Should Popular Fiction Be Taught In Schools Essay

There has been many great debates about how the classic fiction books over the popular fiction and be taught in the school curriculum. Christopher Bantick had an opinion about how classic fiction should always be taught in the school curriculum. In his opinion he states that “Reading literary fiction leads people to perform better on tests that measure empathy”. And that if you read popular fiction it can get you nowhere. But others have argued that popular fiction books are better and are relevant to today’s kids. The novel To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic fiction book and it has been read and taught in many schools. In this essay I will be arguing about how the novel to kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee should be read in school rather than popular books such as “The fault in our Stars”.
The novel “To kill a Mockingbird”, and other classic novels, should be read, studied and taught in schools

rather than popular fiction because this book has been taught in different schools since the 1970’s and in the book it teaches us basically valuable life lessons and that not everything always ends with a fantasy ending. In the book it teaches us about discrimination and racism to the black people. And that not everyone was treated with respect or dignity. A quote in the book that explains this is "Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favouring Negroes over and above themselves”.
A second reason for why this classic literature novel should be included in any school curriculum it has an educational and historical background which sometimes brings in facts about the past.

If every student decided to read books like these than many of them would at least learn a few things about the historical past that they knew before. In the newspaper article it quoted ‘Interestingly, the research revealed that when another sample group was given popular fiction this group made more errors on the test for empathy. This is suggesting that the kids who read popular fiction had no clue or empathy on what they were doing, However if they did a test on classic fiction then the kids would pass the test. The novel there is quote that was said by Atticus finch in page 308, “you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them”. This novel has many interesting things moving around at once and this quote spoken by Atticus is saying you can never judge somebody by the way they act but you have to be in their shoes to know what’s really going

on.
A third reason for why this classic literature novel should be included in any school curriculum over any popular fiction novel is because when you read to kill a mocking bird it makes you feel as if you are one of the characters in the book. Some students may think the book is boring and others may think that the book is interesting and has teaching morals. Students mostly struggle and find the novel challenging because of the language and the slang put into the book. In the second newspaper article it states, ‘the culpability of school curriculum that shy away from anything remotely challenging on the basis that “the kids won’t like it” is simply craven thinking’. This article is claiming that just because a kid says that he or she doesn’t like something the rest of the class will hate it too.