I’ve been lurking on a couple of AP Lit* groups on Facebook. I see lots of great ideas, but I have questions about the texts I most often see discussed. I sense that many teachers are limited by what is available in the bookroom, and I completely understand that many teachers are living in places where they cannot teach certain texts. I am speaking from a place of privilege in that regard, and I want to acknowledge it. My school is well-resourced, and I can teach the texts I want to teach.

I was texting my sister today, and I mentioned that even though I’m getting over the flu and stayed home today, I want to be sure I can go in tomorrow because I’m starting Homegoing.  I love the first day of a new unit, and this first day is especially important because there is some unfamiliar background, and I want to set the scene for students. My sister used to live in Texas. She and her family moved to upstate New York because of Texas’s oppression against the LGBTQIA+ community, particularly transgender teens and their parents. She remarked that she wondered if I could even teach that book in Texas. I don’t know. Probably not, depending on where and what kind of school. I often tell my students that we wouldn’t be able to study some of the texts we read in some parts of the country.

Even with that caveat, there are many books by authors of color that have entered the canon (if you feel you must adhere to a “canon”), and the College Board encourages racial and gender diversity in AP Lit booklists. I wonder whether Gina Korteum has zeroed in on the problem when she writes, “many teachers (myself included) have not been concerned enough over their representation in the literary canon or the AP Lit curriculum in general.” In the post, she shares an extensive list of authors and works . (Thank you, Gina, that was a lot of work!)

Honestly, the apparent predominance of White authors in AP Lit is not something I really blame the College Board for (at least not anymore). The works on the test are certainly more diverse in the last few years than they previously had been. And Gina’s post is now over four years old, so I feel like there is enough time for the word to be out.

Students see what we’re doing.

As English teachers, we should audit our curriculum frequently, identifying gaps of all kinds, whether in the kinds of writing assignments and other assessments we assign, or the texts we teach.  It’s important work, and it will only be more important as the next four years unfold.

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