Overview
Detective fiction, a genre I once considered mostly "fluff," abounds with good writing and trenchant social criticism. Although I am more interested in the latter, teachers of literature should be aware of the former as they consider whether or not to use detective fiction in their classes. Because of the latter, however, parts of this unit could be used in classes of history, sociology, women's studies, African-American studies, or even Native-American studies. The novels in this unit deal with themes of identity, social class, race, ethnicity, gender, assimilation, and discrimination. But for the more traditional teacher of literature, the novels also contain complex protagonists and intricate plots; hence they can be used to study characters and to analyze the structure and conventions of plot and narrative. The settings range from the rural to the urban, including the suburban, and these settings often play an integral role in developing aspects of the characters and the plots. This is to say, all the elements of good literature are here, plus the added bonus of trying to solve a mystery alongside a fascinating detective in a clearly evoked setting.
Detective fiction as a genre is a treasure trove of high interest literature, accessible for high school students of all backgrounds and levels. In this unit, however, I will target 11th grade American Literature students who attend a suburban Vocational-Technical High School that draws teenagers from the city of Wilmington, Delaware and its surrounding suburbs. About 25% of these students are African-American, 3% are Latin-American, and the rest are white of varied ethnicity including English, Irish, Polish, Italian, Greek, and Eastern-European. Less than 1% of the students are of Asian or Middle-Eastern descent. Of the three comprehensive high schools in our district, Hodgson has the fewest students on free and reduced lunch and is not a Title-I school. Since Delaware instituted a state-wide testing program, Hodgson students have done relatively well vis-à -vis students in the rest of the state, but this year our writing scores dropped 12% and our reading scores failed to improve. Because our goal is to attain yearly increases in student achievement on the DSTP (Delaware State Testing Program), this year's test results are very disappointing.
Although Hodgson students are relatively comfortable economically, they are by no means affluent; most of them come from working class families who value a vocational education as a means to a secure future. Some of our students do indeed continue on to four year colleges, but most enter the working world upon graduating and then attend junior colleges part time or apprenticeship programs in the evenings. When designing a curriculum unit for these students, I must keep in mind their background because it affects the way they view the world and relate to the literature.
The unit revolves around four novels: Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress, Barbara Neely's Blanche among the Talented Tenth, Sharyn McCrumb's If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him, and Tony Hillerman's A Thief of Time. Students will also read short stories by Dorothy Sayers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Raymond Chandler when I first introduce the genre because I want them to understand the history of the genre and be familiar with its traditional conventions so that they will better understand how the novelists in the unit subvert or alter many of these conventions for their own purposes. These purposes include social criticism and the creation of an aesthetic that is true to each author's social and cultural identity.
Besides the fact that the novels chosen for this unit all fit under the umbrella of American Literature, a necessary condition to be included in 11th grade English, they all feature a detective who is to some extent marginalized from the American mainstream. None of the protagonists are upper-crust types who solve mysteries from on high. Our protagonists include an African-American war veteran working in urban LA, an African-American maid on holiday among the Black elite in New England, a white woman from the rural south who must disguise herself as a man to pursue her pastime as a civil-war re-enactor among men who wouldn't allow her to participate if they knew her actual gender, and two Navajo Indians, at least one of whom just barely ekes out a living as a tribal policeman. These are characters my students should be able to relate to on some level.
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