I understand the importance of diversity in school texts, but I don’t always agree with how it’s carried out.

I teach 10th grade world lit, and have to use a textbook from a very well known publisher (the main source used by a lot of districts). They try to include diverse voices, writers, races, cultures etc, which I get and understand. <br><br>But, why is my first unit learning about all of African culture, while only reading poems? I’ve never seen any other collection of work from any culture like this. <br><br>Isn’t it problematic to just limit their work to only poetry, and not show all of the amazing things they wrote? All poems, no short stories, no plays, no novels. <br><br>I wish they’d just let us use novel and other works of art from different artists and writers, instead of what they call “real world examples” (whatever that means) and 5-line poems that are often uninteresting to read. <br><br>Anyone else have a problem with this?