On the Study of Literature

1987 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Los Angeles, California

Background This resolution grew out of NCTE members' concern about a tendency in literature programs to put stress on the teaching and testing of facts about literature at the expense of deeper inquiry into the meaning of the text. If literature study is to have real significance for students, they contended, students must experience the complex process of engaging a text and integrating its meaning with their own lives. Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English oppose curricula that reduce literature to lists of information; and           that the Council further oppose efforts to deny a multicultural student population access to literature which represents all cultures.