach composition to modern students in ways that prepare them to function expertly in today's society? In their 2013 position statement, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), took a stab at answering those questions by attempting to define what it means to be literate in the 21st century.  Their definition pays close attention to the ways in which technology in particular has complicated the idea of literacy for our students, creating a need for students with multiple literacies capable of meeting the diverse needs of today's diverse society and culture. Their definition goes on to explain that...

"Active, successful participants in this 21st century global society must be able to

• Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology;

• Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;

• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;

• Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information;
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts"

The overall theme here and elsewhere is that writing is becoming increasingly screen-based.  Creating literate students, skilled in writing and composition, in the 21st century necessarily involves incorporating technology and digital writing.  Understanding this more complicated view of modern literacy creates an infinite number of new possibilities for writing pedagogy in the high school classroom.  Krista Kennedy points out that "the need to create assignments that reflect the reality of contemporary writing environments remains a pressing pedagogical concern, along with the need to prepare students for workplaces that are increasingly reliant on digital, global communication, and collaborative labor."  As high school teachers developing curricula and assignments intended to prepare our students for their post-high school lives, we need to allow this evolving understanding of 21st century literacies to shape the pedagogical choices we are making.  Digital writing genres such as blogs, twitter, email, and forums are now academic and rhetorical composition situations with which a literature student must be comfortable and confident.  Our assignments must increasingly focus on developing discerning creators and interpreters of multimodal compositions, including composition using images, sounds, and video.  Regardless of our comfort level with the idea, literacy for today's high school students means something different than it has meant historically.  In order to best serve our students, we as teachers have to adapt our expectations and classroom designs to meet this new understanding of a literate individual.

Over my next few blog posts, I'm going to be exploring some possibilities as to what it looks like to bring this 21st century definition of literacy into the high school English classroom.  I am planning on posting some of my research and ideas surrounding digital writing in the classroom as well as a few of the multimodal projects I have been working on as part of my graduate coursework.  My goal is to share some of my exploration into what literacy looks like for modern high school students and to join in the ongoing conversation of educators who are working through the complications of this new and rich pedagogical landscape.  As always, please do comment, ask questions, criticize, and/or correct!

A Very Transcendentalist Text Set

For one of my graduate classes, I was asked to put together a text set for use in a high school literature unit.  I chose to compile my text set around the ideals and concepts in Transcendentalist literature from the early 1800s; my goal was to create a body of texts that would work well in a literature unit for a 10th -11th grade class.  I had such a great time putting it together that I wanted to post it here to share and for my own records. To preface my text set, I wanted to include Cynthia Shanahan's thoughts on the definition of 'text,' which are very close to my own.

"When I refer to texts..., I am referring to a rather broad conception of that word, in that I refer to graphical or pictorial representations of ideas and spoken discourses as texts. Often these representations may seem more accessible than written discourse but are deceptively abstruse.  Yet, even as I refer to these other kinds of texts, the main treatment of them... is as items in set s of documents that always include written text, recognizing the primacy of written texts in schools and the importance of understanding them." (Ippolito, 143)

With this broader understanding of what a text is, my text set incorporates some interdisciplinary texts that do not fall under the traditional category of written discourse.  I started by including two visual texts, paintings by Thomas Cole.  Cole was, in many ways, a very large part of the Transcendentalist movement. He is considered to be the founder of the Hudson River painters, who are a group of painters creating work between the in the mid 19^th century. The Hudson River painters set out to create a uniquely American style, specifically in depicting unique American landscapes. Thomas Cole held that if American nature could be studied and left undisturbed by men, then man could meet God in that nature. This philosophy aligned very closely with the Transcendentalist movement, which was going on at the same time that the Hudson River painters were establishing themselves. Cole and the Hudson River painters created visual representations of the ideals and concepts that the Transcendentalist authors wrote about.

• Cole, T. View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm – The Oxbow. 1836. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. <http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/10497?=&imgno=0&tabname=label>

Retrieved from here.

