Omitted Optimism by Colleen

Omitted Optimism by Colleen - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

I appreciate "The Great Gatsby" and "The Things They Carried" for the intricacy of their language, the obvious, meticulous thought that went into their construction, and the universality of their themes, but I've found it difficult to ignore over the years that nearly every book assigned to read in high school shares one unfortunate trait: they're depressing. As someone who loves both to read and write, I worry that students who haven't grown up diving into the literary world of their own free will are getting a very bleak picture of it. Literature, I always want to tell them, isn't all like this! The main character isn't always at the heart of some great tragedy. Not all endings are sad. There are books out there that have beautiful language, complex messages, and an optimistic outlook on life... "Belong to Me" by Marisa de los Santos, for instance.

As someone who typically enjoys fantasy and adventure stories, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this novel, which is essentially a tale of several families in modern suburbia. Aside from being more obviously applicable to a student's everyday life, "Belong to Me" combines the structure of "good" literature, with an optimistic rather than cynical theme, and I believe this is a critical element in showing students just how amazing reading can be, as well as inspiring them in other ways.

People who believe their votes count are the ones who vote. People who believe their actions can make a difference are the ones who go out and fight for change. Nearly all the books on the current high school syllabus point out large universal problems, but present little hope for their remedy. Currently, it would seem, we are raising not only a generation of literature-haters, but also of cynics. If they don't see a path to a brighter future, then they're going to have a much harder time working towards one, so I say it's high time to inspire students to read, make change, and see the world in a brighter light by presenting optimistic novels in schools alongside the inundation of depressing ones.