Trainor and Writing about Literature

“Throughout the academic year I spent at the high school, I observed two English classes taught by a woman I will call Elizabeth, a progressive, passionate teacher committed to her students and to social justice ideals”(83)  

High School is its own space with its own politics: academic and social. It’s the last frontier before students enter college, the work place- basically the real world. Trainor’s article makes this clear through the issue of race and insularity of the students within their town. Many of them, however, make it clear that they are not narrow minded but that racism does exist and they’ve had some connection to it; Ok, that’s a start. Literature, for this progressive teacher, is a way to expand the student’s exposure- or at least realize the lack there of-to other cultures; but the experiment, as I read it, falls short.

Progressive. Passionate. Committed. All great qualities to embody. But the whole “positive” movement/attitude/ideology seems to only keep the bias going. If everything is all sunshine and rainbows then it’s not a real representation of the real world; but what does this progressive teacher do, what does this article for that matter accomplish: well, it’s a good example of in-the-field observation, understanding that the students’ bias is complex enough to be studied through composition and literature, and that High School teaches more than the three Rs(four Rs), one for racism.  

Toni Morison- An example of exposing students to great writers writing in untraditional dialects, excluded experiences, and empathy for other human beings. When I think about reading material for students, I want things short enough so it can be read multiple times if needed, it’s not overwhelming , and usually a piece of literature: short stories or poems. But the selection process, and this is more towards my thesis, has to be more tactical. So maybe the problem lies in the selection; a practical alternative:

If I were to select a companion text to Morrison, but still talk about the themes that the progressive teacher wanted to cover, I would suggest James Baldwin’s Giovanni’ s Room: its narrated by a white man, written by a Black author, and deals with the discrimination of its white, gay, American protagonist experiencing expatriation.

What I want to do is find a common ground with the way students write about literature, possibly by giving them a chance to select their own material, not just their own writing prompts, and see if they can write/engage/appreciate/ relate/and expand  on the words of writers like Morrison.