There are several layers of meaning to Cole’s Oxbow painting. The tame farmland is juxtaposed next to the wild and uncultivated woodlands, suggesting the diversity and open potential of nature. He also contrasts the wild and untouched nature of the woods to the land that has been marked by human interference. Cole places a small and insignificant image of himself in the middle foreground of the painting, suggesting his own insignificance in the grandeur and vastness of American landscape. He is seated in the woodlands overlooking the open pasturelands, situating himself as separated from the human-altered landscape. The purpose of this visual text is complex and ambiguous, although the genre of a pastoral painting is something that most students should be familiar with. The organization and layout of the piece is fairly straightforward; there is no real background or prior information necessary to critically assess this piece.

• Cole, T. The Mountain Ford. 1846. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. <http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/10496>

Retrieved from here.

The Mountain Ford painting also carries several layers of potential meaning. The lone individual is deeply immersed in wild and unaltered landscape. The notable focal point of the piece is the white horse, which is an example of nature that has been conquered by the influence man. The man and his horse, however, are diminutive in relation to the grandeur of the surrounding landscape.  The shadow of the large mountain falls over the man and reflects beneath him in the water, giving the natural surroundings a sense of deification, power, and glorification. The purpose of the piece is again, vague and ambiguous, offering multiple interpretations. The genre should be familiar to students, organization is straightforward, and no background or prior knowledge should be required.

• Emerson, R.W. "The Snow-Storm." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 5th ed. Ed. by     M. Ferguson, M.J. Salter, and J. Stallworthy. New York: Norton & Company, 2005.   942. Print.

This poem is a clear and accessible demonstration of transcendentalist ideology.  In the poem, the mighty force of the overnight snow-storm builds beautiful, architectural snowdrifts and masterpieces in the “mad wind’s night work” (line 27). The implication is that what the artistry and creative spirit of nature is able to create overnight surpasses what humanity is able to do over centuries of architectural design and construction. The beauty of the snow covers over everything that man has made, leaving something far superior and more beautiful behind. Emerson deifies the snow-storm with the kind of generative power of a holy creator; the snow-storm comes in a night and creates beauty out of nothing.

The Dale-Chall Readability Index places this text at a grade level of 11-12^th grade, with 19% of the words not found on the Dale-Chall word list. Overall, this text would be a stretch text for an 11^th grade class, but would provide an opportunity to really wrestle with some of the ideals of transcendentalism.

• Fuller, Margaret. "Meditations." Poems & Poets. Chicago: The Poetry Foundation, 2015. Web.17 Feb 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182705>

Retrieved from here.

As one of the few women known to have impacted the transcendentalist movement, I felt it was important to include a piece from Margaret Fuller. Her poem ‘Meditations’ captures the sense of independent self and self-realization in light of nature’s greatness; this approach greatly characterizes the spirit of transcendentalism. This poem in particular explores the idea of finding deity within ourselves and recognizing the inherent goodness in man and nature.

The Dale-Chall Readability Index places this text at grade level for grades 9-10 with 14% of the words not found on the Dale-Chall word list. However, as the Dale-Chall Readability formula is unable to test for conceptual complexity of a work, I am identifying this piece as grade appropriate for an 11^th grade English class based on its fairly dense theoretical and philosophical meanings.

• Lewis, J. J. The Transcendentalists. 09 Sep 2009. Web. 17 Feb 2015. <www.transcendentalists.com>

Retrieved from here.

This website is a little dated, but it does have a somewhat comprehensive overview of the transcendentalist movement, the philosophies involved, work that resulted from the movement, and individuals who played major roles. The website offers photos, writings, as well as external links to material that all relate to transcendentalism in the 19^th century. It would be an excellent resource for students to explore and use to construct some independent background knowledge concerning literature created during this movement as well as the beliefs that informed that literature. In using this text set, a middle-stakes, independent research assignment could be assigned requiring students to gather information from this site.

