Acting as a Unit Art Scarlet Letter Art Tumblr
There are few things a biracial sixteen-year-erstwhile growing up In Southern California has in common with Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer of The Scarlet Letter. There are even fewer experiences in the life of that 16-year-former that have much if annihilation to do with the events that unfold in that novel. So it'south unsurprising that I have never liked The Scarlet Letter. Like many people who grew up in the American schoolhouse organization, I first read Hawthorne's novel equally a loftier school sophomore. Our English teacher led the states enthusiastically through the volume as I struggled to stay awake. "You see," she said to our class, "Hawthorne keeps comparing piddling Pearl to a bird. Information technology means that she, symbolically, wants to . . ." [Dramatic interruption.] ". . . Fly free!" Looking dorsum on that class, I frequently discover information technology incredible that I became an English teacher. Nine years after I get-go slogged through The Cerise Letter in loftier school, I plant myself dorsum at that same schoolhouse, this time as a certified teacher. I was, as most young teachers are, idealistic and filled with grand ideas about what I could achieve in the classroom. In my English courses at UC Irvine, I had fallen in dear with novels, stories, and writers that I could never have dreamed of back in my high school English grade. I found myself powering through Gabriel García Márquez's entire oeuvre after Dearest in the Time of Cholera appeared on my reading list for a Magical Realism course. Langston Hughes's The Ways of White Folks featured breathtaking prose and stories that opened my eyes to a vast globe of racial dynamics far more complicated than the bubble in which I had grown up in Orange County. James Baldwin'due south The Burn down Side by side Fourth dimension, which I read with ane of my nearly beloved college professors, inspired in me a desire for justice. Jhumpa Lahiri'south Interpreter of Maladies spoke to me in a way that no brusque story drove e'er had before. Just it was with Chang-Rae Lee'due south Native Speaker that my thirst for multicultural literature was fully awakened. Never earlier had I read a novel that so direct, powerfully, and immediately continued with my own life feel. The protagonist was a father mourning his biracial Korean son, and I was a biracial Korean son still mourning the loss of his begetter—to see that in a novel triggered something deep inside me. I had never read a novel with a Korean protagonist, nor one that mirrored my own experience as someone caught between two cultures and trying to navigate their identity. I always had trouble connecting with the novels I read in high school—The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness— considering I saw so little of myself in those works, and was in consequence less motivated to read and study them. The writing I produced in response to these books was poor as well. My English teacher constantly berated me for non caring more or trying harder; I felt similar I was a terrible writer. Just once I started reading works in college that spoke to me, sang to me, suddenly I couldn't stop writing. I cruel in honey with literature over again. When I was hired to teach tenth-grade English at my alma mater, I ended upwards replacing my own onetime teacher, inheriting her very classroom. Unfortunately, I also inherited the same curriculum. I was a new teacher, unproven, and felt I had to play ball. I accepted that I would not be able to change how things were washed in my first twelvemonth. The first novel atop the sophomore-curriculum reading listing was The Scarlet Letter. There I was, a biracial teacher in Orange County with a roomful of students, 80 percent of whom were of East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent. Non i novel written by an author of color or an LGBTQ+ writer existed on the American literature curriculum. The world literature curriculum had but one: Chinua Achebe'south Things Fall Apart. My tenth-grade Intro to Literature course could have been referred to as "Intro to White, Western Literature." So there I was, trying to make The Cerise Letter interesting to students, many of whom were actually from abroad and studying in the United states of america on student visas. We struggled through information technology together, but I couldn't resist taking jabs at it. I'thou the type of person who finds it difficult to hibernate emotions, and then information technology was with great amusement that my students watched me effort to teach The Scarlet Letter. Ane pupil, ane of my sharpest, said, "You lot totally hate this book. You should switch it out for something else." She was right. The next unit of measurement was a short story unit. We had ane of those terrible brusque story collections, the ones with no discernible theme or pattern, like so many execrable textbooks in this country. But as I flipped through information technology, trying to find the prescribed set of stories, two in detail caught my eye. The commencement was Jorge Luis Borges'south incredible "Volume of Sand," a short story most a volume with endless pages that drives its readers mad. The side by side story was by a writer I loved, Gabriel García Márquez, and it was one of my favorites of his: "A Very Sometime Man with Enormous Wings." I decided I would teach both the Borges and García Márquez pieces, even though they weren't on the listing I was supposed to be working from. The students, perhaps sensing my dear for these weird and wonderful stories, responded well. Emboldened by their response, I started adding more than: "TV People" by Haruki Murakami. The titular story from Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. "Habitation" by Langston Hughes. Parts of Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks. My students loved them all. For the offset time, they were all genuinely engaged and interested in what we were reading. In reading these books, and so many issues that I'd never discussed with students began to surface. White students also enjoyed the stories, but started realizing they had some problem connecting with experiences of diasporas, whether African, Asian, or South American. Since