Critical Literacy, IB, and the Literature of the World

While reading Ernest Morrell's book Critical Literacy  I kept thinking about the International Baccalaureate program which I am researching for my qualifying exam (thesis). Much of what Morrell discussed sparked realizations about the IB program.
Since my student teaching a year ago, in which I was fully immersed in the IB program I have been haunted by it and its execution in the US school system. From my research so far I have discovered a fairly matched set of pros and cons for the program, one of the major pros is that it is a global program which means it is not designed to adhere to one of the many standardized tests created as a result of Not Child Left Behind. However, after reading Morrell's argument about incorporating literature from other perspectives beyond the dead/alive white male/female into the classroom, I realized that though the IB program prides itself on being global the course readings still depend on the white author canon of literature. For instance, while student teaching I taught Harper Lee's phenomenal text To Kill a Mockingbird and though I believe this text to be riveting and important to read in school what student is connecting with it? How does it apply to students today? Well it does apply to some students in some parts of the United States because it deals with the dilemma of people who are different being treated differently but this message does not translate well to Loveland High School students who are predominantly white middle class. But it also does not teach students much about the rest of the world today. It tells them about being a child during the depression in the South, and maybe some of them can connect with Scout or Jem or Dill but with the rise of technology the number of students who connect with these characters will steadily decrease. What this all made me realize as I continued to read Morrell and consider the IB program is what if the literature and reading that students were assigned was not just the typical white male/female authors and texts like Hawthorne, Conrad, Steinbeck, Lee, ect but rather texts from famous authors from around the world both contemporary and not? For instance they could read some of the poems by the Persian poet Rumi who is argued to be one of the greatest love poets of all time and while they were reading him they could learn about arabic and the literature culture in the Middle East. Then they could read either short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or his famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude while learning about Columbia, magical realism and the literature that comes from there. And continued looking at Africa, Russia, and so on but also looking at literature closer to home for the students that they could connect with. I thought of this while reading Morrell also because he emphasizes the importance of students being able to leave school as engaged citizens and writers who are capable of being critical of the world around them by reading and experiencing texts from other cultures while interacting with aspects of those cultures the students would become more globalized and wiser about the world around them and the different perspectives. Rather than knowing and abiding to the American and British perspective while being otherwise ignorant of the rest of the world. Besides the best way to understand a country and its people is to read its literature.