It seems to me that a lot of the required reading in high school ruins kids for reading the classics. I, on the one hand, really enjoyed most of the required reading I did in school, and in fact when I am at Barnes and Noble now I like to go to the summer reading tables and get ideas from there. But on the other hand, a lot of kids aren't such nerds, and don't enjoy the books they have to read for school. I think this is because they're being forced to read them before they're ready.
I absolutely adore The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. It took me years to read it; I tried it once my freshman year of college and only got a page or two in before I put it back on the shelf--where it waited for about five years before I picked it up again. That time, I loved it. But I might not have if, say, I'd been forced to read it in high school, like my brothers were (and they hated it).
I had to read Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, when I was a freshman in high school, and I hated it then. I had to read it again my senior year, and I still didn't care for it. But in my sophomore year of college, I had to read it a third time, and that time I really liked it.
In all honesty, I don't think high school kids are ready for a lot of the books their teachers want them to read. Don't get me wrong, I am all for encouraging them to read the classics--I think they're absolutely essential to any person's repertoire. But it needs to be done with discretion. Reading should be about enjoyment, learning, and broadening your horizons; it shouldn't be forced.
A lot of this goes back to the elementary schools, where I think they are taking the wrong approach to reading. You might remember a post in which I lamented the loss of shows like Reading Rainbow, that teach kids how to have fun reading; instead, the focus is all on teaching grammar, spelling, and vocabulary--all those things kids hate. Why?? If children learn to enjoy reading, the grammar and vocabulary will come naturally. I'm not saying that they shouldn't teach those things; just that they should be secondary. Teachers shouldn't push the classics on students who don't care much for reading. If teenagers haven't read much and don't care for the idea, for Pete's sake don't start them on Heart of Darkness--try handing them Twilight or Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, and see how they do.
It's just so disappointing to see the way reading has become a chore for many people, how quickly it's being replaced by all the electronic entertainment that's out there. None of it can compete with a really excellent book, but that doesn't really matter if people don't know it.
I completely agree with you here. We were required to read some good books in high school, and I may have enjoyed them had I not been forced to write an essay on every chapter exploring the use of symbolism to carry the theme. Seriously, I couldn't care less what the stupid theme is, and forcing me to read a book looking for crap to shove in an essay just kills the experience.
ReplyDeleteHeart of Darkness was a good example. I hate that book, but I'm pretty sure if I read it again it would be pretty good only because I'd be reading it for enjoyment rather than for examples of metaphorical language. Heck, I wasn't forced to read 1984 in school, so I picked it up one summer and really enjoyed it.
I'd love to see schools take a less structured approach to books, providing numerous options to the students and letting them pull what they can out of the books.
We talked a lot about this in my English teaching classes. There's this thing that happens where all books fall to the lowest level of understandability. For example, when Lord of the Flies came out, they were studying it in graduate courses or at least upper level English classes. After that they started talking about it in freshman English classes where the meanings that the students could get became a little less nuanced. From there it falls to high school seniors, and then on down until you've got 9th graders reading it. I think part of it is that English teachers sometimes read a book in college and then think that if they loved it so much, their students will love it too - but they students just may not be ready for it, even if it doesn't seem to difficult. In some cases it isn't the teachers at all - it's what the parents expect their kids to read or it's what the school has in classroom set form. (This is why I taught Maniac Magee to 7th graders even though it's really better for a younger crowd - it was all they school had that worked with what I wanted to do!) I loved The Scarlet Letter, but it's much harder to make that interesting to a high school student than To Kill a Mockingbird or something like that.
ReplyDeleteThis, by the way, is what I love about librarianship, especially right now in my youth services class. The focus is more on literacy and lifelong learning, so if that means getting a kid to read Manga first, you're still a success. :)
I agree. Last year I went on this reading binge where I decided to reread all the books I was required to read in high school. I enjoyed them quite a bit more the second time around, probably b/c I wasn't doing so much stupid, nonsense homework for them. And yet anytime I encouraged someone else to reread one of our high school books, they were like, "why??? that semester was horrible, i don't ever want to read that again!"
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, Megan, the lowest level of understandability thing. It's pretty unfortunate, because the ability to understand the words is only a small part of the experience of reading a book. Your state of mind has so much to do with the way you experience these things, and high school students just haven't gotten to the point where they need to be in order to appreciate a lot of the books they're asked to read.
ReplyDeleteI also agree, Mark, that all the essays and analysis tend to ruin the experience of reading the book. Personally, I have always enjoyed writing the essays and studying the archetypes and symbolism and all that--but I have fully accepted that I am in the small, small minority. I'm okay with that. :) As far as teaching classes is concerned, I think there should be a much lighter emphasis on all of that, not because there isn't value in it, but simply because it is counterproductive with the vast majority of students.
(And for the record, I certainly don't just mean teachers when I'm talking about this, even though I know they're the only ones I mentioned. I really meant adults in general, and just used teachers because I was thinking about them at the time. The responsibility also lies with parents, school boards, etc.)
I couldn't agree with you more! A few months ago, I was complaining to myself that I had nothing to read, though I had two bookshelves FULL of books. So I decided to start re-reading all the books I read in high school. Now, I'm a nerd like you :-) so most of them I enjoyed, but I do agree that I enjoyed most of them even more now that my reading skills are more "seasoned" I guess you could say. It's as though my palette has become more sophisticated, much like when I was younger and didn't like onions or sushi--now I love them! I do hope that English teachers wise up to this... I want my children to love reading and value books as much as I do.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we should also read fun things as we learn to read, otherwise, what is the point. I read all kinds of things as a child and loved reading. Also I hear this all the time from parents at the Library--You can only get 2 books. Really!?!...
ReplyDeleteThat's lame! I just remembered that, that's how it was when I was in school too. I usually didn't even bother getting books from school because with only two at a time, I finished them so fast I had to go back like every day. My siblings and I used to go to the city library and go home with STACKS of books, like fifteen or twenty at a time (each). Libraries are great and that's the kind of reading that kids should be doing. The classics are great too, I love them myself; but they just kind of lose their effect when they're forced on you.
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