diversifying my curriculum, there is one item conversation I've had at least in one case a year, upwardly to and including this school yr. The first time information technology happened, I was reading Cistron Yang's American Built-in Chinese with my 12th graders. Ane student, a white pupil, was discussing a scene in which the protagonist, Jin, changes his hairstyle to look more similar a more than popular white male child in his school. "In this scene," my educatee said, "Jin is trying to become American." I paused. "Then you don't think he's American?" I asked. "Well, no. I hateful, he wants to exist, but he's not." "Even though he was born in the U.S., he's non American?" A strange expect slowly spread beyond his face up equally he realized what he'd said. "Well, I mean . . . he wants to be . . ." His vocalisation dropped to a whisper. ". . . White?" I don't think it even occurred to my student that his own teacher fit into the aforementioned nebulous "are you American or what?" category. A few years later, I had been at the schoolhouse long enough to change things around even more. I had been handed English classes for twelfth grade, an age I miss teaching a bit now that I'm at a middle schoolhouse. It was during those years teaching twelfth graders that I developed a more multicultural set of readings. I introduced more authors from Asia, Africa, Primal and South America; international films; poems and lyrics by musicians from around the world. I added a literature-to-moving picture adaptation grade, and we looked at Wong Kar Wai'southward In the Mood for Beloved, vaguely adjusted from a short story that I had to crawl across the reaches of the Internet to find. I added a graphic novel course in which I taught Alison Bechdel'due south Fun Domicile and the aforementioned American Born Chinese. The IB literature grade I taught allowed me room to add together any authors I wanted. The one class I couldn't touch was the AP literature course, which needed me to go along education "the classics" (i.e., literature mostly by directly, white, and dead men). Several of my colleagues balked at the changes I made to the other courses. Some of them lamented losing a few of the aforementioned "classics." Some of them didn't even know the depth of the multifariousness they did have in their own courses—I call back one teacher getting angry with me when I told him near speculation that Langston Hughes was gay. At that place were skeptical parents, as well, aware that the AP and SAT exams frequently favor straight white authors. Some of these parents were immigrants whose sons and daughters were finally connecting with the assigned literature. Even if they were pleased that their kids identified with these works of literature, some likewise feared that the cognition of such diverse books wouldn't help them on their next standardized test. I take, of course, had many students who do beloved and place with the classics. Many of my students bask Pride and Prejudice, and I enjoyed didactics parts of Wuthering Heights. I'd never advocate for removing all of these novels, but I too think it'southward important that students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and students at other intersections meet themselves in what they read. I do not want students to call up they can't be writers or engaged in literature simply because they don't see themselves beingness portrayed in their coursework. When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Surface area in 2010, I lucked into a chore at an exceptionally progressive school, and I—along with two other English colleagues—have been able to develop a various and ever-evolving curriculum. We teach LGBTQ+ authors; we teach African American, Asian American, Latino/Latina American, and Native American and indigenous authors; we read novels and stories that deal with ableism and sexism; we await at pieces that allow us to discuss economic inequality. We try to detect an "I" perspective for every single student in every one of our classes. A gender-fluid student shouldn't have to struggle to find literature they identify with. With a growing contingent of multiracial students, I besides know that I need to add more books that reflect their experiences. I talk near race and gender openly with my students, and they reply openly. They are passionate about the stories nosotros read, always looking for connections to their ain lives and experiences. Every bit for the cis direct white students at my schoolhouse, I believe information technology is also important for them to come across me, a multiracial teacher, deeply in dearest with the texts I teach. It'due south important for them to realize that virtually of the books they're going to come across in other English literature classes were written by white authors for largely white audiences, and that it'southward necessary to look and read across that. In a way, I owe a debt to Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Ruddy Alphabetic character. That book, which well-nigh turned me confronting studying English back in loftier school, ultimately helped inspire me to change and diverseness my own curriculum. For that, and for the chance to have introduced brilliant authors to the thousands of kids that have passed through my classrooms over the years, I am grateful. Non long ago, I found myself education American Born Chinese to my 7th graders. Information technology'southward a fairly quick read, so I commonly assign information technology to be read over a weekend, and and then we spend a few weeks discussing it. The students were excited to exist reading a graphic novel, and they went habitation happy. On Monday morning, i of my East Asian students walked into the room excitedly. He pulled his book out and showed it to me, stuffed with Post-it note annotations. He broke into a wide grin. "This volume was about my life," he said, beaming. "I know," I said. "Mine, as well." __________________________________ 
This excerpt appeared in Teaching When the Earth Is on Burn down, published by The New Press and reprinted here with permission. Copyright © 2019 Noah Cho.
Source: https://lithub.com/the-freedom-of-tossing-the-scarlet-letter-from-a-high-school-curriculum/
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