The Literary Canon

For literature to become a literary canon it must posess characteristics that are appealing to everyone, including the younger generation. In seventh grade, you are givin no choise on what you want to read. Our first book was To Kill A Mockingbird, and to me and most of our class, it wasn't a very interesting book to us at first. Some students found it hard to understand, others liked it, but most weren't interested in the book at all. It would be beneficial to include literature that students can get interested in so that they would be more willining and more likely to read more often. The literary canon should be something different for every individual human being. Wouldn't a politician's literary canon differ from an average teenager? Things that seem to be extremely important literature could be completely irrelevant to anything a student would benefit from knowing. To me, the literary canon should include three important things: The Bible, history, and human equality. This literature is so important for everyone to know and understand. People don't always realize what's right from wrong and how prejudism is ruining our world. If these three types of literature could be incorporated and understood by our generation it would change people's beliefs and help put an end to racism. Or even books about women having a higher stand in politics could influence more women to run for president. Personally, I'm tired of having men as presidents and feeling as though they are the smarter gender, but then again...I'm not about to have Hilary Clinton running our country. Racial variety to me is the very important because if a student was raised bias against a certain race, reading a required book in school could allow students to open their mind to other races. I think that literature plays a smaller role in today's culture. It's always television shows, internet, magazines that come first. People aren't as interested in literature compared to all of the additional media. I think that literature should play a larger role in people's life because certain literature, like those included in the literary canon, could be life changing.