To think Michael Gove has actually got something right for once?

[privitandpetunias]

Article in the guardian saying that Mr Gove wants to remove the American literature from the GCSE curriculum and replace it with English literature (sorry can't do links). This is something I have often thought that there are so many great novels out there that are part of our cultural heritage that it would be great for our children to study.

[mrsruffallo]

80 % of the books are to be written by British authors. There will be plenty of other works. It's a good move. I am so tired of talking to people with English qualifications who can't even string a sentence together.

[TheEnchantedForest]

YABU. VU. Anything that narrows the curriculum further is not good.

I had my eyes opened by Beloved by Toni Morrison during GCSE eng lit. loved it. It opened a whole world of literature to me.

As a previous poster has said, where will the money come from to provide all these new texts? I think many schools stick with OMAM because they can't afford to replace the texts. more funding Gove? no, thought not.

This man is responsible for destroying education in this country and the country seem to be just letting him. I find it horrifying.

[squoosh]

I'm baffled by anyone who can possibly view this as a good move

[whynowblowwind]

I don't think it's financial.

It's short. That's the thing - it's short, and it's easy and there's a wealth of revision materials and resources on it. It has it's place but it's a shame that GCSE English Literature has boiled down to Of Mice and Men and An Inspector Calls.

Both are okay as texts but that's it: okay.

[dawndonnaagain]

Gove is an idiot and has decreed that the books that may encourage someone to question the powers that be are off limits. The list for this year includes: Joe Simpson, Meera Syall, George Eliot, George Orwell, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley and others.

[Goblinchild]

I hope that his British author choices won't be restricted to the 19th century stalwarts; there are a lot of other writers worth studying that have hit the scene since Dickens, Eliot and The Brontes.

[Retropear]

Mrsruffolo but surely that is down to Eng Lang content not Eng Lit.

[SteadyEddie]

Dickens is too long, as are most of Eliot's works. Middlemarch is painful even as an adult.

[hackmum]

"YABU. VU. Anything that narrows the curriculum further is not good.

I had my eyes opened by Beloved by Toni Morrison during GCSE eng lit. loved it. It opened a whole world of literature to me."

Beloved is wonderful, I agree. But Gove is not really narrowing the curriculum, he's just replacing some books with others. The BBC report on this said that 90% of pupils studied Of Mice and Men. It's ridiculous - it's there as the easy choice.

If you're a 15-year old in 2014, something written by a British author in the 1960s is just as likely to broaden your perspective as something written by an American author in the 1930s. They will both be about eras and experiences that are quite alien to you.

[weatherall]

Afaik, (no DCs that age) the Scottish system is making similar changes atm. Less English lit and more Scottish. It's a good thing IMO.

[DorisAllTheDay]

I'm not qualified to comment on what should be in the English Literature syllabus - I'm an avid reader myself, and I loved To Kill a Mockingbird when I did it for O Level in the early 80s, but that doesn't equip me to say what teenagers today should study.

Gove is no more qualified than I am in this respect. I'm not saying the current syllabus is perfect, but if it needs a review (and quite possibly it does) then I would want to see that done by people who know a darn sight more about literature and about teaching young people than the likes of Gove.

[FraidyCat]

I'm trying to remember my English set works from high school.

Dubliners (short stories)
Sons and Lovers
A Passage to India
Murder in the Cathedral
Heart of Darkness
The Woodlanders

Not sure that's complete/correct - off to dinner now. Wonder what people think. (Could have done without The Woodlanders, the rest were OK, have re-read Heart of Darkness recently and it would now be my favourite.)

[SteadyEddie]

I love The Woodlanders (studying it on a Literature course - not one of Hardy's best but lovely all the same).

[dawndonnaagain]

I would like to see Murakami, Ishiguro, Malorie Blackman and Phillip Pullman added to the syllabus. Don't like seeing books removed for the wrong reasons.

[SteadyEddie]

Would love some Margaret Atwood to be included. I wouold have been over the mood to study The Handmaids Tale or Catseye as a teenager.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

YABU. Michael Gove is a ridiculous and dangerous little man, and reducing what pupils in school study down to a restricted diet of 'English classics' is likely to turn even more teenagers off reading.

David Cameron just winds Gove up and lets him go and it is terrifying what the man is being allowed to do to schools.

[dawndonnaagain]

Yes steady Atwood would be great, Carter and Morrison too, then we've got English, Canadian, American. Fabulous!

[whynowblowwind]

I think a lot of people perhaps don't realise the current curriculum is narrow - very narrow.

Most students' literature diet will consist of one Shakespeare text (probably not the whole thing but selected scenes and the film) Of Mice and Men and probably An Inspector Calls. Then a range of poems.

That's IT.

I don't agree in 'just' limiting students to classics but honestly, at the moment GCSE Literature is dire.

[StarSwirl92]

Yabu his pre 20th century stane will kill literature classes.

[mrsruffallo]

'what about English pupils who have a different cultural heritage?'

Hmm, surely they share our culture with us? They may have also have a different one at home/ with family but to suggest they can't relate to a British way of life after being schooled in England is patronising and nasty.

[mrsruffallo]

'reducing what pupils in school study down to a restricted diet of 'English classics' is likely to turn even more teenagers off reading.'

Why so?

[ChillieJeanie]

Atwood has been on the syllabus for years, or it certainly was when I was at school. We did The Handmaid's Tale back in the mid-90s. Can't say I enjoyed it much, and I've not read any Atwood since in spite of being an avid reader. Mind you, we also did Great Expectations, Bleak House (dear God, Esther was an awful, insipid creature, dripping in fake humility - best thing about that book was the description of the aftermath of spontaneous human combustion), Middlemarch (also loathed), and Far From The Madding Crowd, and I've not touched Dickens, Eliot or Hardy since either. One of the other classes did Jane Eyre instead of Far From The Madding Crowd which I would have much prefered.

But then, we also studied multiple Shakespeare plays throughout my time at school and, with the exception of Romeo and Juliet I adore his work.

[TheEnchantedForest]

Atwood was on the syllabus in the 90s. I studied a handmaids tale for GCSE in 95 ish. loved it.
Is it no longer studied?

[Whiskwarrior]

Surely the key thing is that he wants to remove books that he doesn't like personally. Who on earth is he to revise an entire syllabus based on his personal tastes? And with no educational background.

Of everything I studied for my GCSE Literature the one I remember most fondly (and return to again and again 24 years later) is To Kill A Mockingbird. Wonderful, wonderful, moving, relevant even now.

Gove is an idiot.

And whether people can string a sentence together has nothing to do with reading great English works. We did Romeo and Juliet for GCSE and there are people I went to school with who still can't spell or recognise the difference between your/you're there/their/they're now!