The British Columbia Literature 12 Curriculum and I: A Soliloquy

Abstract

A critique of the prescribed Literature 12 curriculum for British Columbia teachers, this article is a life-history narrative juxtaposed against my own literary education, examining how my lived experiences were reflected and reinforced in the Literature 12 curriculum, and in the literary canons of both high school and university English teaching-and vice versa. After first introducing the curriculum documents and the required textbook for the teaching of Literature 12, this article then deconstructs the curriculum objectives and the canon, pointing out that the study of English literature, as traditionally conceived in high schools and universities, reinforces Eurocentrism, racism, elitism, and, particularly for the purposes of this article, misogyny. It concludes by reminding teachers that some students bring experiences of oppression with them to the classroom, and that it is therefore our responsibility to challenge the norms present in the literary canon.In 1994 I took a graduate-level course in curriculum theory at the University of British Columbia taught by Dr. J. Belanger. 1 For the final assignment in that course, we were asked to describe and analyze a curriculum document in our subject fields in terms of the major trends in curriculum theory we had been introduced to, particularly through the historical triad of curriculum orientations (i.e., transmission, transaction, and transformation curricula) suggested by Miller and Seller (1990). We were also to engage with other reading, including feminist points of view, critical discourses, and theory from the new right. At my partner, Larry Johnson's, 2 suggestion, I agreed to augment the assignment as described by writing personal life histories about our experiences with the British Columbia Literature 12 curriculum document (Province of BC, 1972BC, , 1992, a guidebook that Larry had taught within, and that I had been schooled under.Because our chosen curriculum document contained a scant eight pages while our classmates were wrestling with more updated, more fully rounded, tomes, we worked creatively and expanded our outlook

Fissures in standards formulation: The role of neoconservative and neoliberal discourses in justifying standards development in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“…In terms of English language arts standards, these neoconservative agendas often focus on the value of teaching a literary canon that is perceived to foster a Eurocentric, white, middle-class perspective (Kouritzin, 2004). This content focus can therefore be distinguished from the neoliberal focus on reading informative texts, or acquiring problem-solving, technical skills through constructivist methods.…”