Monday 26 May 2014

Gove's attack on American Literature.

He has done it again and this time he is attacking literature. This man cannot help but annoy the hell out of me. Gove has announced that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and 'Of Mice and Men' will be taken off of the GCSE syllabus in favour of "fiction or drama written in the British Isles".

The new syllabus is set to feature:

  • A Shakespeare play.
  • A 19th Century novel.
  • And a 20th Century novel.
All to be written by British writers.

Does American literature not matter? My GCSE English class were given 'Of Mice and Men' as an easy end to our course after we were told to compare Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' with Shakespeare's 'Othello' (near impossible) but we all absolutely loved it. From my knowledge of my school's way of teaching GCSE English is that the 'lower' ability groups will usually study 'Of Mice and Men', 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' or 'The Crucible' (also being booted off) because of it's apparent themes and easy to follow narrative. The stories in Steinbeck and Lee's books are very warming and are able to teach children about race and class and dreaming even though it is unlikely the dream will succeed. 'Of Mice and Men' introduced us to the cruelty of capitalism and in particular America. As a class we almost fell in love with Lennie, who is mentally disabled, and were heart broken when we read over his demise and the cruelty and injustice of it.

Although I have not read Harper Lee's classic, it is on my bookshelf and I'm set to read it soon now that my exams are out of the way. I know it centres round Atticus (a lawyer) and his two children, Scout and Jem and the troubles they get into when Atticus decides to represent a black man in a rape trial. Also the novel is written by a woman which is something that is already rare in the GCSE (and A-Level) syllabus that it is almost saddening. 

Each book/ play teaches us something as well as being able to capture the imaginations of those who read it. To me it seems more than suspicious that the Tory government want to get rid of books that teach us about prejudice and injustice in favour of British, 'stiff upper lip' literature. Children will be bored, teachers will be exhausted (because teachers cannot just pull resources for every text ever written out of their backside), less will take English onto A-Level. Big mistake.

What is your opinion on Mr Gove? Leave me a comment!

0 comments:

Post a Comment