Standard Review Criteria for American Literature textbooks

Standard Review Criteria for Literature textbooks

When judging literary selections for students, well thought-out objections put you on the attack and foes on the defensive. Our standard review criteria give you this edge. They also help rank reading selections fairly.

Below are our standard review criteria for content of high school American Literature reading selections. This is not a comprehensive course outline, but a list of what textbooks often censor on major topics.

Reading selection content should present:

A universe that rewards virtue and punishes vice, where good and evil are not moral equivalents, with solutions to problems
Constructive plotlines that do not dwell on pessimism, despair, death, dying, or suicide
Behavioral role models that demonstrate civility, sensitivity, humaneness, and non-destructiveness to self or others
Generally positive attitudes toward, and relations among, children, parents, and other adults
Sensitive treatment of benefits to children of strong, stable, two-parent families
Greater stress on America's European literary, religious, and cultural heritage compared to that from other regions
Equal criticism of white and non-white cultures, and of Christian and non-Christian civilizations
As much note of intra-group conflict as of inter-group strife
Diverse views on current controversial issues, if and when raised (e.g., "global warming," feminism, naturalistic origins myths like evolution)
Standard spelling, correct grammar, and grade-level appropriate English vocabulary
No sensational violence, offensive language or illustrations, occultism, or LGBTQ deviance (e.g., self-styled polymorphs or subjective transgenders)
No pattern of pejoratives stigmatizing one group and superlatives idealizing another
No politically-correct stereotypes of oppressors and/or victims by race, class, religion, party, or gender

Base coverage on contemporaries' relative esteem of various authors’ works, as well as on modern editors’ and critics’ opinions (e.g., 9 pages on Olaudah Equiano but nothing from The Federalist, or 8 pages of Emily Dickinson with half a page of Longfellow, anti-intellectually panders to special-interest pressure groups).

Present contrasting primary-source views on major literary movements and individuals (e.g., Hawthorne on transcendentalism; Emerson and J. R. Lowell on Thoreau).

Support "the free enterprise system … patriotism and … the basic democratic values of our state and national heritage"
(Texas Education Code Section 28.002[h]).

Anthologize proportional representative selections from pre-1865 figures, sources, eras, and genres, for perspective and balance in American literary history with a course content mid-point no later than 1865:

John Smith	Thomas Jefferson	William Bradford	The Federalist
John Winthrop	Philip Freneau	Edward Taylor	Washington Irving
Cotton Mather	James Fenimore Cooper	Samuel Sewall	William Cullen Bryant
Mary Rowlandson	Henry W. Longfellow	William Byrd	John Greenleaf Whittier
Jonathan Edwards	Oliver Wendell Holmes	Benjamin Franklin	James Russell Lowell
Thomas Paine

Texas rules for this course detail student skills to develop, but give no guidance on content of reading selections. From our 58 years of experience reviewing such texts, this checklist powers fair rankings. No unaccountable authors/editors.