The Dale-Chall Readability Index places this site as appropriate for grades 11-12, with 25% of the words not found on the Dale-Chall word list. I believe that this high score comes from the number of technical, web-based terms on the site. So, as long as students are familiar with online documents, this should not be a problem for them.

• Oliver, Mary. "Why I Wake Early." Why I Wake Early: New Poems by Mary Oliver. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. 3. Print.

Mary Oliver is a modern day poet; however, much of her writing and philosophy mirrors those of the Transcendentalist poets we would be studying in this unit.  This poem would give students the opportunity to reflect on Transcendentalist ideology outside of the time period in which we have been focusing, opening up discussion on whether or not that ideology is relevant today or for us as individuals.

In qualitative terms, the difficulty level of this poem is low.  The lines of short, simple, and use very basic vocabulary; syntax is standard and noncomplex.  Standard English is used and the literary devices are straightforward and easy to understand.  The meanings in the poem are simple and accessible; the purpose is easy to identify and reflect on.  Most genre norms for poetry are followed in this piece, so students will be able to recognize much of what Oliver is doing.  The Dale-Chall Readability index places this work at the 7-8^th grade reading level.  While this low reading level may not challenge students’ practical decoding skills, it will provide an opportunity to interact personally with the larger themes of this unit as well as to practice evaluating some of the Transcendentalist ideas we would have been studying.

• Porcellino, J., Thoreau, H. D., & Johnson, D. B.Thoreau at Walden. Hong Kong: Hyperion Books for Children, 2008. Print.

This graphic novel adaptation of Henry David Thoreau’s, Walden, boils down the original work, highlighting key concepts, ideas, and quotes.  These highlights are worked into the text’s artwork to create a unified sense of Thoreau’s journey and growth into his transcendentalist beliefs.  The excerpts from Thoreau’s work are not used in chronological order, but have been rearranged to suit a narrative tale that follows Thoreau’s decision to live outside of society and the insights he drew from that experience.  The intent of this novel is to give readers access to some of the central and most influential concepts in Thoreau’s work in a manageable and memorable format.

Qualitatively and quantitatively, this text is an interesting blend of complexity levels.  As far as genre, narration, and text graphics go, the text is fairly simple.  The genre of the comic book is well-known, the narration is linear, the plot-line of the story is clear, and the graphics are simple to comprehend.  However, the simplicity of the graphics does not remove the complexity of meaning from them.  There are several potential purposes and meanings for many of the frames and students will have to be able to sort through those messages.  The minimal text is largely figurative and conceptually dense.  The ideas put forth are philosophical and largely metaphorical.  Standard English is used; however, despite the deceptively simple format of the book, the register of the language is academic.  Vocabulary words such as “magnanimity” and “dictates” are used.  In order for the piece to make sense, my opinion is that background knowledge on Thoreau’s work Walden and the circumstances surrounding it is extremely helpful.

In order to assist with the contextual information, the graphic novel has panel discussions at the back of the book that explain both the graphic and verbal choices made by the author in light of Thoreau’s history, personality, and works; much of the necessary background information can be found in the book itself.  The Dale-Chall Readability Index placed panel discussions in the back of the book at a grade level appropriate for grades 11-12, with 25% of the words not found on the Dale-Chall word list.  When I entered text from the panels themselves, however, the Dale-Chall Readability Index placed it at a grade level appropriate for grades 7-8.  While this scoring may be accurate based on word use alone, the concepts and complexity of this text definitely surpasses 7-8^th grade appropriateness.  A phrase such as “making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day,” would score fairly low on the Dale-Chall Readability Index; however, the syntax and conceptual content of this phrase makes it much more complex.  Ultimately, the blend of complexity levels adds a level of complexity in and of itself.  This text would absolutely require guidance and explanation in order for students to access it fully.  I do believe, however, that it is a challenging and alternative way to interact with a major literary work from the transcendentalist movement.

