An unlabeled, inconspicuous room on the second floor, located in the hallway of Bronx Science’s English Department, ten feet to the right of the second floor elevator, is a modern-day time machine. Instead of an apocalyptic metal pod, with its steam hissing out of futuristic titanium doors, inside it is dark, and filled to the brim with carefully organized books. And there is a second English Department bookroom, a smaller one, located to the right of the English Department office.
Welcome to the Bronx Science English Department book rooms.
Most books in both rooms are arranged neatly, with stacks of a given title behind other stacks of the same title, with some step ladders and step stools strewn around the rooms, in order to allow access to the upper shelves. The majority of the books in the book rooms see regular use and are quickly whisked on wooden carts from class to class whenever a given teacher is teaching them, but some other books have been untouched for years.
In the 87 years of Bronx Science’s history, the English Department’s curriculum and reading lists have expectedly changed. But as debates over what should be taught in classrooms engulf the nation and fears of certain texts triggering or offending students heighten, what works have Bronx Science reading lists left to a bygone era?
At Bronx Science, students are required to take English every year and sit for the New York State English Language Arts Regents exam in June of their tenth grade year, mirroring New York State and New York City requirements. The class readings and instruction vary between teachers. Still, the overarching curriculum establishes guiding themes and questions, several focused units, and a choice of texts for each grade. From the ninth-grade framing question, “What is identity and how is it formed?” to the junior year framing question, “How can we critically interpret the American Dream?” all students will have units including different forms of poetry, short stories, novels, memoirs, and drama — prose and poetry in all of its different forms.
Between teachers, syllabi vary, with a handful of common threads. In a survey that I conducted in person of 145 Bronx Science students in 10th, 11th, and 12th grader, 54% reported having read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye in 9th grade, 41% reported reading William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in 10th grade, and 83% of seniors read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in 11th grade.
These texts have been staples of American high school reading lists for decades. In the early 2000s, under the guidance of Faculty Advisor Alexander Thorp, student journalists for the Bronx Science yearbook, The Observatory, began to include short features on each department at Bronx Science, as a means of capturing the robust academic life at our school. In the published pieces during these years on the English Department, these three texts are consistently mentioned.
Yet the numbers dip when it comes to other authors that dominated the reading lists of the late 20th century. When students were asked if they had read a novel by Charles Dickens in a Bronx Science English class, 21% had done so, and a mere 7% had read short stories or a novel by Ernest Hemingway. By contrast, 43% of students said that they had read a novel by Toni Morrison in English class.

These numbers reflect the Bronx Science English Department’s conscious effort to diversify its curriculum. Now, the book rooms contain numerous works by Black, Latino, Asian, and LGBTQ+ authors.
Ms. Alessandra L. Zullo Casale, the current Assistant Principal of the English Department, began teaching at Bronx Science 28 years ago, starting just six years after she graduated from Bronx Science as a member of the Class of 1990. Ms. Zullo Casale said that, both as a teacher and especially as an administrator for the past five years, she has emphasized trying to represent the various cultures, ethnicities, and experiences of the current Bronx Science student body through a diverse English Department curriculum. “We have been getting ideas and recommendations from students and have gotten really good feedback on the current curriculum,” she said.
When surveyed, a majority of students agreed with the statement that they felt that they read sufficiently “diverse” works of literature in English class, meaning works about characters with a variety of cultural, racial, and gender identities. When asked about having read “classics,” meaning works that are, and have been staples of American high school reading lists, 50% agreed.
Each student has their own idea of where the balance is right. Alexander Mason ’26 thinks the quality of the book is more important than the identity of its characters. “We shouldn’t be reading books just because they are about one group or another. Books that we read in English classes should be picked because of their inherent value,” he said.
In addition to implementing the study of modern works and texts about characters of different cultural identities in the school-year curriculum, the summer reading requirements largely consist of works by Black, Asian, and Latino authors. The book options vary for each grade but include The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017), Born a Crime (2016) by Trevor Noah, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989), and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) by Julia Alvarez.
The English Department has also sought to introduce more works by Bronx Science alumni, including perhaps most notably the award-winning novelist Min Jin Lee ’86 with her novel Pachinko, which is one of the three summer reading options for rising seniors. Re Jane by Patricia Park ’99 has also been included in the senior “coming of age” unit. Both Lee and Park are Korean-American, and their novels primarily have Korean and Korean-American protagonists.
