Students should not have to buy books for English

As a book lover, the following may seem a bit off-character for me to write. But, I am also a penny-pincher. That being said, the amount of books required for English class is a financial burden on students who cannot afford the purchase.

Picture the first day of the new school year. You walk into English class with your new binder, paper, pens and highlighters. Then, the teacher passes out the syllabus with a mile-long list of books that will be read throughout the year. And, no, they will not be supplied by the school. You have to buy them all yourself.

Many in this school are fortunate enough to not have a problem with spending money on several books over the course of the year. However, not every student can afford to buy their own library worth of novels.

The Aurora High School bookstore does a great job at keeping prices fair (for example, the cost for Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is $6.50 in the bookstore, which is the same price for a used copy on Amazon. If you want a new one from Amazon, it’s fifty cents more). An alternative to paying for books is to visit the library, but even keeping a book checked out for a long period of time can take some maneuvering.

Think back to all the books you’ve had to buy throughout your years of high school: Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Outliers, The Scarlet Letter, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl. These are only a few, and keep in mind that students in AP or Honors English classes will have a different list. For example, the list of novels scheduled to be read in AP Literature appears quite daunting:

Tess of the d’Urbervilles - $6.50

Oedipus and Antigone - $10.50

The Glass Menagerie - $9.00

Siddhartha - $4.50

Metamorphosis and Other Stories - $2.00 - $3.00 (for the sake of coming to a final number, we will say the cost is $2.50)

Henry IV - $4.50

The Handmaid’s Tale - $11.00

Othello - $3.00

And the total? $51.50. Bear in mind that these are the average prices. Also bear in mind that titles may be removed from or added to this list. And bear in mind that this is just for one English class out of four required by the high school. So what we’ve learned here is that there are plenty of things to bear in mind.

And what if you are that student who doesn’t have $51.50 to spend? If you don’t have a job or if you come from a lower-income family? Aurora High School benefits lower-income students by allowing those who qualify to receive free books from the library. That being said, there are still students who do not qualify but still do not have spare $51.50 for buying novels.

Here is a solution to Aurora students’ money-saving needs; when students sign up to take an English class for the incoming year, the number of students would be recorded. So, if fifty sophomores are enrolled in Honors English, fifty copies of The Scarlet Letter would be provided. Each student would have their own copy which would then be returned to the teacher after the unit of study is completed. Really, this is no more different than how history and science classes have class copies of textbooks.

“But annotations!” I can hear the English teachers exclaiming. “What about the joy of annotating?” Students can still interact with the text, just in a different way. They can use sticky notes (like I have been doing throughout high school, for the purpose of keeping my novels pristine) or another sheet of paper.

Don’t worry, I am sure the bookstore will still see a stream of students who want to buy a book for English. Fellow book lovers and people who would rather write in their novels will still offer their business. The point is, people who don’t have money to spend on books shouldn’t be forced to. With issued copies of English books, learning about the art of literature can be provided to students for free.