Meta Reflection

This was probably one of the most difficult papers I have ever had to write. This is partly because I was totally unmotivated to complete it because I found out about half way through this course that since this course is only offered in the fall none of the other secondary education majors have to take it! The substitute for this class I had already taken, so needless to say, I totally lost my motivation to do the paper.

Once I got rid of my reluctant feelings towards this paper, I was a able to work a little better on it. However, I was still struggling a great deal with time management issues because of work, student teaching, class and life. I worked on this paper a great deal after Thanksgiving break when things started to slow down.

As far as the actual writing of the paper goes, I struggled most with organizing and sewing my three blocks (canon, SES, and reluctant readers) together. This took a lot of time to do because I had to rework many transitions as placement changed.

Overall, I think this paper went well and I definitely learned a lot from it. I think the most important thing I learned was how important time management is when undertaking a paper of this magnitude. I think the more time you have the better your paper is going to be. 

Abstract

While a need to have a set of books that are designated for school use nationwide may seem necessary, the implementation of such a list, like the western literary canon, often causes more harm to students’ learning than improvement. The canon’s history is riddled with instances of forcing complex faux “universal” texts into the eyes and the minds of readers. With an increase in the socioeconomic gap across the country, a gap that most definitely is felt among the nation’s school systems, occurrences of reluctant readers are very high. Reluctant readers are students who often lack the necessary skills to read such complex texts as those inserted in the canon. Educators and education policy makers alike should be less concerned with making their students cosmopolitans and more concerned with getting them to be successful readers. Only when the students are successful at “normal” texts will they be able to graduate to higher-level texts that are included in the canon.