2. There is no inherent value in insisting students consume, understand and enjoy literary heritage texts.

2. There is no inherent value in insisting students consume, understand and enjoy literary heritage texts. The study of established canonical writers perpetuates the notion that English Literature is an elitist pursuit. Students across the UK are from different class and ethnic backgrounds and the insistence of academics, exam boards and teachers that old white guys are the best writers is potentially damaging.

We are not teaching literature to perpetuate the bourgeois hegemony, we are teaching young people to develop a love of reading and skills of understanding, comparison, analysis and critical reflection. These skills would be better developed in the study of familiar and unintimidating texts. Even F.R. Leavis promoted the use of films and advertisements as tools for developing critical awareness in school children (Culture and Environment, Leavis and Thompson, 1942).

Students should be exposed to a range of forms: popular fiction, moving image texts, genre fiction, fan fiction (a fast growing and potentially influential form) as well as the more traditional forms: drama, poetry, realist fiction, literary non-fiction.