Think about the last time you decided not to teach a particular book.
Maybe it was too long for the time you had available. Maybe you weren’t convinced your students were ready for it, or you had another text that would accomplish the same instructional goals more effectively. Maybe you just didn’t like it all that much (that’s allowed, by the way.)
Or maybe you thought about language, violence, sexuality, religious or political perspectives, or some other potentially controversial element and decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
Not necessarily because the book was inappropriate. Not because you couldn’t justify teaching it. But because you could already imagine the parent email, the meeting with your principal, and/or the possibility that someone might take a passage out of context and post it on social media.
So you picked something else.
No formal challenge. No school board meeting. No banned book.
And probably no one, other than you, ever knew that the decision had been made.
We hear a great deal about banned books, and for good reason. Organizations like PEN America and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) document challenges to books and instructional materials in schools. As you would likely expect, much of that attention focuses on which books are being removed, where challenges are occurring, and who is responsible.
But what concerns me just as much is what happens before a book is ever challenged.
In its 2023 report, Educational Intimidation: How “Parents’ Rights” Legislation Undermines the Freedom to Learn, PEN America describes how legislation and policies can discourage teachers from addressing certain subjects without explicitly prohibiting them from doing so. The report identifies a climate in which the possibility of complaints, investigations, and professional consequences can influence curricular decisions long before anyone files a formal objection.
This is self-censorship, and it's a little harder to recognize than the removal of a book from a library shelf.
Carol Jago, former NCTE president and longtime advocate for literary education, raised precisely this concern in her 2023 article, “Rescuing Reading.” She writes, “Many teachers today find themselves crippled by curricular caution.” She goes on to suggest that self-censorship may ultimately have a greater influence on what students read than official book bans.
I witnessed it myself a few weeks ago: In a recent coaching session, a teacher I've worked with for the past two years expressed frustration that she “couldn’t” teach a particular book (I have intentionally left out the title to avoid making this about the merits of any one text). Apparently, she’d heard that her principal had asked another teacher not to use it because of parent complaints in previous years.
Now, this teacher has become incredibly thoughtful and intentional about everything she does in her classroom, including the texts she selects. She doesn’t just pick a novel because it’s time to read another novel. She considers what her students need to learn, the skills she wants them to develop, and which texts will provide the best opportunities to do that work. She’d used this particular book successfully the year before, and it was an especially good fit for what she was planning now.
But she was ready to abandon it because of something she’d heard about a conversation between two other people.
Maybe her principal really had discouraged its use. Maybe there were legitimate concerns or circumstances she didn't know about. We couldn’t say for certain. And that’s what made the situation so interesting to me. As far as she knew, no one had actually told her that she couldn’t teach the book. Yet she’d already begun making instructional decisions as though they had.
Here’s the trouble with self-censorship: it can look an awful lot like good teaching.
We make decisions about what text to use and what texts not to use all the time. That’s part of the job. We consider students’ needs, the goals of our courses, the available resources, and any number of other factors. Sometimes we make decisions based on our own interests or expertise. And, yes, sometimes we consider what our communities might think about the texts we choose.
We should.
But when the possibility of upsetting someone begins to outweigh the educational value of a text, we’ve entered different territory. I’m not sure we always recognize when we’ve crossed that line.
And I don’t think it’s fair to assume that teachers who make those decisions lack courage.
I've worked with enough teachers in enough different schools and communities to know that the circumstances under which we teach can vary considerably. What seems like a relatively straightforward instructional decision in one district might become a serious professional concern in another.
Some teachers work under clearly defined policies about instructional materials. Others are trying to interpret vague restrictions or navigate administrative expectations that seem to change depending on who’s asking. There are teachers who know their administrators will support thoughtful curricular decisions and others who aren’t nearly as confident.
Another PEN America report America's Censored Classrooms 2023 examines the effects of restrictions on teaching and the uncertainty those restrictions can create. One of the more troubling consequences is that teachers may begin avoiding subjects or texts because they aren’t sure what is permitted (and are afraid to ask).
Consider that for a moment. A teacher may be perfectly willing and professionally prepared to use a challenging work of literature but decides against it because the potential consequences are unclear.
We have to be careful about how we talk about this. I knew I had to be careful how I coached that teacher.
It’s easy to encourage teachers to stand up for intellectual freedom. It’s considerably harder to do that when you’re the one who might be called into an administrator’s office or find yourself defending a curricular decision in front of an angry school board.
Teachers have families, mortgages, careers, and reputations to consider. Those aren’t insignificant concerns. No one I know is willing to live like Diogenes for the sake of intellectual freedom. Though many wish they could, it simply isn’t practical.
At the same time, we ought to distinguish between what is actually prohibited, what might generate a complaint, and what we’ve simply come to believe is too risky. These aren’t necessarily the same things.
Knowing the difference may not eliminate the risk, but it can help teachers make decisions based on something more substantial than fear.
