How to Choose the Literature We Teach

          “We are never more one—in its singular and plural meanings—than we are when we read.” I wrote this in Week 2 of this course, in teasing out my thoughts on why we read and why reading matters. This concept is quite interesting—the idea that we are interconnected, understood, linked in some unseen way when we read, tapping into our shared humanity; while also engaging in the most individual, most true self, of acts, diving into our uncharted waters upon a journey of self-discovery, of soul-searching, of learning. I finished that paper with the following: “We keep reading because the pursuit of this intangible is just always slightly out of reach. We won’t stop because we realize that everyone else is reaching, too.” At the end of this course, having read articles and essays and literature and classmate’s thoughts, I believe this even more wholeheartedly.

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            In my future classroom, the role literature will play will be understandably multifaceted. I have an ever-growing, an ever-changing, love for the written word, for all it offers us and reveals in (and for) us. I had grand ideas to make it a long, drawn-out thing, a statement that I could use to encapsulate all I’ve learned and show where I plan to go. While trying to select just the right words and put them in just the right order, I was reminded about this course’s lesson on poetry. How sometimes the biggest things in life should not be told, but shown in the smallest of ways. In one of my favorite TV shows, they capture this idea beautifully when the youngest character finally gets to go home after the fighting in Korea. The writers of the show didn’t waste time on soliloquies about the effect this had on him. Instead, they wrapped it all up in one shot: his childhood teddy bear that he brought with him, a perfect metaphor for his youth and naivety, left sitting on his cot to poignantly remind us of the loss of innocence in war. They showed us in the smallest of examples one of the greatest of lessons. I don’t need dozens of words in a lengthy thesis to explain what role I want literature to play in my classroom. Maybe I just need one word, the right word.

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            The literature in my future classroom, whatever that class may look like, will be chosen based on one word: growth. This, to me, is the perfect word to describe the possibilities, the promises, of literature. It encapsulates my thinking at the beginning of this course, how my thoughts have been molded and expanded by the reading for this course, and my goals for my future classroom. It holds that seeking element of reading I have come back to time and time again in my reflections and responses: “In both children’s books and YA novels, and reading them when you are young and old, we ask for the author to share with us that which we are searching for in life. We want love, joy, humor, complexity, hard lessons, imperfect characters, happy endings…and not so happy endings. We want life. All of it. In stories we learn, we grow. It is our light and our dark which we find in the pages and illustrations.” Growth is exactly the statement, the objective, I wish to have for my classroom. It offers the opportunity to expand both our understanding of life, in all its diversity and wonder, and of self, our identities and beliefs and knowledge.

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          Underscoring my one-word statement, I have identified two different ideas that help explain and clarify what I want literature to do for my classroom. The first concept is identity, a word I have utilized throughout the course and now have a more profound appreciation for. In asking us to consider the definition of “normal” and discuss relatability and diversity over the last several months, I have come to recognize the importance of identity as it relates to reading. The identity of who the reader is, as well as the identities seen on the pages, are both relevant to my idea of growth.

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          In Week 8, we spent time reading articles on multicultural literature. Rudine Bishop’s article, “Selecting Literature for a Multicultural Curriculum,” discussed how including multicultural literature helps reshape, and redefine, “normal” for children by exposing them to different points of view, cultures, languages, and experiences. In selecting appropriate literature, the teacher must consider the relationship between linguistic elements and cultural representation (literary), the current landscape and what the literature says about culture (sociopolitical), and the merit of the book, as in what it teaches or reinforces for the students (educational). Expanding, or growing, the idea of normal is also a part of other facets of identity, like gender and sexual orientation. In the classic literature week, we read two Grimms’ fairytales and Gaiman’s retelling/adaptation of them in his novella, The Spindle and the Sleeper. Here, we got the traditional depiction of the damsel in distress and other literary tropes. But we also got Gaiman’s infusion of agency and power into his female characters, making one the heroine of his story, thereby challenging “traditional” fairytale gender stereotypes. In Week 9, we “complicated normal” by reading books and articles about LGBTQIA+ representation. In Watson, Hood, and Lasswell’s article, “Multicultural Inclusion of Lesbian and Gay Literature Themes in Elementary Classrooms,” they discussed how “normal” is conflated with heterosexuality: “anything that functions outside of our heterosexual system is then considered abnormal, dysfunctional, and, at times, deviant.” Each week, we were asked to consider what makes up identity, what makes up normal, for us as readers. Until this course, I never once considered my definition of normal; thus, I never truly expanded my horizons of my definition of identity. With the diverse selections for this course, I was exposed to literature I never would have previously read or would have related to.

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          Why does this matter? Well, who we are as readers has a tremendous influence on what we get out of reading. How we identify has an impact on the lessons we glean and the ideas we gravitate towards on the page. So, relatability—of characters, situations, conversations—is an important component of diverse representation. In my second response paper, I argued: “On the surface, relatability contains a visual component. It is important for readers, especially children, to see protagonists who look and sound like them with respect to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and dis/ability. The visual component should exist, should be diverse, because that is a leaping-off point, a doorway, a key hole for someone with just the right key.” No matter who we are, we should be able to find ourselves authentically on the page.

