Persepolis: To Teach Or Not To Teach

For many years, Persepolis – a book about a young girl’s experience in Iran through various historical moments – helped define the 9th-grade experience at WESS.

Now it’s no longer taught.

The replacement of the book was due to three main factors: the relatively low difficulty of the book, new educational opportunities, and recent conflicts in the Middle East.

Persepolis is a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi that recounts her childhood in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution. It follows her coming of age as she navigates war, political repression, and cultural expectations, eventually leaving Iran for Europe. The book explores identity, freedom, and the human impact of political upheaval. 

When Tom Quick, a 9th-grade English teacher, first joined WESS in 2023, Persepolis “was already in place and had been taught the previous year.” 

Tom says that “writing from the perspective of Middle Eastern, and specifically Muslim voices, [is] underrepresented in the traditional English language arts curriculum,” and that Persepolis not only represents said voices, but it “also offered a way into English class for those who struggle with more complicated texts” because of its strong visual components. 

Despite never receiving pressure from anyone in the WESS community to discontinue teaching the book, Tom decided to do so during the 2024-25 school year. He explains that he “wanted to feature other, more complicated texts.” The illustrations in the book “can help [students] to put two and two together…and make inferences to figure out what happened,” which is a skill that can only be truly strengthened through more complex literature. “Reading is a bit like strength training. If you lift five pound weights all the time…, you won’t build muscle because you’re not coming up against resistance. The same is true with reading.” 

Additionally, the school was given “a mandate by District 3 to include a speech writing and delivering unit called Project Soapbox.” This mandate gave Tom the opportunity to add this element into the curriculum; he decided that it fit the “Mapping Ourselves” expedition theme well, and effectively added “Project Soapbox” to the curriculum in lieu of Persepolis.

Lastly, Middle Eastern conflict played a role in the decision to stop teaching the book. The decision came at a time of extreme social and political polarization surrounding the Israel-Hamas War. Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7th, 2023, initiated the war, which has now been characterized by thousands of deaths in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, Iran has served as one of the primary financial backers for Hamas. As such, the Israel-Hamas War has relevance to Iran and to the rest of the Middle East despite only being concentrated in a small area. The events of this distant war have reignited focus on the Middle East and Iran, bringing increased attention to Satrapi’s work. 

Tom felt that continuing to teach the book “would allow the opportunity for microaggressions to be voiced in the classroom on a regular basis.” Continuing, he described the gap between discussing complex topics and staying clear of particularly recent and controversial topics. “I think it’s okay to teach things that are controversial, that stir the passions.… That being said, there are many controversial topics, and the most hot-button one may not necessarily be the one that needs to be discussed with students who are not the most mature, say, in the 9th grade.” 

Furthermore, he believes “that a teacher can always find the controversy or connect [a book] to controversy. That’s why we teach historical literature, believing that teaching something from Shakespeare or Lord of the Flies can be relevant.” In this sense, he explains that a book doesn’t have to include controversial topics to teach the important lessons that stem from disagreement.

Juniors Ryan Gold and Netta Nov both read Persepolis in 2023 as 9th graders. 

Ryan stated, “I think a big takeaway I have is how similar the protagonist was to people that I know.”

Netta echoed this thought, explaining that “it was very jarring to read such a blatant...recent example of religious fundamentalism and how it impacts people.” Netta also said that talking about these issues brings them “into light.” Persepolis illustrated realities to students that they were not accustomed to — “I think that by not teaching more controversial things, you risk raising a generation that isn’t as sensitive to the struggles that go beyond…their daily life.”

Both stated that reading the book was not very difficult, helped by the illustrations, but the book’s subject matter made it more challenging to read.

Ultimately, the removal of Persepolis serves as an interesting case study into what goes into choosing to teach — or not to teach — a book in school. If you were a teacher, would you have kept teaching it?