AP® English Literature and Composition presents a particularly interesting challenge because it is intended to provide students with an introductory college-level experience in literary study.
According to the College Board's AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description, students should encounter literature from different periods and genres while developing the ability to interpret, analyze, and construct arguments about literary works.
We ask students to examine characterization, setting, structure, narration, and figurative language. We expect them to consider how those choices contribute to the meaning of a work. We want them to recognize complexity, including the contradictions, tensions, and ambiguities that make literature worth discussing in the first place.
That's difficult work. It should be.
And sometimes the literature that provides the richest opportunities for this work also happens to be the literature that makes people uncomfortable.
Think about Toni Morrison's Beloved. Its representations of slavery, violence, trauma, and motherhood are disturbing. They are supposed to be. But those experiences are also central to the novel’s exploration of memory, identity, and the lasting consequences of enslavement. I will even argue that without seeing those representations, a reader cannot really develop genuine meaning from the narrative. Morrison’s narrative structure, in particular, requires readers to piece together fragmented experiences and reconsider their understanding as the novel develops.
That's precisely the kind of intellectual work we want AP Literature students to do.
Now, I'm not suggesting that every AP Literature teacher should teach Beloved (please, don’t email me about this), or that any book becomes more valuable simply because someone finds it offensive (someone will email me about this). Literary merit and controversy are not interchangeable.
But neither are discomfort and inappropriateness.
And if we begin eliminating works because they address subjects that might generate complaints, we should at least consider what that does to the range and complexity of the literature our students encounter.
This brings me to something I've argued for years: we should be using texts to teach, not simply teaching texts.
I know that sounds like a small distinction, but I think it's an important one.
We don’t teach Beloved merely so students can say they've read Morrison. We use the novel to help students understand how literature works. The same is true of Hamlet, Frankenstein, Their Eyes Were Watching God, or any number of other works that might find their way into an AP Literature classroom.
The texts are important, certainly, but so is what students learn to do as a result of reading them.
This has implications for the way we select and defend our instructional materials.
If I’m teaching a novel because it provides particularly rich opportunities to examine unreliable narration, I ought to be able to explain that. If I’m using a play to explore the relationship between characterization and competing motivations, I should be able to identify how that work supports the goals of the course.
In other words, we should be able to articulate the instructional purpose behind our choices.
NCTE's Guidelines for Dealing with Censorship of Instructional Materials recommends that educators preview materials, prepare instructional rationales, and communicate how texts will be used to accomplish curricular goals. These are sensible practices regardless of whether a text is likely to be challenged.
And they shouldn’t begin only after someone complains.
Of course, having a well-developed instructional rationale doesn’t guarantee that a parent will agree with your choice or that an administrator will support it. But it does provide a professional foundation for explaining why the work belongs in the classroom.
There’s another benefit, too.
When we understand what a text is helping students learn, we are better positioned to consider alternatives when necessary. A different novel might provide comparable opportunities to analyze narrative structure or characterization. We have flexibility because our instructional goals aren't entirely dependent on a particular title.
Susan Barber, AP Literature teacher and College Board advisor, provides a useful example of what this flexibility can look like in practice. In her “Dystopian Choice Unit and 1984 Simulation,” published on Much Ado About Teaching (co-credited to Matt Brisbin, who is also pretty awesome), Susan describes an approach in which students select different dystopian novels while working toward shared instructional goals.
Students might be reading The Handmaid's Tale, Parable of the Sower, 1984, or Fahrenheit 451, but their reading and discussions focus on common literary concerns, including setting, characterization, conflict, and thematic development. The unit culminates in a literary argument, allowing students to apply what they've learned to the particular works they've read.
I like this approach for several reasons, not the least of which is that it reminds us that a rigorous AP Literature course doesn't necessarily require every student to read the same book at the same time. Teachers can establish common learning goals while providing students with meaningful choices about the literature they encounter.
Of course, offering choices doesn't eliminate concerns about controversial content. Some of those books have been challenged themselves. But it does give teachers another way to think about curriculum design, one that maintains instructional coherence without assuming there's only one text capable of accomplishing the goal.
Still, that flexibility shouldn’t become an excuse to avoid every challenging work.
At some point, we have to ask whether our alternative choices are providing equally rich opportunities for students to develop the knowledge and skills expected of them.
One of the things that concerns me about conversations surrounding controversial literature is how quickly they can become conversations about whether a book should be taught at all.
There are a lot of instructional decisions between choosing a book and asking students to read the first chapter.
This is good teaching. And much of it is especially important when students encounter experiences or perspectives different from their own.
Consider a novel that includes racist language or depicts racial violence. Students need to understand the historical and social circumstances represented in the work. They also need opportunities to consider how the author uses those representations to develop characters, establish conflicts, or explore larger ideas.
Now, I am not suggesting (though I do often see this) that the English class becomes a history course for a week before the novel. That is definitely too much and probably beyond the scope. However, without some preparation, students may struggle to distinguish between the attitudes expressed by characters, the perspectives of narrators, and the larger meanings a work develops.
