Do any state laws or federal regulations require public
high schools to teach English literature (as opposed to
just teaching writing)?

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 19 Aug 2004 15:27 PDT

By "English literature," do you mean "literature written in the
English language," or "literature written in England"?

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 19 Aug 2004 15:32 PDT

Here are the high school graduation requirements of my own home state, Oklahoma:

"Students who will graduate from high school in the 2004-05 school year 
or after must complete the following to receive a diploma:

(Units or Sets of Competencies)  
4 Language Arts:
1 Grammar and Composition, and
3 which may include, but are not limited to, the following courses:
American Literature, English Literature, World Literature, Advanced
English Courses, or other English courses with content and/or rigor
equal to or above grammar and composition..."

http://www.sde.state.ok.us/pro/Impleguid/gradreq.html

Would laws similar to this one meet your requirements?

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Clarification of Question by bugbear-ga on 20 Aug 2004 07:32 PDT

I mean literature written in English.

Its hard to say if that law requires students to learn it.
The last clause doesn't seem to; presumably a course in,
say, journalism would count if it taught grammar and composition.
And I'm not sure what they mean by "Language Arts."

So so far I don't think we have a conclusive answer...

Your question suggests some state might not require sudents to learn
to read; only to learn to write. Even if there is such a state, I
would think all local school boards would require tha students be
taught to read the English language. You may want to cancel and ask
again with different wording. I think we can safely assume that both
public and private high schools in the USA teach at least a bit from
the writings of Willium Shakespeare, perhaps the most famous of the
English authors.  Neil