Dorothy Carr
Instructor, Mabry School
I am a native Californian, who moved South several years ago. For the past ten years. I have been a secondary English teacher. Most recently, I taught American literature at the now-defunct Ebon International Prep Academy in Forsyth, Georgia. Prior to that, it was Woodward Academy in Atlanta and Fulton County Schools. At Woodward, I also taught American classics, Women and Literature. And African-American Literature. Prior to teaching, my career included five years of newspaper reporting for the Pasadena Star-News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as press secretary for former mayor, Maynard Jackson and former NAACP chief, Benjamin Hooks,
My interest in American literatures stems from another NEH workshop I attended in the summer of 1990. It was a six-week seminar on Moby Dick, a book that I had attempted to teach many times without much success. I never fully realized until then why that book and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were such turnoffs to the mostly black students that I taught, After I muddled through the critics explanation of why the words "savage" and "nigger" were used, I expected my students to be receptive. It was not until the above mentioned seminar, where I was asked to write a paper on some aspect of Moby Dick. That the reasons both books were not accepted became clear.
I had always taught American literature the way it had been taught to me, with all the accepted reasons why both books were masters in the canon. Then I realized that with the exception of slave narratives and Phyllis Wheatley's poetry, blacks were not represented in American literature as real people living in society until the 1850s. But even then we were mostly defined by white writers. When I taught at Woodward Academy, the upper-middle class, high-grade-point average black students would not complete either book, even if it affected their grade. And the would never discuss with me why. The black students that I taught in public schools at Ebon Academy were much more vocal about their objections.
"Why are all the great books written my old white me? If the canon represents American literature, why aren't we included? Aren't we American? Why do we have to read books by people who call us niggers? Don't we hear enough of that *@#! in real life? No, I don't understand why Mark Twain uses the word and I don't care. It's insulting! In fact, I'm not going to read the *@*#!& book!"
Their opposition was difficult to combat. In fact, it made me reevaluate my own thoughts about the canon. After all, it is used to set the English curriculum, thereby determining exposure to students, and it provides students with information and assumptions to add to their reservoir of knowledge. As I understand it, the canon is both a repository and preserver of culture which by its very nature, provides an interpretive system, an orchestrated frame of reference. Now I join the students at their scrutiny. Is the canon still relevant? Has it served to prolong some inadequate or outright counterproductive notions about American thought and enterprise? Moreover, should we look at the canon from the other end and determine what is the legitimate or necessary frame of reference for citizens of the 21st century and which of these texts can effectively provide it?
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