Those distinctions are central to literary interpretation.
And they can make a considerable difference in how students experience and discuss difficult material.
I would also encourage teachers to think carefully about the questions they ask. A discussion that begins with "Do you agree with this character?" may produce an entirely different conversation from one that asks students to examine how the author develops the character's motivations and contradictions.
Both questions have their place, perhaps, but they don't necessarily accomplish the same instructional purpose.
The goal isn't to make challenging literature comfortable. It's to make it accessible for thoughtful study.
I would be remiss to not insert here a comment about the teacher’s role in discussion. Without branching into another entire post, I will simply say that teachers must remember that they are not participants in the conversation: we are, instead, mediators and moderators. If we participate, we poison the well and influence students' thoughts and responses. Don’t do it. Even when the discussion is “over.” That will get you in trouble and interfere with students’ independent thinking (go ahead, email me).
Teachers shouldn't don’t have to figure all of this out on their own.
That database is worth exploring even if you aren't currently facing a challenge. It can help teachers think more deliberately about the literary and instructional value of the works they select.
NCTE also offers confidential assistance to members navigating censorship concerns, including guidance about possible next steps and connections to additional support.
The National Coalition Against Censorship is another organization worth knowing. Its educational resources and advocacy work can help teachers and school leaders understand how to respond to challenges involving intellectual freedom.
Know your district's policies for selecting and reconsidering instructional materials. Find out whether your school has established procedures for responding to parent concerns. Talk with your department chair, curriculum coordinator, or administrator before a problem arises. List all of your texts in your syllabus and on your website. Invite dialogue with parents or others about the “why” of certain texts. Where applicable, consult your professional association or union about contractual protections and representation.
And if you're unsure whether a particular restriction is a matter of state law, district policy, or simply local practice, find out. Those distinctions can be consequential, and they may require qualified legal guidance.
None of this is particularly exciting work. I realize that.
But it's far better to understand the procedures and protections available to you before you're in a position where you need them.
I also think administrators need to be part of this conversation. If we expect teachers to exercise professional judgment, we should be prepared to support them when that judgment is questioned. A carefully considered curricular decision shouldn't become solely the teacher's problem the moment someone objects.
I'm not interested in suggesting that every book challenge is unreasonable or that every concern raised by a parent should be dismissed. Parents have legitimate interests in their children's education, and teachers have responsibilities to the students and communities they serve.
There will be disagreements. Sometimes those disagreements will be difficult, and sometimes teachers will need to reconsider a decision.
That's part of working in public education.
What worries me is the possibility that we've begun allowing anticipated disagreement to shape our curricula before the disagreement ever occurs.
And that has consequences beyond the books themselves.
When students encounter literature that challenges their assumptions, they have opportunities to examine perspectives they may not share, recognize contradictions in human behavior, and develop interpretations that account for complexity rather than avoiding it.
These are among the habits of mind we should be cultivating in an AP Literature classroom. They're also habits students will need long after the AP exam.
If we're serious about preparing students for college-level literary study, then we have to take seriously the kinds of intellectual experiences we make available to them.
That doesn't mean ignoring legitimate concerns, disregarding policies, or placing teachers in professionally untenable situations. Nor does it mean that every difficult book is worth fighting for in every circumstance.
It does mean that we ought to recognize when our decisions are being shaped more by the possibility of controversy than by what we believe students need to learn.
I've often said that teachers should be able to explain not only what they're teaching, but why they're teaching it. I think the same expectation should apply to the texts we decide not to teach.
After all, the books we remove from our curricula, whether by mandate or by choice, also shape the education our students receive.
And those decisions deserve at least as much thought as the ones we make about what stays.
Barber, Susan, and Matt Brisbin. “Dystopian Choice Unit and 1984 Simulation.” Much Ado About Teaching. https://muchadoaboutteaching.com/dystopian-choice-unit-and-1984-simulation/
College Board. AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description. AP Central. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition
Jago, Carol. “Rescuing Reading.” National Council of Teachers of English, 10 March 2023. https://ncte.org/blog/2023/03/rescuing-reading/
National Council of Teachers of English. (2018). Guidelines for Dealing with Censorship of Instructional Materials. https://ncte.org/statement/censorshipofnonprint/
National Council of Teachers of English. Intellectual Freedom Center. https://ncte.org/resources/ncte-intellectual-freedom-center/
National Council of Teachers of English. Book Rationale Database. https://ncte.org/book-rationales/
National Coalition Against Censorship. Resources for Educators. https://ncac.org/
PEN America. (2023). Educational Intimidation: How “Parents' Rights” Legislation Undermines the Freedom to Learn. https://pen.org/report/educational-intimidation/
PEN America. (2023). America's Censored Classrooms 2023: Lawmakers Shift Strategies as Resistance Rises. https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms-2023/