By: Madelyn Moore
The genre of classic literature may be argued to be the very foundation of modern literature. The classics continue to firmly remain widely recognized, and they delve deeply into the purpose or meaning of literature.
Yet, one cannot deny the slow shift away from teaching “the classics” within schools, and there is often a gradient of opinions regarding the topic.
Mark Carter, English teacher at Salem High School, explained that classic literature is much more rich and meaningful than popular literature.
“Classic literature is timeless, dealing with issues and themes that still affect us today,” he said.
Carter has been teaching for more than 30 years and has seen the curriculum, especially in English, being “dumbed down.” He does not have an issue with popular literature, but does not think we should leave the classics in the past.
“In my opinion, eliminating the classics has actually had the effect of weakening students’ reading skills,” he said. “By completely eliminating the classics, students are no longer challenged and are not developing the ability to read and analyze difficult texts.”
Carter explained that for something to be considered a classic, it must stand the test of time. Despite their flaws, he believes that The Hunger Games and Harry Potter will still be read in the future.
“Whether they will ever be considered classics remains to be seen,” he said.
Nicole Purlee, a freshman English teacher at SHS, believes that the shift was to be expected.
“I am not against the shift away from teaching classics,” she said. “Reading and the teaching of reading, including the content used, is something that is impacted by change.”
Purlee believes this is potentially due to changes in society, education and legislation, explaining that as a teacher, she needs to make sure content is relevant to student experiences.
“However, that does not mean that classics are not still relevant and cannot be used,” she said. “I have also seen educators move away from whole texts/novels to using excerpts in some cases because of relevance and purpose.”
Purlee has an abundance of students who can connect more recently published texts to some of the classics currently taught. In addition, she has some students who show a preference for "classic" texts over current texts.
“It allows for these students to share during class discussions more at times; a lot of my honor students, especially, connect their independent reading books to things we have read in class,” Purlee said.
Anna Lange, a junior at SHS, explained that she feels students in this time do not find value in learning as much as students in the past, which caused a change in the literature taught so that it would be more digestible for students.
Lange was under the impression that curriculums have tried to make English studies easier on students by keeping the use of classics until high school, not before. She thinks this is why students find the classics boring and difficult nowadays.
“If students were raised on the classics, they would surely find that it is much more intellectually gratifying, and it would lead the way for them to crave more content that promotes critical thinking and deeper understanding of oneself,” Lange said.
She holds the view that “The Hunger Games” is a masterpiece and warns about the dangers of giving governments more power than people. But teaching such books should be balanced with others.
“When that book is compared to Animal Farm, it creates a well rounded idea of government control, and, hopefully, provides students with a healthy fear and desire to keep that from happening,” Lange said.
Junior Elizabeth Gilbert said she believes there has been more of a shift in the method of teaching classic literature.
“Almost all meaning has been wrung out and children no longer learn the social lesson and they learn to hate reading these ‘boring stories’ because they don’t know what to look for,” she said.
She thinks teaching more modern, dystopian literature is an idea with great potential, “especially since the new subject hasn’t overwhelmed the teaching scene for decades.”
Gilbert does not think there will be “new classics” in the future either.
“Literature has gone downhill, the digital age leaves people without a purpose to write,” Gilbert said.