English Final Paper Rough Draft

Our current curriculum for English states that we must read certain books throughout the year, these include Catcher in The Rye, and Montana 1948; however, what the curriculum is lacking is a book that students need to read. I have found this book, it is The World is Flat, this novel shows what the world is really like, and I will propose to remove The House on Mango Street from our curriculum to be replaced with the better choice, The World is Flat. The World is Flat is written by an award winning author and columnist for The New York Times named Thomas Friedman. The World is Flat discusses the changes in the world’s economy due to always changing technology, this novel will better help students understand the business-world they will be put into after high school. Of course I have to take a book out of our curriculum and as I have said I will choose The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, this novel is a coming of age tale of a young girl in an impoverished neighborhood. The reason I am proposing to remove this book from the curriculum is because we already have two coming of age tales already in the curriculum, The Catcher in the Rye, and Montana 1948.

Firstly, The World Is Flat will give students a better idea of today’s business world and it will teach them about techniques companies use in order to make more profit such as outsourcing. From this book students could get a better understanding of how difficult it is to get a job without a college degree. One columnist from Business Weekly said this about The World is Flat, “Friedman describes three primary changes at the dawn of the 21st century as the keys to the changing world. One is the addition of China, India, the former Soviet Union and other countries with a combined population of 3 billion to the global world economy. The second is technological changes such as the Internet that have made distance less of a factor. And the third is the shift from hierarchical, vertical power structures in business and government to democratic, diffuse ones in which it is easier for individuals to make their own destinies.”(Business, 2005) In this quote the speaker clearly states all of the changes in the world that Thomas Friedman presents throughout the book. The teaching of these changes in the world is imperative to the student’s because the author is putting new thoughts in the student’s mind about the new world’s economy. These ideas would be much more beneficial than the vignettes written in The House On Mango Street because a coming of age tale cannot be applied in today’s ever changing business world.

The World is Flat also makes several well thought-out predictions about the business world of tomorrow, and many of these predictions have already come true since the book has been written. Thomas Friedman takes the current situation in today’s business world then he uses that knowledge to tell us of possible things to come. “According to Friedman's thesis, the world is becoming more networked. Federal leaders either can be part of that by connecting with leaders elsewhere in the world, or they can be left out.” (Business, 2005) In this quote you can see that the speaker read Tom Friedman’s novel and he points out some major ideas in the novel. Tom Friedman using these ideas, theorized that in the future the business world will change the world more than it ever has, he says that instead of having countries in the economy far above other countries, the world will be “Flat” or on an even playing level for all countries. The students in our school would benefit greatly from these sort of business lessons, this book would be a better teacher of life lessons then The House on Mango Street could, because the lessons in the House on Mango Street are those seen in any teenage coming of age tale. The World is Flat will tech these lessons in a more straightforward way as compared to The House on Mango Street which attempts to teach these lessons through vignettes that tell of the life of a fictitious young woman.

Now, I will further focus on the book I plan to remove from the current English curriculum, The House on Mango Street. The House on Mango Street can be compared to any generic coming of age teenage novel due to the themes put forth by the author. These themes include the struggle for finding oneself spiritually, and struggling while being a teenager and trying to fit in. Both of these themes can be seen in any teenage novel such as Catcher In The Rye, which is already a part of our school English curriculum; therefore, having another novel that teaches the same themes of another book on the curriculum that is a tried and true teaching tool is unnecessary. The House on Mango Street is also a more difficult teaching tool than any other book on the curriculum due to the poor story telling through the vignettes involved in the novel. The vignettes were not told in any particular order and required a good amount of thought to get a story out of them. This novel is not the best teaching tool for today’s students as compared to The World is Flat because ideas in the World is Flat are very different as compared to those in the fictional collection of vignettes in The House on Mango Street.

Finally, the ideas taught in The World is Flat certainly apply much more in today’s world than those in The House on Mango Street. The House on Mango Street takes place in a time period where current students could find it hard to relate to the fictitious young woman’s childhood in this novel, because of this the messages in this novel could be hard to gather for children of the current generation. In The World Is Flat the author addresses current technology and advancements in the business world that students of today’s world could relate to. Neil Shister a columnist for an internet website for business said this about Tom Friedman’s new an innovative ideas, “Friedman writes, will be ‘the creation of a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration--the sharing of knowledge and work--in real time, without regard to geography, distance, or, in the near future, even language’.” This quote shows how interesting students will find The World is Flat because the quote shows how new technology is applied in the world and students can relate to this as part of a generation that uses plenty of new technology.

In summation the World is Flat should replace The House on Mango Street in the current English curriculum because The World is Flat would be much more valuable to a student’s education than The House on Mango Street because of the reasons stated in this essay. There is no better choice than The World is Flat for a student’s education because it presents ideas that are relevant in The World today.