I’ve seen more than a few comments on other posts talking about how forcing middle schoolers and high schoolers to read dry and inaccessible literature (even if it’s important) spoiled their love for reading, or put some people off of reading for good.
Now I’m not a US native so my impressions regarding the US “required reading” education is second-hand, but I’ve had this talk with an American friend multiple times. He absolutely detested having to read The Scarlet Letter and As I Lay Dying and The Catcher In The Rye and said it basically ruined literature for him for 10 years.
I totally get that. And it’s similar in Germany where I went to school - you read some really old texts for their historic importance and to learn about the evolution of literature, and then some more contemporary ones which can be… dry. Not what you want to be reading at 14 or 15 or 16. But at the same time I think there is value in exposing teenagers to literature that they otherwise might never pick up, especially older literature and classics. Maybe nine out of ten kids will hate it, but it might be an eye-opening experience for one in ten. And I mean, some of the point of school is just to expose you to things so you can learn what interests you and what doesn’t.
So I’m torn on this. Personally I liked most of the stuff I had to read in middle school and high school, but then I was a voracious reader and very interested in (art) history and philosophy and all kinds of nerdy things. I was wondering what this (book-positive, literature focused) subreddit thinks? Should all literature education be opt-in, or is there value in making everybody give it at least a fair shot? Should education in literature be done differently? Are there any books that you had to read that you think are particularly bad or good choices?
I suspect most of the people who claim they had reading ruined for them by school did not enjoy reading in the first place.
I do think literature could be taught better, but I’m also skeptical of the claim that lots of young people would love reading if not for being made to read The Scarlet Letter in high school.
The absence of classic reading requirements would likely not somehow be replaced by reading lots of literature. While I do believe that reading lists should have more current literature and cycle many of the “classics” to an optional list, the bigger issue is that many kids don’t do the reading. That’s true in college, high school, and before. In a first year composition class I’m teaching now (so, not even literature, not onerous reading), I have easily half of my students bluffing their way through class discussion and papers. They see no value in assignments or reading if it can’t be done 15 minutes before class.
I don’t have the answer for what needs to happen at the middle and high school level to turn that around. Maybe their behavior comes from in-grained, reflexive responses to readings they didn’t like in the past. Maybe it’s not on the teachers at all but on COVID, building anxiety about our futures, and a sort of information overload. In any case, I think reading selection isn’t as important as either building motivation in reading (which teachers can help with) or addressing the issues that cause anxiety in the first place (which is really on policy-makers).
When I was an adjunct professor of cataloging in a library and information science program, I asked the students to read an article called “Discards” by Nicholson Baker in the New Yorker. It was about card catalogs and his chagrin at their being replaced by online catalogs. I provided a link for the students.
The article was well written (though it was obvious Nicholson Baker had no idea how labor intensive paper card catalog were to maintain), germane to the course, and an extremely rare example of anyone outside the library profession giving a shit about library catalogs.
I thought we could, you know, have a discussion about it.
One person read the article. (She not surprisingly turned out to be the best and most motivated student in the class.) This was in a graduate-level program.
SMH.
I found some of the reading I had to do in high school and college lit courses to be boring and dry but in many cases something that seemed daunting at first just required getting used to the prose style—definitely found this to be the case for authors like Dickens and Edith Wharton. I’m not sure if this is done now as audiobooks were not easily available when I was in high school but I think that audio editions should be accessible and suggested for readers who struggle, either as something to read the text while listening or just to listen to it.
Some students will always turn to whatever passes for Cliffs Notes currently, or watch a tv or movie version instead. Maybe lean into that a bit, offer an option for essays or tests to discuss the adaptation in relation to the actual text. My high school teacher used to forbid using Cliffs Notes at all, but I have found them useful even when reading for pleasure as an adult, in denser books to help keep characters and plot developments straight. If I were teaching I would encourage struggling students to use something like that as a guide.
It was never really explained to me as a student what the purpose of studying lit as we did was. Obviously in retrospect the texts and courses were structured to introduce concepts like style and themes and all that, but as I read voraciously for pleasure, I did get frustrated when I “couldn’t get into” a book or short story. I think it would have helped to have been reminded that there is a goal and reason for each assignment and if nothing else, you can get through it by focusing on that, much like it is a huge help in dealing with the reading comprehension stuff on an SAT or other standardized test by reading the questions first and then reading the text piece looking for those specific answers. Many of the students who don’t enjoy reading are more into math and science and allowing them to see the work as a series of solvable problems may help “set the table” for them. Other students have undiagnosed challenges like dyslexia or the more obscure text processing conditions, or ADHD and maybe need strategies to help them.
Reading for lit classes was my “treat” homework that I would do last. For math, science, history homework where there was a lot of writing and working between a big textbook and a notebook (not sure how all this works now with everyone having computers ) I would sit up at my desk but for reading I had a whole ritual of setting up my pillow nest on my bed, making some tea, and putting something like mini pretzels or Chex mix or M&Ms in a bowl and eating them as slowly as I could while reading. Having a special place and habits for reading seemed to set my mind for that. And since I had the same rituals for “fun reading” my brain got ready for a treat, even if it turned out I was about to give it Wuthering Heights oatmeal instead.
Encourage students to do what works for them to get thru the material, whether it’s using an audiobook, supplemental stuff or you tube discussion videos, reading it in little bites of 10-15 minutes with a small self-reward for each chunk completed, or even getting one of those “summary and analysis” books that are churned out for every big book from classics to best sellers. If nothing else, school is supposed to prepare you for life and work as an adult, and reading a summary and then faking your way through a presentation, book club discussion, or work meeting is certainly a critical life skill. It’s not ideal but not everyone is going to love reading, or love reading non-fluff.
