The New York Times recently did an article about a new movement in English classes to allow students to pick their own reading material for class. It caught my eye because it centered in on one of my very favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read for 9th Grade English back in the day. It was required reading, and I loved it from the very first chapter.
Would I have read it in 9th Grade, if it had not been required? I’m not sure, though I think my odds are pretty good. My mother was an English teacher, and we had no shortage of books around the house. My mother often took me with her to the high school during the summer, and I read many of the required books for high school curriculum in Kansas long before I ever set foot in that high school as a student. I have gone through phases of my life…say, age four to five minutes ago…when I read compulsively. I would read the back of the toilet cleaner, if I didn’t have a novel in the bathroom.
I’m so torn about this solution to reading apathy. Some kids are going to pick challenging books, like I read Les Miserables at 15, over Christmas Break. I’ve seen too many kids, friends of mine, give up reading because it was presented to them as a chore. Required of them by parents. Is a bookshelf filled only with James Patterson better than no bookshelf at all? Is a love of reading inherently worth fostering, if V.C. Andrews is the only material read? Don’t get me wrong. I read Flowers in the Attic, and younger than I should have.
But I don’t know that I should have gotten a grade in English class for doing so.
2 responses so far ↓
The Best Book Someone MADE You Read? « Recycled Contents // August 31, 2009 at 8:23 am
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Jenn // September 1, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Yeah, I found this difficult to come to a conclusion on, too, for the same reasons. But I think, finally, I do settle in to the idea that the pick-your-own book idea is better, because it removes the fear of books in general. If you have a bookshelf at home, if you consider yourself a reader, even of Patterson or Grisham or Rowling, then it’s less daunting to pick up a book later in life when a professor or teacher hands it over.
I think one of the worst services done to students is making them believe they’re “bad” at subjects when, really, they’ve simply been taught in the wrong way. I see this discussed with testing all the time, but rarely with specific subjects.
In short: woohoo reading!