 

          To me, this is that one, in the individual sense, that who we bring with us to the literature we consume. I see identity, as it relates to my concept of growth, as all about an inner growth. It is shining the light inside to see what else we can discover about ourselves. Knowing yourself more deeply, searching the very edges of your soul, is how you will start to grow. You are engaging in the act of discovering yourself, of growing yourself, by using literature as your map, your compass, your flashlight. In doing so, you realize what you are a part of, where you can call home. Books offer us profound revelations about humanity and about the innermost workings of our minds—choosing ones that promote this introspection, this reflection, is exactly what I aim to do.

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          The second concept for my goal of growth is two words that go hand in hand: curiosity and empathy. Last week, I quoted a famous poet and another favorite TV series in my concluding paragraph with the line, “Be curious, not judgmental.” This is exactly the phrase with which I would want my students to approach literature. The act of reading is a search, and we as readers need to be curious enough to dive into the emotional undercurrents of language and empathetic enough to recognize that there may be limits to the relatability of the literature. Otherwise, we are limiting ourselves, depriving ourselves of the opportunity for development and profundity. Armed with both curiosity and empathy, one cannot help but grow.

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          In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown says: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” If we are not exposed to new language, to new experiences, to new identities, then our world is limited. The exposure is important, but just as important is our head and heart space. Week 3 was a challenging one because it forced me to be uncomfortable. We read Memories of Survival, Stepping Stones, and Refugee, all books with which I shared no identities or labels or similarities. Still, by leaning into the uncertainty around the stories, I was able to connect with their deeper themes and messages. I didn’t need to see myself on the pages to find myself in their humanity. Upon reflection that week, I wrote: “Reading is an act of searching for our humanity, connecting to others, knowing ourselves better. I have little to nothing in common with the children from any of the four stories we’ve read and yet I can relate to each one. Isn’t that beautiful? I don’t need to have crossed oceans, lived in different times, sought refuge in other lands to understand the emotion in the story. Those feelings expressed on the pages are our links to others, a commonality we can all draw upon.” Staying in your curiosity as a reader, and starting from a place of empathy, ensures that the who you bring with you won’t get in the way of you relating to the story.

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           This is the outer growth, the connected growth, the expansion growth. It is discovering all that exists in the world that you were unable to see before, relating to characters you look nothing like because of the universality of emotion. By including diverse and challenging literature in my classroom, by starting with growth, I want to offer my students every opportunity for transformation. Over this course, I have read literature that has broadened my view of the world. They have highlighted things I’ve never had to previously consider and realities that have never been my own. I have been given the space for empathy and curiosity in my own studies and engagement with literature; so that is what I want to offer my future students. By choosing a growth mindset, by committing my future classroom to the idea of growth, I am choosing to expand my limits and theirs. It is the one collective, the us of reading. The ties that bind, the human links, the unseen connections. As Smith described empathy in “Why Literature Matters”: “This act of caring exercises the soul and may immunize against an increasingly uncaring world.” For me, there is no unrelatable literature when you come from a place of empathy and curiosity.

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          Growth, both within and without, is an opportunity. Engaging in this action, by understanding your identity and reading with empathy and curiosity, ensures students will always find a challenge and a chance. Throughout this course, the articles, literature, and group discussions helped me refine and deepen my understanding of identity. In doing so, in forcing me to confront ideas, labels, and cultures I never had before, I had to read purposefully with curiosity and empathy. Ultimately, I had to be okay being uncomfortable and being in the unfamiliar, because without these two qualities, growth cannot occur. I would want this same experience for my future students. I want them, and the literature I choose, to be this expansion, this safe space for daring and dreaming. I want literature to speak to their multifaceted, intersectional identities, giving them new shades and layers to their labels and beliefs. But I also want to expand their worldviews, challenge their echo chambers, bring in new information to show them what else is out there. All literature is growth. All literature offers a mirror, a sliding door, a window. All literature can deepen and magnify. Diverse literature offers the chance to hear about a life so unlike our own in the pursuit of understanding others, while also offering the chance for a student to see themselves on the page in order to gain more knowledge about themselves.

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          I have come to value this delightful challenge that literature provides; the gauntlet tossed to the dirt. I relish the chance to grow. Funny that this should be the word I stand behind, that I choose as my statement of intent for my classroom. In Week 2, Hintz and Tribunella described children’s literature as the link between our childhood and the childhoods of everybody else. The nexus, the point of connection. It is the fusing of our identity with the identities and lived experiences of everyone else. I ended my summation of their chapters in Reading Children’s Literature: A Critical Introduction with the sentence: “Children’s literature is the space for adults to reflect on their lives, to interrogate their assumptions about childhood, to relearn old lessons; it is also the space for children to grow, to understand themselves, and to learn.” Even then, I was writing about growth. In fact, in every response paper I’ve written for this class, I’ve discussed the concept of growth, referenced it as an ideal and a goal to attain. Here, at the end of all things, I am more committed than ever to growth in my future classroom. We are invited to the battlefield, the playing field, the common ground of literature in order to share it with others and share it with ourselves. We engage with literature for reflection and for growth, for knowledge and for progress. So growth is the best word I can select to encapsulate all I have learned, all I hope to achieve in a future classroom, and all I value about children’s literature.