• Thoreau, Henry David. "Chapter 2: Where I Lived, and What I Lived for." Walden (Or Life in the Woods). Virginia: Wilder Publications, LLC., 2008. 51-62. Print.

In order to have something to compare the graphic novel adaptation of Thoreau’s work against, it is important for the students to have experience with at least a small excerpt from the original.  This chapter constitutes a good representation of many of the themes and ideas explored by Thoreau.  Without taking class time to read the entire work, this excerpt will give students direct experience with one of the more important literary works of the Transcendentalist movement while also informing their interactions with Porcellino’s graphic novel.

In qualitative terms, this text is approximately grade level.  The stream-of-consciousness style in which the prose is written is easy to understand, but lacks a narrative structure, meaning that students will have to work to follow Thoreau’s trains of thought.  Many of the philosophical ideas or concepts that Thoreau reflects on are fairly complex and open-ended, which will create a mental challenge for the students; however the tone of the text is conversational and uses Standard English, making it accessible.  This chapter also features several references to outside texts which will need to be explained to student readers.  The Dale-Chall Readability Index places this text at a 7-8^th grade reading level.  Although the overall reading level is low, the text is punctuated by difficult vocabulary words such as “impounded,” “lustily,” and “auroral.” In considering the lower reading level combined with the more advanced vocabulary, extra-textual references, and some of the more advanced concepts and theories in the writing, I feel that this is a grade level text that will require some scaffolding in order to guide student understanding.

Conclusion:

Transcendentalism is one of my favorite themes through which to explore poetry.  I find that students connect easily with some sense of spirituality and peace through nature, making much Transcendentalist writing accessible and meaningful to them.  I also believe that attempting to write poetry in response to a feeling of connection or meaning found in nature is something that can be very therapeutic and rewarding for students.  My idea behind this text set is to help students explore the mindset of the Transcendentalist writers so that they can try to enter into that mindset in their own personal writing and reading.

The Genre of Hip-Hop Literature

I work in an urban, ethnically diverse school system.  My students have a more difficult time than most connecting with canonical classics such as The Scarlet Letter, A Tale of Two Cities, and 1984 for a wide variety of completely legitimate reasons. It is no big secret that I harbor something of a grudge against the exclusive use of canonical texts in the American classroom; more on this in a prior blog post.  I am a massive supporter of bringing non-traditional, non-Western, non-canonical texts into the high school curriculum whenever possible; I think it is an extremely important issue.  In general, this is why I am so excited by and impressed with Lauren Leigh Kelly's 2013 article, "Hip-Hop Literature: The Politics, Poetics, and Power of Hip-Hop in the English Classroom." Kelly's article explores the merits of using hip-hop texts in a high-school English classroom not just as a gateway into more canonical literature, but as a "genre worthy of independent study" (51).  In Kelly's opinion, using hip-hop texts as nothing more than a stepping stone to bridge the gap between student knowledge and canonical texts only further isolates many students from accepted canonical texts while privileging the predominantly white, Western culture of the canonical texts over the diverse, multicultural nature of hip-hop music.  In order to teach literature students, particularly urban and low-income students, to recognize the power behind their own individuality, personal experiences, and cultures, Kelly holds that it is necessary to teach hip-hop texts as a literary form in their own rights without juxtapositioning them against the traditional, Western canonical works.  Kelly argues that to deprive modern students of the opportunity to analyze and study literature from this genre not only deprives some students of the opportunity for identification and creation of ownership in a text, but it robs all students of the opportunity to learn about a relevant and culturally diverse art form that plays a major role in modern pop culture.

I am a big believer in using genre awareness to teach literature and composition; I also believe that it is important for students to explore genres outside of those seen as traditionally literary.  In order to understand the social and cultural nature of genre development, it is critical to analyze both academic and well-known literary genres as well as modern, more recent genres that play a larger role in pop culture.  Kelly's assertion that hip-hop literature is a genre in its own right fits well with the definition of genre that I hope to incorporate into my classroom curriculum.

