The Jabberwock

Is it right for the regular ELA 12 curriculum to include the Kite Runner? From a novel standpoint, I think yes. Walking away from the novel, you start to realize the real problems with the literature curriculum as a whole that cause this book to not be the greatest choice in the context of Boston Latin Academy.

As for The Kite Runner, The Kite Runner is a great novel that attaches you to the characters and takes a completely different approach from the previous years where there is a more basic level of storytelling. Your protagonist, Amir, contrary to normal storytelling, is evidently a horrible person. Rather than having your protagonist have morals that generally align with yours, you want to fight Amir throughout this novel because of the horrible, late and disgusting choices that Amir makes, such as in Chapter 7 and the later chapters of the book. You watch as Amir gets a good life while Hassan, who I will discuss soon, has to live the worst life possible due to Amir.

Hassan, although not the protagonist, still holds a major role in the story as Amir’s ‘friend’. Amir treats him horribly throughout the story and constantly makes fun of him and treats him as less than human, yet Hassan stays unyieldingly loyal to Amir; reading through each moment of this makes you angrier and angrier at Amir and even strikes your own dignity at seeing Hassan in such a state. Hassan’s unyielding loyalty to Amir lasts until the very end, where we learn that Hassan is Baba’s son — making Amir and Hassan brothers — and Amir reads Hassan’s letter, where Hassan had told Amir about his son, Sohrab. Only here do we see Amir change from not caring about Hassan to wanting to go through the Taliban to see his nephew, in which his lateness to the reader is only seen as disingenuous. 

This is only one of the many plot points present in The Kite Runner, as I respect its unique and fine craft that isn’t seen in many novels, especially novels in the school curriculum. Although published in the United States, The Kite Runner speaks to the world as world literature instead of American literature due to its different nature as a book read in high school. More than just narratively being different, The Kite Runner exposes a reader, especially in an American high school, to a completely different culture than our own, that being in Afghanistan. Exposing students to world literature widens their view from the United States to the entire world, and helps students understand a little bit more about what goes on outside of their country.

So yes, this is a great book for a high school English class. But is it right for Boston Latin Academy’s regular English classes? I will have to disagree. For AP Literature and Composition / AP Language and Composition, I think this is a fine book that students in that class will come to appreciate because they are putting emphasis on literature in their classes. For a regular ELA 12 class, most students are looking to fill their English requirement and graduate, and I feel that in a regular ELA 12 class, The Kite Runner will go unappreciated and discussion about it will not be as strong.

The solution to this? The best solution to underappreciation of books in the regular ELA 12 class is to get rid of the regular ELA 12 class entirely and expand the English requirement to a literature requirement. What I mean by literature requirement is that you have multiple different APs that already exist, but you also include all classes that cover literature such as Spanish Literature and Latin classes that are entirely surrounded by covering texts just like English class is. Not only is it covering the bases of reading and discussing literature, but these classes are discussing literature that is specifically not American, broadening the scope of exposure for what an American high school student or Boston Latin Academy student will leave high school understanding.

I believe that The Kite Runner as a book has no problems by itself, but the nature of our English requirement and ELA 12 leaves The Kite Runner unappreciated, so allowing students to expand into their own interests and run into The Kite Runner in a class that they will appreciate it more is how I believe The Kite Runner will live best in Boston Latin Academy.