Cormac McCarthy's The Road in the Classroom

I went to see The Road (Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Schmidt-McFee, dir. John Hillcoat) today with my son and daughter. It is only playing at ONE theatre in Atlanta, so we had to drive to Midtown to see it. It was, as I expected, not nearly as touching and intense as the book, but I am glad the filmmakers didn't butcher it either. Even more so the case, because I chose to teach The Road this semester during my student teaching, and the students were anxious to see the movie when it came out.

My mentor teacher kindly allowed me to teach Cormac McCarthy's heartbreaking, award-winning, post-apocalyptic novel (2006), even though she is a self-proclaimed Fundamentalist Christian. My mentor teacher refuses to read or discuss Harry Potter novels, for example, because of the "occult" element. It is even more surprising I was allowed to teach this selection because in most schools these days things like cannibalism, catamites, and murder don't really go over well as provender for classroom studies.


There are a few teachers that have ventured into teaching McCarthy's novel, but despite its Pulitzer Prize and numerous accolades, it's a hard sell here in the Deep South. In addition, one of my liberal, broad-minded college instructors also felt uneasy about my teaching it—not because of some of the disturbing content—but because she felt that high school sophomores wouldn't be able to grasp the novel's recondite messages. Nonetheless, my steadfast persistence paid off, and I was allowed to teach it.

It went really well, I thought, and is another example of how students can and will reach beyond simplistic levels of expectation that our educational system has set for them. Not only did most of them "get it," but they also got into it as well. Of course, there was no way I could have assigned this reading as homework (heaven forbid), and we had to read every single word of it in class. I also had to buy the classroom set of novels out of my own pocket (about $200). However, I felt really good about the fact that I was able to bring a piece of leading-edge, unconventional literature into a school that has many lower income and socioeconomic level students. The students' final assessment essays on the book are due next Wednesday, but I've already received some very thoughtful daily reflections on the book from a good number of students in the class. So I am hopeful (fingers crossed) that the concepts and connections I've tried to get them to think about will appear in what they turn in to me then. I may be back next week with an apocalyptic report on what they produced, but I'm going to go on record as saying that I have confidence in their ability to produce some valid critical thinking.