A lifetime ago, I was a lit major and LOVED my American Literature courses. I read Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Steinbeck, and wrote more than a handful of essays on the works of Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin. That was my JAM! And don’t get me started on how I felt when I landed my first teaching gig at the high school level: I would have a chance to revel in realism and romanticism with my very excited students.

I would single-handedly create a small army of American Lit lovers and send them all to college to study as I had and love the novels that I loved.

Ha!

My first teaching position was in a suburban school filled with first-generation students. Their families came from Tonga and Vietnam and Russia; many were Muslim and more than a few were Mormon.

My students did not grow up with Dr. Suess or Judy Blume or “The Giving Tree”, and many had not seen Sesame Street. But we got along and the kids got excited by my excitement when I announced that we were about to read an AMAZING novel – one that included critical commentary about the American Dream and the dangers of taking short-cuts in life. They marched to the textbook office with me and checked out their copies of F. Scott’s The Great Gatsby.

I listened to the kids on the way back to the classroom. “There’s some lady crying on the cover – what’s that about?” “It’s all blue.” “Great Gatsby sounds like a magician: magic is stupid.”

We settled back into the classroom and read the first bit of the novel – that very famous epigraph by Thomas Parke D’Invilliers.

“Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too
Till she cry, “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover
I must have you!”

I read it aloud, the students read it aloud. We pulled it apart and examined it. I asked them to propose what this poem might tell us about the novel we are about to read. My students were great – they answered the questions and I walked away, patting myself on the back that I had hooked my students into this Classic American Novel.

I was soooooo wrong.

That year, the composition of my class did not include many white kids. They were lower-middle class to solidly middle-class students, some of whom had parents working 3-4 jobs between them just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Some had parents who had been professionals in India or the Philippines, only to move to the US and take lower-skilled jobs because of the negative perception of their non-Western educational preparation.

My kids grew up in the Valley of Ashes. They couldn’t give a SHIT about why Daisy was associated with the color white, or the creepy dude on the billboard advertising eye care. They especially thought Gatsby was ridiculous when he was described as reaching out with trembling hands toward the green light across the bay. Creeper.

Is The Great Gatsby a seminal work in canonical American Literature? You bet. Is it the best novel to hook a new group of learners into studying literature?

Nope.

As an administrator, I know how important it is to allow teachers the time and latitude to choose novels that will work in their classrooms to support learning. But I visibly cringe every time I walk into a classroom and find students reading The Great Gatsby. I almost duck so as not to get hit with the ridiculousness of making students in high school today read this text.

I have the same reaction to Romeo & Juliet. Parents should read that again – it’s all about what happens when you foist your prejudices upon your children. Huckleberry Finn? How many times do students of color need to be subjected to the ‘N’ word in one sitting? The Scarlet Letter? Barf.

I love each of these texts – and they should continue to be available to students as free reading texts, in the library, or even as a literature circle selection. Should ALL students be subjected to the full white “American Literature” experience. I don’t think so.

I would rather have students connect to the texts they are reading. The Hate You Give offers something for every student and addresses the need kids feel to code switch when transitioning from one social group to another. Othello gives students an entry to Shakespeare while also giving students an ‘in’ through conversations about racism, jealousy, mixed marriages, and mental health/medical issues.

There was a time when teaching The Great Gatsby was fresh and new and timely. It’s time to find new texts that grab our students by the imagination – and are fresh and new and timely once again. The Great Gatsby has got to go back on the shelf.