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| Cynthia Larkin at Morse High School in San Diego got permission to design her own curriculum for an American literature course taught from the African American perspective. For her students who are ethnically diverse, the subject has become more meaningful. |
There’s more than one way to teach an 11th-grade American literature class, says Cynthia Larkin. As an alternative to focusing on mostly traditional writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson and Arthur Miller, she designed her own curriculum for an American literature course taught from the African American perspective.
With the blessing of school administrators at Morse High School in San Diego, Larkin will be working with other teachers to create a black literature classroom guide for her district.
In an age when teachers are being taught what to teach, when to teach it and what page to be on, Larkin’s creativity has had an electrifying effect on her students, who are black, Filipino, Hispanic and white, reflecting the diversity of the school’s population. For them, American literature and history have become much more interesting and meaningful.
During one recent class, Langston Hughes’ essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” sparked a lively classroom discussion about 1920s-era poets and writers who did not want to be labeled as Negro, a trend that Hughes called “the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America — this urge to race toward whiteness.”
Raising his hand, Albert Johnson mused that blacks at that time — even those in the middle class — thought of themselves as poorly educated and not as good as white people, probably because of slavery. Other students said that black artists were partly to blame for letting themselves be intimidated by white people. One student questioned whether black artists really wanted to be white or just wanted the advantages that white people had, such as success, power and acceptance.
“My kids are responding very well to the literature and curriculum,” says Larkin, a member of the San Diego Education Association. “For some of them, it may be the first time they find the content of a literature course relevant.”
It may be relevant, but it’s also entirely standards-based and meets the same course requirements as a traditional American literature class. It includes the work of lesser known authors such as Olaudah Equiano, who was brought to America as a slave from Africa and became an abolitionist. For comparison, it also includes works by traditionally read white authors.
“The standards for 11th-grade American literature do not limit teachers to traditional American literature,” explains Larkin, who taught the course for the first time last year. “But I am required to cover literature from the colonial period to the present. Technically, it comes down to our students being tested on standards and their ability to understand questions and issues — not on actual literature or authors per se.”
Larkin, who grew up in Tracy, did not have the same opportunity to read African American literature when she was in high school. Consequently, as a student at San Diego State University, she was “blown away” by the works of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois and others. When she decided to become a teacher, she minored in black studies.
She’s now taking a class in black history at a nearby college so she can include history lessons in her curriculum, which she believes will offer her students a stronger knowledge base.
“I have heard about scripted, narrow curriculum,” says Larkin. “But teachers should be given more freedom to teach what they love and transfer that to students. When teachers are passionate about a subject and pass that on to students, it can make all the difference in the world.”