I imagine todays students have a lot of issues with distraction. My self discipline these days is terrible for not wandering off from my book, often to check something on Google, and then falling down an internet rabbit hole. It’s hard to stay focused.
I’m Irish and the curriculum I had (13-18) was very poetry focused and I have to say I don’t think that is a bad thing. If you hate the poem, big deal, it usually only took minutes to read. Maybe you spent a week analyzing it in class, then you moved on to the next. Even the longer poems on our list like Paradise Lost we didn’t study the whole thing. The skills you develop analyzing poetry transfer very well to prose. Poetry is also really good at developing vocabulary because you do analyze every word and the nuances of those words.
We also did a lot of plays. Which was a bit more tedious if you didn’t enjoy it. But at least they would take us to see the play if it was available which helped.
When I was going to Primary School (5-12) our teacher used to read a story for the last hour on a Friday, but only if we were good. I now know it was because she was knackered and wanted a easy last hour of the working week. My sister remembers her reading The Hobbit and the class being obsessed. For me it was Dark is Rising and we wouldn’t say a word during that hour.
- No book will be appealing to all readers.
- Therefore, no matter what books you pick for the curriculum, you’ll end up with people complaining about the “boring” books they were “forced” to read.
Claiming that being educated “ruined” reading for you is like claiming you can no longer enjoy television because of the mediocre educational documentaries your science teacher made you watch.
The purpose of education is to challenge students with experiences and knowledge they have not been exposed to. You can’t have a curriculum built on “easy books that are just fun,” because that’s not what education is.
Another purpose education is to build basic cultural literacy. And, yes, that means exposing students to the canon of literature.
I’ve heard that the education system ruined reading for people constantly. This is why you really never see college students read fiction willingly. They then revisit the subject sometimes in their 30s, or go their entire life thinking that reading is boring. Yeah, it’s absolutely a real thing.
Also, I don’t see why teachers can’t have students pick their book, either entirely, or from a small pool. Dusty old lit novels that no one finds enjoyable definitely don’t serve any purpose other than reduce the teacher’s work load down to nothing.
I totally agree I think ELA needs to be way more open ended than it is. But there’s a catch 22 there because I’d imagine it would be very tough for a teacher to keep up with 25 different books their students are resding
Former middle school teacher and yes, it is very challenging to have everyone read their own chosen book when trying to teach concepts that every student has to learn. ELA’s not just about reading, so the book chosen has to serve multiple purposes and often act as an anchor for a unit based on a more universal theme or skills being taught.
My approach was always to choose several novels we’d read together, at least one small group unit where 3 or 4 kids would read a novel they chose together, have at least one unit that involved short stories, and then assign one or two completely individual at-home novels that could be anything the student wanted.
A caveat: As a middle school teacher in my particular district I got more leeway to do what I pleased—as long as we covered the standards—than a lot of teachers do. Many (if not most) teachers have little say in what they have to assign because of district chosen curriculum. And high school teachers have to get kids graduating with the assumption that they will need certain background information to take college level English, and those profs need kids to already have a cursory knowledge of authors like Shakespeare in order to build and deepen knowledge.
I was the only person in my class who actually read all the books on the list and most of them I couldn’t wait to finish so I wouldn’t have to spend more time with them.
I think a big part of it was how the book was treated like a chore that needed to be done and the way the class was set up was just to memorize certain details that you can be tested on. I only started understanding the importance of a lot of those books 10 years later when I had the background and willingness to actually engage with the literature.
Another thing that annoys me is the insistence on reading big books. With they way that curriculums are designed it makes much more sense to have short books.
I was one of those kids forced to read stuff I found really boring, but I don’t think it killed anything for me about reading. I just wasn’t interested in reading. Those books didn’t ignite a desire for sure! Reading was competing against a lot like Tv, video games, music and socializing in my teenage brain. So it wasn’t something I came to enjoy until I was a boring adult. But I’m ok with that. I do remember a few books being enjoyable for me like Of Mice and Men and The Scarlet Letter. It’s funny to think now and I tried to reread Walden years ago after remembering it as an assigned reading in my 11th grade English class from a teacher that seemed to dislike me quite a lot. I DNF Walden and just decided that I didn’t need to relive that read. Haha.
This is all to say, that in my experience, it was the teacher more than the material that gave me a negative association with reading and other challenges mounted on top of that. I may have something else like an undiagnosed learning disability that was making it hard for me to get into reading but I eventually got there.
I taught high school English/Literature for over a decade. My students were always the most engaged when they got to choose(duh.) I’d give them a list of 4-6 books that were thematically linked, then they would choose and sit with those reading the same book. They controlled nearly everything: the pacing at which they read, what they talked about on discussion days, etc. it was GREAT. They got way more out of those units than when they were forced to read a book they didn’t choose. There are a couple of exceptions(Perks of Being a Wallflower and Hamlet were always hits), but giving them agency was crucial to their enjoyment.
There are some texts that it helps to be familiar with because they’re referenced so much, but honestly I think it’s stupid to force kids to read books just because they’re “classics,” and it’s especially hard for students who grew up in adverse conditions/without access to resources and don’t read very well. Forcing a kid in that situation to read Faulkner or some other dead white guy is cruel.
In a perfect world there would be a lot of “go to the library, pick out a book that interests you, and tell me about it” assignments. There’s no quicker way to turn someone off a medium than forcing them to read crap they don’t have an interest in. Like yeah some kids will want to dissect Romeo and Juliet but most of them couldn’t care less. It reinforces the idea that reading is boring because they aren’t engaged
Reading is such a massive medium though that there’s truly something for everyone out there