Caleb Harris-Blowe

Fiction v. Nonfiction Rewrite

Across the United States various high schools and middle schools have begun to remove fiction
titles from the English curriculum on the basis of students reading more idealistic and real-world text. These
fiction titles are instead being replaced with biographies and autobiographies; this means that worldrenowned fictions such as plays, poems, and literary works will be removed from school curriculums
leaving students unexposed to classic works of the English language.
Shakespeare, a brilliant author, poet, and philosopher who has written a number of well-known
plays and books will no longer be taught in high schools and middle schools across the U.S. leaving
perhaps one of the greatest minds of the English language unknown to students. Creativity in writing would
be at an unquantifiable hindrance due to poetry as a whole genre being snatched away from high school
and middle school students leaving them unexposed to one of the greatest arts of expression. Too many
timeless classics of literature would become extinct in allowing fiction as a whole to be ripped from English
curriculums across America. Mandating that biographies and autobiographies replace fiction titles would
play an essential role in the diminishing of not just the reading of fiction titles but the writing of fiction titles
which would be a direct result of no exposure of fiction titles to middle and high school students.
Fiction titles allow diversity in English literature and includes a vast assortment of genres which all
are categorized as fiction works. Biographies and autobiographies are limited in variety and therefore
restrict the knowledge that can be learned from as well as the lessons. Fiction titles teach what cannot be
taught through merely reading the history of another persons life and for writers it opens up the possibility
of teaching someone a valuable lesson that would have been otherwise learned the hard way. Such as
Tolstoys How Much Land Does A Man Need? Where a farmer dies from his own greed. Biographies and
autobiographies do not expand ones imagination especially those of celebrities who live in entirely different
world apart from regular people. One cannot and will not attain more knowledge by just reading non-fiction
works and taking away fiction titles will ensure that by taking along with them the variety of books for
students to read.
Tragedies are stories written that entail the downfall of the main character with the solemn purpose
to convey to the reader a lesson to be learned and these stories are not only in just middle school but in
high school as well. A great example of this would be Shakespeares Cesar a man so arrogant who foresaw
his own death and was verbally warned by his wife he would die but due to his arrogance he was killed
despite being warned. That story is read in high school and it would be extracted from the schools
curriculum a fiction that enlightened students and helped them to build their character through discarding
their pride and own personal arrogance.
Many believe that with the annexation of biographies and autobiographies the literature read will be
more relatable to students. In what way when taking a story of a person who lived in a time where slavery
was still legal then comparing that to a student in adolescence living in a time where equality goes as far as
to let same-sex couples to get married there are no apparent similarities.
Fiction titles should not be replaced in middle and high school curriculums by autobiographies and
biographies the chain of events set into motion on the English language as a direct result would be
unfathomable it would hinder students across the United States in a tremendous way not only in creativity
but in self-expression as well.