The Nexus

For those of you freshmen beginning to grow bored of Steinbeck-ian symbolism, I feel your pain.

For those of you juniors banging your heads against the brick walls of Hawthorne paragraphs, you have my sympathies.

I recognize the half-angry, half-despairing plea for mercy hanging around the edges of your lit-damaged minds: Why? Why must we read these specific books? It’s a question as old as the current school system, and one that’s sure to be repeated in English classes until the end of time.

In memory of my struggling brethren in English classes across campus, I sought answers to those questions from English teacher Bob McHeffey, 30-year English-class expert.

I was a little desperate when I sat down to talk, debating how to ask something I knew Bob had had yelled at him in the middle of classes for three decades. I opened with a straight-shooter: Why these select few books?

First off, McHeffey explained to me that the school district can only “adopt,” or use at will, certain books. Stories need to be age-appropriate. Curriculum can widen based on the type and grade level of English classes, but books that are read across the board have to be cool with all parents.

Every book also needs an educational purpose; some use symbolism, some discuss important historical or literary themes, yada yada yada.

But even I, a guy willing to accept plenty of things about how school works, wanted to know: what about the countless other books that fit this profile?

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man could easily be taught in Honors American Lit, and its questionable content is no more or less than East of Eden. It’s a book that talks about the rise of the civil rights movement in a way that no historical text can.

I could also argue that Slaughterhouse-Five is just as much a worthwhile look at post-World War II society as Lord of the Flies. In some ways, it’s more representative of the insanity of the war than Golding’s allegory. At the time of the discussion, however, I had a more pressing question about English: how do this knowledge of lit devices, and the mandatory reading of books that use them, help us?

Bob responded, “We’re just trying to make sure you can read something analytically, critically, and think.”

Alright, alright, I stomached that.

But Bob, I said, can’t you understand we just want something enjoyable? Don’t you feel some pity in your heart for us?

As a matter of fact, he replied: “The Scarlet Letter – I hated it! Oh, I hated that when I read it in high school!”

Yes! Someone who understood some of the rage I felt after reading page after page about Hester Prynne’s dress! We could boot that bland New Englander Hawthorne, white as clam chowder, out of Westview forever!

But then he threw me a curveball: “But when I started teaching it in school, I realized [that] there’s a lot of good stuff in there. And I liked it when I taught it.”

What the heck, Bob? How dare you change your stance?

Yet something struck me about that: if we knew Shakespeare, or even Hawthorne, could give us some real insight, would we stop complaining about “having” to read them?

Teachers know. They have lessons prepared, themes ready to discuss, and ways to make these books interesting. They wouldn’t spend time on a story that isn’t worthwhile, would they?

And then I thought again: the idea behind English is to learn to read beyond Steinbeck, beyond Dickens and Shakespeare. Bob said himself: it’s to learn to read, to dig beneath the plot’s surface. And through reading, to think.

So the pain you feel, freshmen, the same that I felt poring over Post-It-noted Steinbeck pages, isn’t boredom. It’s your brain adapting to a style of writing, to the symbols of themes.

And the frustration you feel, juniors, the kind I remember feeling as I re-re-read page 67 of The Scarlet Letter, isn’t with Hawthorne. My frustration was with myself, and how quickly I had wanted to give up learning a skill that’s more important than the best sarcastic questions. It’s a mistake I don’t plan to make again .