Wanted: Writers of the 21st Century

“Why is everything we read so old?” This was the question a friend’s teenage son posed to me over a Passover lunch. Good question. Of the longer works we are reading in my classes, the newest is Raisin in the Sun, which was first performed in 1959. Nearly everything else is from the Modern period or earlier. The school where I teach has “innovative” in the name--so how is it that I am teaching the same texts that I read in high school?

There are several reasons that high school classrooms focus on literature fifty years or older, and some of the reasons are better than others. The simplest answer is that we are teaching what has already been taught for years: novels which have proven their importance and literary worth and have effectively established their places in the literary canon. To teach a new novel requires a teacher to search through contemporary literature, reading widely and looking for books that are both appropriate for high school and appealing to high schoolers. And then there is a good chance that the book, even if it is a best seller and a darling of critics today, might no longer be discussed or even remain in print in ten or twenty years. We know the classics are good and have staying power. They have been placed in a literary movement and have been given context to what was written before and what is being published now. These novels have already been approved by the school board and risk little or no controversy. They are safe choices.

Not unreasonably, English teachers do not always want to do the extra work it would take to find a new gem. There is an excellent chance that their own literary education left off in 1950. Most college-level literature courses do not cover contemporary literature, and with the myriad demands of teaching, there is little time left for family, let alone leisure reading.

A better reason, however, has to do with the expectations for material to be covered in high school. Going into college, students are expected to have a basic understanding of the literary history of both the United States and Britain, as well as the literary movements and some of the major works and players. For example, it is reasonable to expect that a high school graduate has read Beowulf, Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Grapes of Wrath. College literature courses will build on this knowledge, and if they do include one of the common reads, such as Great Expectations, the discussion supposes students will approach the with the knowledge of the plot and some of the central ideas already mastered.

Besides preparing students for higher learning, reading older books which are already established as canon means that students across the country are reading the same novels as their parents and possibly their grandparents. They are building a connection to their generation as well as to previous and future readers through the shared experience of studying literary works. Think of the conversations you have had about how much you loved The Great Gatsby or loathed Wuthering Heights. Or when you discuss how you identified with Holden in The Catcher in the Rye or Esther in The Bell Jar. Perhaps your roommate was just as mystified with Lord of the Flies. Sure, we all studied algebra and World War II, and we may have even loved these subjects, but they are not a lived experience in the same way that Romeo and Juliet is. They become a shared emotional reference in a similar way to the historical events that we live through. I have listened to many stories about where people were when they learned that JFK was assassinated and have many times shared the story of my experience of September Eleventh. But once history becomes history and not life, it is no longer a shared experience. I have the same emotional connection to JFK’s assassination as I do to his inauguration, which is only an interest in how it affected the country and not me, personally.

The problem with only reading from the literary canon is not that the works can be dry and challenging and therefore feel old, because a good teacher, a creative and passionate teacher can help you appreciate and find relevance in Oedipus. No, the issue with the canon is that it has all the diversity of a pack of strawberry Starbursts—they might be delicious, but you still feel that you are missing out on all the other flavors. To put it bluntly: the canon tends to be dead, white, and male. The works may be genius, but in excluding everyone else, there is a lot of the American experience (and many geniuses) which is excluded. Many times, inclusion means reading contemporary literature. But when we read something new, it feels as though we are pushing something out. There is only so much time in a school year and only so many books which can be assigned. How, then, is it possible to work in the contemporary?

One way is by teaching other experiences in poetry, short stories, and essays; all of which have an important place in literature classes but do not require the same amount of time for class discussion as full-length books. It can also be more manageable to find contemporary work in these genres—again, because they are of more manageable length. There are several anthologies every year that sift through the literary magazines for the best, such as the Best American series and The Pushcart Prize anthology. There is also less pressure to choose something that will be known forever and great variety in most of the anthologies.

We are not going to quit reading Pride and Prejudice in every high school across America any time soon, even though Austen is already past 200 and gets older every year. But we can include a discussion of a poem by up and coming Oliver Baez Bendorf and give our classes exposure to another voice and perhaps even validate their own experience. It is not a perfect fix, but it is a plausible start.