Changing the curriculum
natalie stewart

in the hot, stuffy meeting room, cheers and applause broke through the oppressive air. teachers and faculty members were sitting around several large tables, looking up at randall with admiration. randall was relieved that the meeting was over. his thoughts drifted back to the start of the school year.

randall’s fourth period english class seemed to drag on forever. the assigned reading list his teacher had handed out in the beginning of class was a huge disappointment to this book lover; the curriculum was stale like week-old bread. after analyzing the list at the dinner table, his parents remarked that they had read many of the books assigned to randall’s class. teachers were subjecting today’s students to a thirty-year-old reading list! this didn’t make any sense to randall. though he understood the value of classical literature, randall felt that the curriculum needed a better balance of old and new.

how might you develop the perspective of the teachers if you were to finish writing this narrative?
a) create lots of dialogue between the teachers discussing what they think about being a teacher
b) show why they valued classic books before showing how randall convinced them to update the books they assign
c) include lots of information about each teacher's childhood, including where they grew up and what they liked to do
d) focus only on randall's actions and plans because the perspective of the teachers is not important to this story at all