Teaching World History in the Twenty-First Century: A Resource Book: A Resource Book by Heidi Roupp

Author:Heidi Roupp [Roupp, Heidi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Political Science, General, Economics
ISBN: 9781317458968
Google: M2emBgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28022087
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

A National Humanities Curriculum for U.S. Schools?

It is probable that only plans that take kindergarten through secondary reading programs into account could adequately address the goal of teaching American students their literary tradition within an international context. So, having articulated here some thoughts about curriculum revision that have proven more useful in my work than the current ways in which multiculturalism is being defined and promoted in schools, I find it hard to resist imagining changes on a grander scale than just my classroom.

Perhaps a concentrically imagined American-international focus in K–12 curricula across the nation would enhance a sense of cultural unity instead of contributing to what now seems a cacophony of cross-purpose, sometimes internecine instruction. People persuaded (as I am) by some of E.D. Hirsch’s arguments in favor of creating a common core for American schools’ humanities curricula may see that a sensible selection of readings in American and international literatures might more readily be made within such a concentric framework than amid the confusion of existing programs and the presently debased state of public discourse about multiculturalism. A single detailed curriculum would have limited application and value for schools across as large and diverse a country as ours, but different communities can produce locally tailored versions of a nationwide program if they have a frame of reference suggesting at least broad goals in common. And it is exciting to me to think in terms of a frame of reference that could inaugurate a third era of English in America.

That is, if the first era of literary studies in American English departments were termed:

The Era of British Literature (c. 1890–1950)—a reading program focused on major periods and works of British literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the present, with judicious selections from American literature (e.g., Hawthorne, Emerson, Bryant, Irving),

The Era of British and American Literature (c. 1950–2000)—a reading program consisting of major periods and works of British and American literature.

Now is the time to work toward establishing:

The Era of American and World Literatures (2000–?)—a reading program divided equally between literature of the United States drawn from native and immigrant strains, and foreign works from Western and non-Western literatures, written by men and women.

Be that as it may, looking back over two decades of my teaching, I see that construing the English reading curriculum as an array of indispensable artifacts gave my students limited notions of literature and its value while making even self-motivated changes in my own courses awkward and sometimes impossible. My difficulties only increased when I supposed that multicultural reform meant replacing white male traditions with formerly excluded ones, or dividing my students into Selves and Others for whom equitable numbers of Mirrors and Windows need to be found. I’ve found that it is more conducive to needed reform as well as more accurate about literature, traditions, readers, and the world today to think of the literary curriculum as a continuing conversation among multiple voices of American and foreign literatures.

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