Recent political excursions into classroom text selections by local and national politicians and pundits have made teaching canonical texts more appealing to many school districts and teachers. In this study, we used conceptions of Derridean hospitality alongside monster theory to examine what common canonical texts teach students about who is welcome and worthy of hospitality in American society and who is viewed as wholly monstrous and outside the bounds of hospitality. The results of our critical content analysis revealed that in commonly taught canonical novels, identity categories like race and gender shape determinations of who is welcome and who is othered. The findings suggest that critical readings of canonical texts cannot offer a hospitable welcome to marginalized and othered youth in ELA classrooms. Instead we offer a hospitable literacy approach to text selection in ELA classrooms.
Baker-BellA.ButlerT.JohnsonL. (2017). The pain and the wounds: A call for critical race English education in the wake of racial violence. English Education, 49(2), 116–129.
3.
BealT. (2020). Introduction to religion and its monsters. In WeinstockJ. A. (Ed.), The monster theory reader (pp. 295–302). University of Minnesota Press.
4.
BissonetteJ. D.GlazierJ. (2016). A counterstory of one’s own: Using counterstorying to engage students with the British canon. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(6), 685–694. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.486
5.
Borsheim-BlackC.SaragianidesS. T. (2019). Letting go of literary Whiteness: Antiracist literature instruction for White students. Teachers College Press.
6.
BoydA.DarraghJ. (2017). Rigor, young adult literature, and socioeconomics: An analysis of high school literacy teachers’ text choices from national survey data. Wisconsin English Journal, 59(1–2), 82–103.
7.
BoydA. S.RoseS. G.DarraghJ. J. (2021). Shifting the conversation around teaching sensitive topics: Critical colleagueship in a teacher discourse community. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 65(2), 129–137. https://doi.org/doi/:10.1002/jaal.1186
BradburyR. (1979). Fahrenheit 451. Del Rey/Ballatine.
10.
BraunV.ClarkeV. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis, qualitative research in sport. Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
11.
BraunV.ClarkeV. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. Sage.
12.
CastilloE. (2022). How to read now: Essays. Viking.
13.
CohenJ. J. (1996). Monster culture (seven theses). In CohenJ. J. (Ed.), Monster theory: Reading culture (pp. 3–25). University of Minnesota Press.
14.
ColesJ. (2013). ‘Every child's birthright’? Democratic entitlement and the role of canonical literature in the English National Curriculum. The Curriculum Journal, 24(1), 50–66.
15.
CookM. P.SamsB. L.WadeP. (2019). Interrupting ideologies within the canon: Applying critical lenses to Pride and Prejudice, Eleanor & Park, and contemporary life. In MacalusoM.MacalusoK. (Eds.), Teaching the canon in 21st century classrooms: Challenging genres (pp. 151–163). Brill.
16.
DallacquaA. K.SheahanA. (2019). What do olympians, lowriders, and shailene woodley have to do with language arts? Making space for critical, multimodal texts in canonical classrooms. In MacalusoM.MacalusoK. (Eds.), Teaching the canon in 21st century classrooms: Challenging genres (pp. 19–33). Boston, MA: Brill Sense.
17.
DallacquaA. K.SheahanA. (2020). Making space: Complicating a canonical text through critical, multimodal work in a secondary language arts classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(1), 67–77. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1063
18.
DerridaJ. (1997/2000). Of hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond (Rachel Bowlby, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
19.
DychesJ. (2019). Shattering literary windows and mirrors: Creating prismatic canonical experiences for (and with) British literature students. In MacalusoM.MacalusoK. (Eds.), Teaching the canon in 21st century classrooms: Challenging genres (pp. 35–48). Brill.
ErvinJ. (2022). Critically Reading the canon: Culturally sustaining approaches to a prescribed literature curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 65(4), 321–329. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1208
22.
FalterM. M.SchoonoverN. R. (2019). Still fighting for migrant workers’ rights 75 years later: A critical approach to teaching The Grapes of Wrath through contemporary youth testimonios. In MacalusoM.MacalusoK. (Eds.), Teaching the canon in 21st century classrooms: Challenging genres (pp. 53–66). Brill.
23.
FitzgeraldF. S. (1925). The great Gatsby. Kindle Edition.
24.
FreireP. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Books.
25.
GibbsB. (2021). “Strange fruit”: Teaching the present and past of racial violence in the rural south. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(2), 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2021.1951632
GriffinA.TurnerJ. (2021). Toward a pedagogy of Black livingness: Black students’ creative multimodal renderings of resistance to anti-Blackness. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 20(4), 440–453. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-09-2020-0123
28.
