A literary question

I have two choices this September.  Choice #1: read the novel, Rule of the Bone, that is normally read to the 10th graders.  Choice #2: select my own.

If I choose to flow with the norm, then my friend Kaitie (who is out on maternity leave) will hand me eight weeks of finely-sculpted lesson plans, quizzes with answer keys, and sample essays.  Thematic questions on transformation and change will be handed over for me to simply implement.  I'll come up with some key talking points; however, the bulk of the unit will stem from her prior work.  On the other hand, if I chose to select my own narrative, I will need to develop the entire curricula myself.

Narrative units are luscious.  Dollop class discussions of life, experience, and family against a fine piece of literary canvas.  The words on the page act as a catalyst that stimulates the students to reflect on their own lives, sense of loss, and hopes for the future.  Characters who peel back layers of unspoken fears and anger often invoke students to do the same in their writing.  And in the midst of their brave journey, my own mind finds the calloused traveling feet and satiated sensory experience of an imagined vacation. 

Another consideration for this unit...it might be my last (at least of the "inner-city high school English" variety).  Potentially the final unit that I unwrap with heart-pattering anticipation like a beautiful gift on Christmas morning.  Careful not to tear the shiny paper, gently nudging the taut bow off the corners, slipping my fingers under the tape on the back, wondering if it is really a coffee maker or merely a ruse.  The box opens revealing layers upon layers of tissue paper (it's definitely not a coffee maker).  I embrace the new treasure nestled between the crinkling pastels.

This is what literature and the teaching of it means to me, hence my struggle to teach a novel, albeit easier, that contains quotes such as:

"I'm like, Gimme twenty bucks up front or find yourself another protege.  Plus I don't do no sex with you.  No f---ing or sucking (36)."

"He had a bunch of stolen credit cards that he used strictly for phone sex with Orientals, Dial-a-Jap he called it, his favorite recreational activity...(47)"

"Joker or Raoul or Packer would be over in the corner on his hands and knees with his pants around his ankles humping some female from behind...Roundhouse sprawled on the chair next to them jerking off...(58)"

Is it a fair fight; however, when I purposely selected the most offensive and sloppily written blather above from Rule of the Bone and lovingly coaxed out the beautiful melodies of one of my favorite novels below for the comparison?  But, just for fun, here are the slightly-melted-dark-chocolate-with-a-glass-of-sweet-muscat quotes from Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things (a novel first brought to my attention by its greatest fan, Claire)

"Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story (32)."

"Anything's possible in Human Nature ...Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy (112)."

"It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined."

Now, I imagine settling my gigantic behind into the tall vinyl stool at the front of the room, I lick my lips and look out onto the sea of utterly bored faces and ask them to pick up their novels.  Several minutes pass as the students cluster themselves around the few who actually brought their novels, I finish scanning with my stink eye, I clear my throat, there is a palpable sense of anticipation, and my voice either casts these words out to the literary-starved 15 year olds,

"They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much (31). "

or I ignore the faint sting of vomit at the back of my throat, grateful for easy lesson plans, and say,

"The females definitely weren't skags but they weren't anything special neither.  Not babes (51)."

I realize that the debate seems pointless, the gauntlet cleanly passed before it even began; however, the quality of my personal life wrestles with my professional integrity.  First thing I must do is actually finish this bright yellow novel...all 390 pages of what I hope will turn into the novel that "is a work of can-do genius" (New York magazine).  I already know what awaits behind Roy's lily pad cover and dog-eared pages.  Page one will plop your mind immediately down into a quiet space of wonder, whilst page 101 of Rule of the Bone already has my mind slurping dredge off the sea floor.  But fair is fair and I have to at least finish it to justify my eventual decision.