Kelly stresses at several points that non-white students often feel disrespected and isolated in classrooms that focus exclusively on texts from a white, Western literary tradition.  Hip-hop literature finds its roots in a much more culturally diverse tradition that has the potential to appeal to a swath of students that may otherwise disengage from classroom activities based on their cultural heritage and feelings of underrepresentation.  In my future classroom, I would like to incorporate texts that offer students of non-white backgrounds the opportunity to see their own images and cultures portrayed in a literary work while also offering white students a chance to broaden their expectations for and experiences with literature and cultural traditions.  Hip-hop literature provides a culturally relevant and accessible way to do this.

Finally, hip-hop texts encourage students to exercise and develop fairly complex literary skills while engaging with material that appeals to their authentic, non-academic interest areas.  I believe that it is imperative to construct unit plans in a way that helps students take what they learn in the classroom with them once they leave the classroom.  An essential goal in teaching genre theory as a gateway to literary skill is to help students understand the social and developmental nature of genres and be able to apply that understanding to genres they see in their day-to-day lives.  Analyzing the genre of hip-hop literature provides a way for students to practice literary analysis on a literary art form that they are already familiar with, have a respect for, and interact with in their nonacademic lives.

Pop Sonnets: What Happens when Katy Perry Meets Shakespeare

My classmate, fellow teacher, and blogger friend from Inside the Gradebook opened my eyes to this hidden Internet gem recently and I have not been able to look away. There exists a Tumblr account that publishes Top 40 radio hits rewritten as Shakespearean sonnets; every Thursday a new "pop sonnet" is published.  Expect to see such classics as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper and "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry adapted into 14 lines and iambic pentameter.  Time Magazine even thinks this whole thing is worth noting.

Not only is this an incredible way to investigate literary interpretation and adaptation in the high school classroom, it is also a great addition to any study into the affordances and constraints of the Shakespearean sonnet as a genre.  The pop sonnets follow the genre norms flawlessly: three quatrains and a couplet following the abab, cdcd, efef, gg rhyme scheme, 14 lines, and iambic pentameter.  The author uses Shakespearean vocabulary, turns of phrase, and register, making these pop sonnets a fun and creative way to get students who are new to Shakespeare used to his style and language.  The practical classroom applications for these creative and funny poems are extensive.

We'll never know for sure, but I think Shakespeare would be a huge fan of pop sonnets.  He looks like the kind of guy who would have gotten a real kick out of all this.

Alternatives to the Canonical Heavy-Hitters

Behaviorist B.F. Skinner wrote “We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.  Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement.  Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.”  In this short quote, Skinner captures what I believe to be the lion’s share of where things are going awry with the literacy educations of students entering high school.  Our culture holds fast to a particular list of books that we feel any American student needs to have exposure to in order to qualify as truly literate and educated.  We shape much of our teaching policy and curricula around this list and how to best communicate it to students.  Generally, this list is referred to as the Western canon. Hemingway, Melville, Dickens, Hawthorne, and a host of their white, male colleagues preside over this canon with a certain rigidity that seems to have held our classrooms hostage for many years now.  While I hold these authors and their works in the highest esteem and often personal affection, I will be the first to say that I did not enjoy Melville’s “Moby Dick” in high school.  If the only books I had read in high school made me feel like Melville’s did, then I might never have grown to be the true lover of Shakespeare and Conrad that I am today.  My proposal, then, is that we explore the possibility of teaching a love of reading to our students in a way that will train them for lifetime literacy.

I am not suggesting that we torch the Western canon in the modern classroom.  Many of the teachers I have spoke with have reiterated the institutional importance of classic works in the classroom.  Several of the teachers I have discussed this with truly enjoy teaching the classics in certain circumstances.  For better or for worse, the classics are not something that we can ignore for the sake of our students, who will have to operate in the existing educational system.  I am suggesting, however, that we accompany this canonical education with authentic, enjoyable reading that falls outside of the hard lines of the canon.  I am suggesting that we explore ways to integrate everyday literacy and love of reading into the traditional, canon-based curriculum that we use today.  I am suggesting that we communicate in every way possible to our students the things that really matter about literacy.

