Why literature?
The answer is simple: our brains are wired for narrative. We love to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into a story, into the lives and experiences of other people, in order to make sense of our own lives and experiences.
Whether we recognize it or not, we discover empathy and compassion through engaging in a story. There is an excitement when we are fully invested in others’ worlds.
Think about the last time you were sitting on the edge of your seat, lost in a movie; or a TV series so exhilarating, you chose just one more episode over sleep; or so captivated by a book you simply couldn’t put it down.
Story speaks to us, story speaks through us, and story changes us.
My goal in teaching high school literature is to expose students to the stories of the world, to provide students with authentic connections to characters and contexts they might never encounter in real life — to make literature come alive for them.
Research shows that finding love and compassion through authors’ worlds and fictional characters helps to sustain us, even during the most trying of times.
All students have the right to question their assumptions and beliefs through literature, and to seek commonalities in the experiences of another. Then, they can find the courage to fight for justice with love and wisdom.
We need our students to experience literature in all of its richness — in all of its complexity — because through the study of literature, we become more human.
In African American Literature, for example, we study the character, Vyry, from Margaret Walker’s slave narrative “Jubilee.” I begin teaching “Jubilee” by sharing my goal: I want Vyry to live in their hearts, and to stay with them for years to come.
As students read, discuss and write about “Jubilee,” they learn that Vyry, a young bi-racial girl enslaved by birth, endures the destruction of her family, the loss of all three of her mother figures, and the brutal physical and psychological attacks of slavery. By the end of Book One, Vyry is whipped mercilessly and has salt ground into the wounds on her back by the evil plantation overseer.
Yet, Vyry survives through intelligence and strength. As a newly “freed” married woman during Reconstruction, Vyry endures constant attacks on her home and family; lynchings, cross burnings, sharecropping, and the empty government promises of 40 Acres and a Mule.
She must constantly move her family to find shelter, food and work. In the end, Vyry survives and keeps her family alive and intact. By the end of the book, Vyry emerges a resilient, vibrant, compassionate survivor who sees the beauty in humanity and who carries the faith that her children will benefit from an education to pursue their dreams.
As a fictional character, she is a symbol of power, strength, and loving endurance.
When I share that the character of Vyry is based on the true story of the author’s great-grandmother, my students are awestruck. By “knowing” Vyry in their hearts and minds, her story informs their present and their future.
Through literature, and specifically, through our intimate connection with Vyry, we discover a history of racism and injustice in America and we are better able to name and address the racism and injustice in our present and future realities.
The empathy that students develop for Vyry is transferable and helps them to navigate oppression and hatred by marshalling strength through love, compassion and justice.
Kristen Iverson has been teaching English at Amherst Regional High School for 20 years and is a teacher-consultant with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project.