SOMETHING LEFT TO CHANCE: to burn in hell or not?

Today I tackled my syllabi: it is time to make a stand and decide what I'm really going to teach each year. I always leave this task until last because it is the impossible task, at least for me. My school provides my mission and I can look at other teachers' plans from earlier years. Jeez, I have already taught each of these classes at least once before. But every year, I get a little agita because I cannot finalize my choices. And if I charge ahead and print out the syllabus with final choices, I invariably cross off numerous texts on the list as I start the year. So what is it that makes it impossible to choose? A teacher should be in charge of her content, shouldn't she? I have been doing this for years, I should know how to choose.

This year, the sticking point is Dante's Inferno. I know there is no time to read the entire Divine Comedy, but the last time I read the Inferno with my Honors Senior World Lit class, they loved it--and we referenced it throughout the year. And, let's face it, Hell is defined by Dante, and in a parochial school, we like our discussions of the ultimate evil.  But I have devoted myself to including more modern and contemporary works in my World Lit syllabus--I don't have too many restrictions as to what I teach, and students always seems to think that modern is good (though there are some who have informed me that modern means "written in my lifetime" and then they want to watch a movie from the 80s, and I've got them!) So, I believe that the Inferno is one of those "things we all oughta know, " but at the expense of something more "modern," say--Saramago's Blindness or Gaiman's American Gods? I think I will fall back on the best counselors I have--my students. I will leave room in the syllabus, and  learn my students' personalities and interests. Some choices will have to wait for my class.