The route I would like to follow in investigating this potential would be to search out accessible, non-canonical texts that have the potential to either pair with or, in certain situations, replace classical texts in the high school classroom.  If we can find a way to achieve our literary educational goals while integrating books that high school students will enjoy, relate to, and engage with, then we might be able to revive the idea of loving literacy as a lifelong skill.  Literature that might be able to achieve this goal would have to come from a more diverse background.  As opposed to the white, male authors of the canon, this supplementary literature would be authored by women or by multiethnic writers.

In our progressively diversifying classrooms, utilizing literature from a variety of ethnic backgrounds has been shown to increase the potential benefits for kids of non-white cultural and ethnic backgrounds.  Research shows that texts which relate directly to a student’s life and background are more likely to engage and appeal to them.  Florze-Tighe’s research demonstrated that culturally authentic literature notably enhanced the language development and thought processes of African-American children.  If we know this, as teachers, we need to be proactive about searching out texts that our multiethnic and female students can engage with and relate to on an authentic and personal level.  Our classrooms cannot be relatable and accessibly only for the white, male population.  Reading from strictly canonical classics can often make a curriculum inaccessible for even the white, male students.  I propose we explore creative ways to integrate modern, multiethnic, and female literature into the high school classroom without compromising our academic and curriculum standards.  In the words of Salem State University's Chair of English Theresa DeFrancis, “We need to stop spending all our time teaching our students stuff written by dead, white guys.”

I have created a list of sample, canonical texts that are traditionally used in the high school classroom.  From this list, I have researched and generated complementary literary titles that would pair well with these works.  My intent in creating these sample lists is to indicate the potential that exists to engage alternative learners, multicultural students, and female learners from a variety of backgrounds in ways that are meaningful to them without compromising the traditional values of what is considered to be “literacy” in the existing academic community.

Canonical Text	Alternatives/Complements
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter	Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson explores societal expectations surrounding female sexuality using strong symbolism to represent female and adolescent identity and themes. The Outcast by Jolina Petersheim is a modern retelling of Hawthorne’s novel placed in an Old Order Mennonite community. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel exploring religious and cultural ideas of female identity through the eyes of a young girl growing up in Iran.
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath	The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls is an honest exploration of modern-day homelessness and poverty. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende chronicles the story of a Chilean woman who leaves her home to travel to California and join the transient and feverish culture of gold rushers in 1849.
Orwell’s 1984	Feed by M.T. Anderson tells the story of a young boy living in a mechanized, dystopian future. Y: The Last Man by Bryan K. Vaughan is a graphic novel chronicling the story of the last surviving man navigates a dystopian world dominated entirely by women.
Dickens’ Great Expectations	Feed by M.T. Anderson tells the story of a young boy living in a mechanized, dystopian future. A Step From Heaven by An Na. Young Ju and her family emigrate from Korea to the United States, where they struggle to make their way.  The story follows Young Ju’s personal development from a young age until she heads to college.
Melville’s Moby Dick	White as the Waves by Alison Baird is a modern retelling of the classic told from the perspective of the whale. Moby Dick: The Graphic Novel by Lance Stahlberg is a graphic adaptation of Melville’s tale.

Ultimately, our students will leave our classrooms with whatever skills and knowledge we help and direct them to attain.  While I personally am very motivated to see my students graduate with a working knowledge of several of the most important classics in the Western canon, it is more important to me that my students know how to relate to, engage with, and respond meaningfully to a literary text.  It is critical to me that they know how to and desire to read texts in order to learn more about their world, the people around them, and themselves.  My ultimate goal is not necessarily to teach great books.  In B.F. Skinner’s words, my goal is to teach a love of reading and I would like to explore ways in which our academic community can do that for our increasingly diverse body of students.