Recently, I have been involved in several discussions about which books we should study on a secondary English curriculum. On several occasions, I have been told that texts like Diary of a Wimpy Kid have the same educational merit and worth as texts like Oliver Twist or Fahrenheit 451.

This is simply not true, and it is disadvantaged students who pay the heaviest price for this misconception.

Would we find texts like Holes or Skellig being studied in the top attaining schools in the country, like Harrow or Eton? I think not. So why do we deem them suitable texts for schools in disadvantaged areas?

Now, firstly, let me state that I believe that becoming an expert reader is the most important thing in education. Reading is a truly magical and wondrous thing - it can open an individual up to experiences, cultures, and ideas that otherwise would have remained shut off.

I want students to read everything and so, if in their spare time, a student wants to read Holes then so be it. I don’t have an issue with that. As a young reader, I used to devour the Goosebumps books by RL Stine. My family encouraged this, but always ensured I was exposed to more demanding texts, too.

Equally, if a parent or teacher recommends a book like Holes to a reluctant reader, to read at home, to hook them into reading, then I don’t have a problem with that either. If you teach Holes as a primary text, I do not have any issue with that, as I imagine it is a fantastic text to teach to nine- and 10-year-olds.

Disadvantaging the disadvantaged

But what I do have a problem with is devoting secondary curriculum time to teaching basic texts. If we do, we are ensuring that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest students in the country continues to widen.

Studying Holes in key stage 3 does not adequately prepare students for the rigours of the GCSE and A-level curriculum. Compared with middle and upper-income families, disadvantaged students don’t typically have the luxury of a home full of books (Lindsay, 2010; Krashen, 2012), so it is our duty to ensure they have a school and curriculum full of them.

We must expose students to the very greatest texts in the literary canon from an early age, so they can become steeped in the very best examples of using language, and fully understand the intertextuality between exceptional books. Why would you study Holes when you could study Animal Farm? Why would you study Skellig when you can study Of Mice and Men?

“But the literary canon is filled with dead white males,” I hear the people cry.

Yes, it is and this is not right. But, in order for students to challenge this seemingly preordained hierarchy, they must have studied it and be able to offer a compelling argument as to why we must diversify.

As Doug Lemov notes in his fantastic book Reading Reconsidered: “Part of the value of reading is to be able to read and talk about important books that everyone has read” and an appreciation of literature “works only when pupils have read some texts in common”.

If you’re not giving students this knowledge then you are denying them the opportunity to be able to discuss these fantastic texts in the canon, to be able to develop their cultural capital, and you are denying them the opportunity to explore and critique literary heritage.

Equally, I’m not advocating that the curriculum be simply texts from the canon. It is imperative that students are exposed to texts from different cultures to their own and modern literature: we have used A Monster Calls as a guided reading text with Year 7 this year and it has been well received. But to deny the canon completely because you don’t like or agree with the way these texts are lauded is wrong.

I have seen people state that “that play isn’t even Shakespeare’s best work” or “I studied Dickens and found him boring”. But all of these people are speaking from a position of great power and privilege. They were fortunate enough to have an education or background that exposed them to these texts and so they now have the power to appraise them. This is something that frequently is taken away from our very poorest students, because “engagement” is taken over content and quality.

The next myth put forward is that teaching Great Expectations or Frankenstein is boring and will turn students off reading. Well, there’s a reason why these texts have stood the test of time, and that is because the themes and ideas in these novels are universal and continue to enthrall readers. I doubt very much that anyone will be talking about Holes in 50 years’ time. It’s the job of a teacher with expert subject knowledge and a love of their subject to bring to life the most complex and challenging texts. We must ensure our students are brave and don’t dismiss a text because it was written in the 19th century, or because it has difficult vocabulary or sentence structure. If you are teaching Holes because there is a shiny film produced by Disney and you think this will “engage” students then your priorities are wrong. If you don’t think a student can access a text from the canon, then we, the teachers, must become more adept at teaching these texts.

Finally, people will say that these texts are too difficult for the weakest readers to access. This is a tricky point. Firstly, we really must question why we have teenagers in our education system who still cannot read by the time they reach secondary school. How have they managed to slip through the net for so long?

It would be foolhardy of me to suggest that this isn’t common, as I have witnessed first-hand how many students reach Year 11 without being able to read at their chronological age. But the truth is that weaker readers benefit the most from the most challenging texts, as long as they have a teacher alongside them to guide them through the text. When offered explanations, definitions and models of perfect reading, students should be able to access even the most challenging of texts. Using smaller extracts from the texts and chapter summaries can allow all students to appreciate these texts.

We all want students to develop a lifelong love of reading, but in order to do so and ensure all students in the country can become these type of readers, we must ensure the texts we offer increase depth and understanding in our students.

Cast off the notions of privileged subjectivity: the very best in the literary canon is what is being taught in the very best schools in this country, and we should ensure that this literature is accessed by all, not the privileged few.

Michael Nott is an associate assistant principal (English) in Birmingham. He blogs here, and tweets at @MrNott117