For many students, including Cortez Pagan ’25, president of the Bronx Science Student Diversity Committee, texts centered on protagonists from similar backgrounds provide a refreshing break from the usual assigned readings. “It’s those kinds of books where the material takes on a truly deeper meaning. I see myself, my family, and my culture in them. Ultimately, I think that is what resonates with students the most,” she said.
This year, the English course syllabus offerings have expanded dramatically, and numerous new texts have been recently added to the book rooms. The English Department has introduced three new elective courses: ‘Exploring Graphic Novels: A Journey Through Visual Literature,’ taught by Mr. Chris Ziegler; ‘Advanced Placement English Literature: Science, Medicine, and Literature,’ taught by Dr. Katherine Montgomery, and ‘Science Fiction and Fantasy,’ taught by Mr. Greg Piccarella. According to Ms. Zullo Casale, the courses were largely driven by the teachers’ interest in creating these courses, given perceived student interest.
The introduction of new course texts, works about BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of color) and LGBTQ+ characters, and modern works ultimately poses a choice for teachers. They have a limited number of books that they can teach in a year, and new additions may replace older books, once taught.
A journey into the book rooms and older yearbooks reveals which classics are no longer as frequently taught as in years past. In the front covers of school issued textbooks, including English Department books, students often write their name, teacher, and school year, providing a detailed though not foolproof log of when books were most recently read.
Several classics seem to have gradually decreased in popularity in the 2000s and 2010s, with some still taught sporadically and others seemingly untouched. Name entries in the book sets of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, assorted works by Edith Wharton, John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, all were read less frequently in the 2000s.
Certain books were consistently taught by the same teachers up until their retirement. The entries of names in Charles Dicken’s 1861 novel Great Expectations all reference one teacher’s name, who retired in 2023, for example.
While Shakespeare is still consistently taught, the last regular entries were in 1998 in both Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing book sets. The last entries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry V were in 2009 and 2015, respectively.
The trend observed in the book rooms is equally visible under stage lights. In a recent New York Times opinion piece entitled “Who’s Afraid of William Shakespeare?” Drew Lichtenberg, the artistic producer at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., reports that Shakespeare’s plays are being performed less often today, as well. Lichtenberg suggests that, instead, producers are prioritizing putting on works by BIPOC playwrights and plays that feature BIPOC characters. The dominance of Shakespeare, a white European who lived four centuries ago, is being challenged by activist groups pushing for increased diversity. The same reasoning is likely responsible for the decrease in Shakespeare’s plays taught in the classroom, nationwide.
Yet, not all of the books that have become less frequently taught in current Bronx Science syllabi are by or about white Anglo-Saxon men.
The Color Purple, the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Alice Walker, tells the story of a young African-American girl growing up in the rural South in the early 20th century. The book has been banned across America but remains popular, with a new Broadway adaptation in 2015 and a second movie version released in 2023. The most recent entry in the Bronx Science book set of The Color Purple documents students last reading the book in 1999.
Multiple works by Chaim Potok, a novelist and rabbi from the Bronx, whose works are New York Times bestsellers, have not been taught at Bronx Science in recent years.
Some books with topics deemed sensitive or controversial have fallen out of fashion. The Taming of the Shrew, a comedy by William Shakespeare, which tells the story of a male protagonist trying to coerce his wife into becoming obedient and well-mannered through various torment, was last taught in 2013.
Teachers across the nation fear how their students will react to sensitive texts. At other New York City high schools, student complaints have led to the removal of classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from syllabi. But at Bronx Science, complaints from students do not seem to be the primary roadblock. When asked if some books are too “offensive or triggering” to be taught in Bronx Science classrooms, 87% of students whom I surveyed said that they disagreed.

Simon Maxwell ’25 believes that class periods spent discussing controversial subjects often lead to the most engaging discussions. “I believe all of the students get more out of an English class when we are reading material that challenges us to think carefully about what we say, how we convey our opinions, and how we express disagreement with the content or characters,” he said.
“I believe all of the students get more out of an English class when we are reading material that challenges us to think carefully about what we say, how we convey our opinions, and how we express disagreement with the content or characters,” said Simon Maxwell ’25.