How to Maintain Student Choice While Teaching the Classics

A lot of the joy of teaching comes from having some autonomy in what we teach our students. I loved introducing my students to new books and getting to choose texts for each unit. But, not every teacher gets that choice. You might have required classic literature for each grade level. When the school year already feels short on time, it can seem impossible to teach the classics while also giving students a choice in what they read. I want to explore some strategies for teaching classic literature that allow you to maintain student choice while also meetings your school’s requirements.

My Love-Hate Relationship with Classic Literature

I started my teaching career at a school where I had zero curriculum and was able to teach whatever I wanted. I loved this and had a blast choosing books for my students. At some point, I moved districts and landed in a school that allowed me to have flexibility over my curriculum, but they did have a list of required classic literature I needed to cover with students.

Their curriculum was designed to be cross-curricular, so I wasn’t able to smile and nod in meetings and then go back to my classroom, close the door, and teach whatever I wanted. I needed to be a team player – but I also dreaded teaching the required classics. I wanted my modern novels back!

So, I had to get crafty. I came up with a few ways I could follow my district’s requirements to teach classic literature while also using the books I wanted students to read. Over time, the classics grew on me, too. I had a new appreciation for them when I was able to use them in a way that supported my style of teaching.

Strategies for Teaching Classic Literature

The sweet spot with teaching the classics is finding a way to meet your school’s requirements while also allowing for modern texts and student choice. Here are a few strategies I used to make this happen.

#1 Use Required Classic Literature as Your Mentor Text

The best way to hold student choice and required tasks together is by changing how you utilize books in your classroom. Traditionally, the classic text is the book everyone reads together in class – but again, that doesn’t allow for student choice.

Instead, you can use classic literature as your mentor text. This means when teaching your lesson and modeling concepts for students, you use the required classic text. Then, students will apply their knowledge while they read their chosen text in book clubs or during independent reading. To help with the transition of knowledge, I like to keep the books within the same genre. So, if your required text is nonfiction, the books students choose from should also be nonfiction.

For example, when I taught a poetry unit, my district had a list of required classic poems. I used these during my lessons on figurative language, tone, and more to model the process of analyzing a text. Then, students applied this knowledge to a verse novel. If we talked about figurative language that day, they had a figurative language-based guided question to answer while reading their book of choice.

#2 Change Your Mindset around Teaching the Classics

This can be a challenge when you’re passionate about student choice like so many of us are. I found that it was easiest to shift my mindset when I realized that there is a difference between loving a text and getting value from it. They are not always mutually exclusive. 

When you read classic literature with students, you are challenged to think differently about the world we live in. Through Anne Frank’s Diary, you can have thought-provoking discussions about history and humanity. Through The Outsiders, students can see how the struggles people have today aren’t all that different from the struggles of the past. Changing this mindset around classic literature reminded me of what it could offer students, even if it wasn’t allowing for student choice.

#3 Give Students a Purpose for Reading

I always encouraged students to find books they would enjoy reading, so this was a challenge when teaching the classics. I knew my students wouldn’t always love the text, so I needed another way to demonstrate the value of reading.

The best way I found to do this was by being intentional about what we read and setting the purpose from the start. For example, there was no purpose in telling them to read a certain amount of pages because they’d be quizzed on the content. That isn’t really a purpose. Instead, I’d give them pages to read and then establish the purpose, like noticing the shift in character dynamics or analyzing how the author uses mood.

By establishing a purpose, students had a game plan for how they would tackle the text. They didn’t need to love the text in order to get the job done. Then, they could take this knowledge and apply it to their chosen book, where they were getting both knowledge and enjoyment from reading.
I hope these strategies for teaching classic literature are helpful. If you’re at a school that requires certain classic literature – hang in there. Take these strategies and make them your own so that they fit with your own style of teaching. Want to learn more about encouraging positive reading habits in your classroom? Check out this blog on building a reading community.