GroszE. (2020). Intolerable ambiguity: Freaks as/at the limit. In WeinstockJ. A. (Ed.), The monster theory reader (pp. 419–440). University of Minnesota Press.
29.
HaddixM. (2020). This is us: Discourses of community within and beyond literacy research. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 69(2), 26–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/2381336920937460
30.
HalberstamJ. (2020). Parasites and perverts: An introduction to gothic monstrosity. In WeinstockJ. A. (Ed.), The monster theory reader (pp. 229–263). University of Minnesota Press.
31.
HintonS. E. (1967). The outsiders. Kindle Edition.
32.
IghodaroE.WigganG. (2010). Curriculum violence: America’s new civil rights issue. Nova Science Publishers.
JohnsonA.NevilleM. L. (2019). Using counterstories to critique racism: Critical race theory, Beloved, and The Hate You Give. In MacalusoM.MacalusoK. (Eds.), Teaching the canon in 21st century classrooms: Challenging genres (pp. 123–138). Brill.
35.
JohnsonH.MathisJ.ShortK. (2016). Critical content analysis of children’s and young adult literature: Reframing perspectives. Routledge.
MacalusoK.MacalusoM. (2019). Introduction: Challenging the canonical genre. In MacalusoM.MacalusoK. (Eds.), Teaching the canon in 21st century classrooms: Challenging genres (pp. ix–xx). Brill.
41.
MantsoseJ. S.SailorsM.DentithA. M. (2017). What does it mean to be a girl? Teachers’ representations of gender in supplementary reading materials for South African schools. Journal of Literacy Research, 48(4), 394–422. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X16683474
42.
MillerH. C.BoehmS.Colantonio-YurkoK.AdamsB. (2022). Himpathy, herasure, and down girl moves: A critical content analysis of sexual assault in young adult literature. Journal of Literacy Research, 54(3), 298–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296x221116856
MoellerR. A.BecnelK. E. (2020). They’re so stinkin’ popular, how could you say no?”: Graphic novel collection development and school librarian self-censorship. Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 90(4), 515–529. https://doi.org/10.1086/710262
45.
MontefioreA. (2001). Talking liberties: Jacques Derrida’s interview with alan Montefiore. In BiestaG. J.Egea-KuehneD. (Eds.), Derrida & education (pp. 176–185). Routledge.
46.
NewitzA. (2020). The undead: A haunted whiteness. In WeinstockJ. A. (Ed.), The monster theory reader (pp. 370–418). University of Minnesota Press.
47.
O'BrienT. (2009). The things they carried. Mariner Books.
RodriguezN.SwalwellK. (2021). Social studies for a better world: An anti-oppressive approach for elementary educators. Norton Professional Books.
51.
RybakovaK.RoccantiR. (2016). Connecting the canon to current young adult literature. American Secondary Education, 44(2), 31–45.
52.
SchiebleM. (2014). Reading images in American born Chinese through critical visual literacy. English Journal, 103(5), 47–52.
53.
ShortK., & World of Words Community. (2017). Critical content analysis as a research methodology. In JohnsonH.MathisJ.ShortK. (Eds.), Critical content analysis of children’s and young adult literature: Reframing perspectives (pp. 1–15). Routledge.
54.
SmithA.HazlettL.LennonS. (2018). Young adult literature in the English language arts classroom: A survey of middle and secondary teachers’ beliefs about YAL. Study and Scrutiny: Research on Young Adult Literature, 3(1), 1–24.
ThomasE. E. (2019). The dark fantastic: Race and the imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. NYU Press.
58.
ToliverS. R. (2020). “I desperately need visions of Black people thriving”: Emancipating the fantastic through Black women’s words. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 64(3), 323–332. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1112
59.
ToliverS. R.HadleyH. (2021a). Ca(n)non fodder no more: Disrupting common arguments that support a canonical empire. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 17(2), 1–28.
60.
ToliverS. R.HadleyH. (2021b). Rhetorically speaking: On White preservice teachers’ failure to imagine an anti-racist English education. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 20(4), 485–500. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-09-2020-0112
61.
TrainorL. R.BundonA. (2021). Developing the craft: Reflexive accounts of doing reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 13(5), 705–726. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2020.1840423
62.
WeinstockJ. A. (2020). Introduction: A genealogy of monster theory. In WeinstockJ. A. (Ed.), The monster theory reader (pp. 1–36). University of Minnesota Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
