Literary Study in Grades 9, 10, and 11 in Arkansas

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The purpose of this study was to find out what major works English teachers in grades 9, 10, and 11 in Arkansas public schools assign their students in standard and honors courses and what approaches they use for teaching students how to read literary texts, both imaginative literature and literary non-fiction. The authors excluded Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and other advanced courses, all electives, as well as basic or remedial classes. The authors’ interest was in the middle third of Arkansas students. The authors surveyed over 400 Arkansas teachers (of a total of about 1400 in the state) and held two focus group meetings in each of the four Congressional districts in the state in the fall of 2009 to understand better their responses to the survey. Two major findings emerged from an analysis of their responses to the survey and their comments at the focus group meetings.

First, the authors found that much has changed in the content of the high school literature curriculum for students in standard or honors courses. The most frequently mentioned titles (usually described as the "classics") are assigned in only a small percentage of courses and, overall, the texts they assign do not increase in difficulty over the grades. Second, the authors found non-analytical approaches dominating teachers’ pedagogy in standard and honors courses for all of literary study (literary non-fiction as well as imaginative literature), in tandem with a compulsory focus on culture-free skills, imposed by state standards, state assessments, and the intervention programs teachers are told to use for all students in their classes, whether or not they are below grade level in reading. As the teachers at the focus group meetings told the authors, only students in Pre-AP and AP classes are likely to engage regularly in close reading of a text, fiction or non-fiction.

That the fostering of analytical reading skills is in effect confined to the top third of Arkansas's students in only these courses may be a good part of the explanation for the high remediation rate in post-secondary education in Arkansas and the high failure rate on the AP tests themselves. The authors’ findings serve as the basis for recommendations in four areas: K-12 curriculum policies, staffing policies, undergraduate and teacher preparation programs for prospective English teachers, and state assessments and standards in the English language arts.