Conclusion

The five chapters of Contesting the Classroom show how authors have reimagined and renegotiated literature’s place within the schools that create future generations of readers. In many cases, these reimaginations are suffused with palpable anxiety over the state of education. Yet they also creatively rethink the educational endeavor, and literature’s relationship to it. Indeed, a common thread in the novels examined in this work is the idea that literature's pedagogical potential does not stop at the doors of the classroom, nor is it limited by traditional classroom definitions of pedagogy. Accordingly, the conclusion of this work poses a series of questions in the spirit of these texts, that open themselves up to other spaces of encounter besides the public school classroom, and other forms of pedagogical writing besides linear narrative prose. In what spaces outside of the classroom do students encounter local literature? And what are the unexpected genres and styles, beyond the print narrative, that engage with education? New locations of pedagogical encounter discussed include small publishers, book fairs, and online spaces; other genres include photography and song.