The game of reading literature in the current educational landscape begins with a set of pre-programmed features. One of these features is the set texts list. The long debate over such lists goes hand in hand with the history of arguments about what type of reading students should be doing. Arnold, Richards, Leavis, and each of the ‘How to Read’ texts I cited, present an argument about what books are best to read and why, or what makes them literary. Both Adler and Bloom are famous defenders of the ‘Western Canon’. This traditional view of textual value is a harmfully inaccurate picture of ‘the best which has been thought and said’. It is also the case that canonical texts remain in a stable position on global curricula, and that we have a long way to go in de-colonising the canon and its hold on classrooms. Recent work by Larissa McLean Davies has shown how the study of literature at school in Australia is still dominated by many of the white, male authors who line the canon’s ranks.

The problem of the canon is one place where we might like to reconsider the historical position of pleasure reading. The decision about what texts are serious enough for study and what texts should remain in the context of our bedside reading has been determined for centuries by imperialist logics. The fact that these texts have been set pre-determines many of the outcomes that may arise from educational reading by closing down the possibility and potential for difference. The act of setting a text is both an active and inactive choice because it is mediated by the political history of prescriptions and flawed arguments about value and taste.

In relation to simulation, the act of setting a text also decides who the target of empathy may be without considering the unique circumstances of the empathiser. This being said, the notion of the set texts list for educational purposes seems unavoidable. But perhaps there is a way to embrace the open-ended nature of pleasure reading in favour of a static list and its canonical inheritance. How can we simulate the freedom of choosing what to read, when, and why in a classroom setting? The pleasurable choice may still be a symptom of the individual’s biases or prejudices. My choice of reading American novels was purely subjective and self-oriented. But the collaborative nature of a classroom offers an antidote to this sort of problem by its very nature as a communal act. My classrooms are incredibly diverse places. I can only imagine the breadth and depth of experience my students would bring to their pleasure-reading selections. While the texts we read for pleasure carry their own subjective simulative beliefs (we may want to empathise with those most like ourselves), introducing a multitude of voices by privileging student agency feels right to me as a teacher. We may be invited to ask ourselves how and why we value what we do, and to unravel the difficulty of that together.

The game of reading for education is further distanced from pleasure by way of assessment. In most educational settings, students must demonstrate learning from the reading they do and acquire some form of knowledge that expands their horizon of understanding. Often, this demonstration is in the shape of an assessment where the student performs the act of reading through written expression. Most of the time, there are measurable ‘outcomes’ that have to be executed in order for the student to show evidence of their learning. These outcomes are often determined by an exterior force that operates apart from the teacher, like the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA) in the case of the HSC. At the tertiary level, outcomes and assessment are mediated by the University’s Assessment Procedure, policy, and/or approach to learning outcomes. This automatically pushes the game of reading beyond pleasure because there is a distinct form of intellectual labour involved that must meet the demands of a larger system of power. The discipline of English as a subject where we study literature requires disciplined reading and this reading is disciplined by the larger education system through assessment. The act of reading is given a numeric value, and it is this value that seems to have concrete potential to determine student futures. While I see the value of literary education as something intangible and constantly developing, I know that the numbered assessment of my students’ performance is integral to the way they understand their intellectual and social progress. Marks have power, and I know that power competes with my capacity to gift students with skills and knowledge I see as invaluable. I often witness the way assessment can knock the pleasurable potential out of my students’ experience. Pleasure reading is not often met with a required demonstration of knowledge. It is up to the individual player how they interpret their simulative experience and apply it (or not) to their actions. To read for simulative pleasure is to arrive at the end of reading with infinite choice about how to act after the event.

While pleasure reading may present more opportunities for play, there are countless reasons why we must teach reading beyond pleasure. One such reason is that the kind of literary criticism practiced in classrooms often has a social, cultural, racial, political and/or economic resolution. This has especially been the case since literary theory expanded beyond the work of the New Critics and sought to illuminate the complexities of our social worlds beyond the textual artifact’s value. When we read texts critically, no matter the distinct lens of criticism, the stakes are high because we attempt to tap into knowledge beyond simple or obvious understanding. Critical understanding can be difficult to accept because it may reveal a disturbing truth or the human capacity for cruelty. Reading a text to experience the pleasures of simulation alone has the potential for harmful misinterpretation and may encourage the consumption of another’s pain and trauma, fictional or not. Slips in the comprehension of irony could be triggering, or an allegorical work may require historical decoding in order to avoid misrepresenting its purpose. Historical texts may also require further critical understanding, especially when they are presented to younger readers. Poetry poses its own unique challenges, especially with students in the early years of learning. Poetry’s long literary critical history is potentially a sign of its perceived difficulty and the need for a methodology of understanding.