the high school canon

English teaching students often think about the literature we are expected to teach because English studies is heavy into reading and analyzing literature as being synonymous with what one learns in English class. English study at the college level too often privileges and sustains this notion. However, if you look at what counts as English study at the middle and secondary level, you notice that we talk as much about our responsiblity to teach all the English language arts (speaking, reading, writing, listening, and viewing) not strictly literature. Also, new teachers and preservice teachers also think about teaching the works they read in college with their students in middle and secondary schools (e.g., Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Joyce, etc.). There is a high school canon that rarely, if ever, gets read or discussed at the college level. Many new teachers gasp in horror when they get the "approved" book list or the grade level curricula and discover that many of the books they'll be expected to teach are books they haven't read or discussed since they themselves were in high school. The ENT 439 class and their other literature classes do little to help new teachers prepare to teach works like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Can you find some representative book lists from Missoula County Public Schools or from some other district in which you imagine yourself teaching? Survey the list to note whether you have ever read the books on the list, when you last read them, whether you discussed them with other readers and how well prepared you would feel if told tomorrow that you needed to teach such-and-so a text. How might media help you feel more prepared, better prepared than you do today?