How to foster a love of reading and literary analysis

Bitchin' Blog Posts

by Candy | by Candy | August 31, 2009 | Monday at 8:59 am | 131 Comments

So Meg Cabot posted a rant today about mandatory reading lists, and how much she hated them, entitled “How To Foster a Hatred of Reading,” in response to a NY Times article entitled “The Future of Reading.” I think part of Cabot’s argument is sound—if you want to foster a love of reading in kids, forcing them to read isn’t the greatest idea. Kids aren’t exactly enamored with things that look like work, and mandatory reading lists are, well, work.

But I don’t think the problem’s with the mandatory reading lists, necessarily. It’s with the way reading is taught, and the way reading is dealt with culturally. I look at the conversations and attitudes surrounding books and reading here in the United States, and I see two common attitudes:

The slobs think the snobs think everything you read should be a work of literature that will enrich your life forever, and be a statement of art and the human condition. It should transcend trivialties like plot, and Make A Statement. These books are usually depressing, difficult to understand, and unpleasant in every way. The slobs think the snobs are fun-hating elitist pricks, and that they overthink and over-analyze everything. Slobs just want to have fun, dammit, and the snobs are pissing on their parade of dukes, Greek tycoons and vampires who, if they’re not sparkly and creepy, are gangsta-rap lovin’ dudes with PhDs in Vhiolent Chrime.

The snobs think the slobs are intellectually lazy, and don’t understand why you’d want to read something poorly-written, or that adhered to a formula. The snobs are oftentimes reluctant to recognize formula in literary fiction, and aren’t necessarily the clearest about figuring out where the line between entertainment and art lie, but dammit, it’s there, and they’ll know it when they see it (just like porn! Which, by the way, is what romance readers are reading). The snobs think the slobs have degraded their literary palates by reading too much trash, and worry about the social and political ramifications if you’re not reading the rights sorts of things.

Both sides are really annoying, because they both, by and large, have it wrong, even if they do get a couple of things right. I can’t help but wonder what Meg Cabot’s experiences with reading The Scarlet Letter and Wuthering Heights would’ve been if they hadn’t been sold, not only as homework, but tedious homework. The Scarlet Letter has become a joke—every kid knows it’s supposed to be a miserable, slow reading experience, and just about all except the most nerdly ones who relish dense stories are going to approach it as such.

I grew up in a household and a culture that emphasized academic excellence—sometimes pathologically so. But one of the blessings was how I was taught to approach what I thought of as Big Books. Every Big Book I read was like leveling up in a video game: it was proof that I was getting older and smarter. Reading the big, intimidating classics wasn’t a chore; it was sign that I was growing up, that I was getting smarter and more capable. I took statements like “You’re probably not ready for this book yet” as a challenge, and I’d pick it up anyway. Some of the books I disliked intensely (like Wuthering Heights, and anything Hemingway); but many others, like Madame Bovary, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Don Quixote, just about everything by Thomas Hardy, John Steinbeck or Mark Twain, and many other books on typical mandatory reading lists, I just adored and gobbled up before I was quite 16 years old.

I’m going to take the snob side for a moment, and say this: just about all the books on the mandatory reading lists have something enduring and important to say about us: about us as individuals, about us as culture, and about us as civilizations. They’ve stuck around so long because they represent fascinating and enduring looks into what people used to value and what people continue to value, and are capable of resonating with us centuries—sometimes millennia—after they were written. And most kids aren’t going to pick these books up on their own, because they’ve been represented as Hard, and Boring, and Unsexy. And, failing a culture that makes reading complex, dense books as exciting as leveling up in a video game, it falls on teachers and parents to show kids that these books are sexy and exciting, and if they’re hard, well, they’re well worth the work.

And now to switch to the slob side: it also wouldn’t kill to have the kids select their own reading material sometimes, y’know? The books may or may not be especially well-written, but they’re obviously compelling, and I’m a firm believer that pop culture has valuable and interesting things to say about the human condition, too. The most important aspect of teaching kids to read is how to read critically, and to recognize how books tell us a lot not only about the authors and what the authors are writing about, but about the readers themselves and how they process text and meaning, and we don’t need Moby motherfucking Dick to do that. (Incidentally: Moby Dick was a book I picked up fully expecting to hate, and ended up loving; others, like Sometimes a Great Notion, I expected to love, and ended up loathing. Such are the vagaries of mandatory reading.) Allowing the kids to select their own books introduces a great deal more diversity into the reading experience than a mandatory reading list ever could, because those lists tend to favor the dead, the white, and the male. There’s a quick, disdainful reference in the NY Times article to how kids, when allowed to choose for themselves, pick “plenty of young-adult chick-lit novels,” and I don’t think these people get it: the YA novels obviously speak to teenage girls in a way, say, The Unbearable Lightness of Being won’t—and can’t. And this isn’t a bad thing, or a good thing; it’s just a thing, and we need to recognize it and work with it.

This part of Cabot’s article actually made me sad:

I don’t think there should be mandatory reading lists in school. I cannot think of a single book I enjoyed that I was required to read in school….

…with the exceptions of books I had read before they were assigned to me in school, like To Kill A Mockingbird, and Catcher in the Rye, which were then ruined by someone going on and on about all the “symbolism” in them, and what the authors really meant, which, as an author myself, I can tell you–THE PEOPLE WRITING ABOUT THESE BOOKS DO NOT KNOW. Seriously. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE AUTHOR REALLY MEANT AT ALL, AND ARE MORE THAN LIKELY WRONG. THIS IS WHY THESE AUTHORS ARE IN HIDING.

Man, what kind of miserable-ass, misguided English teachers did she have? Because I feel that any teacher worth her salt would’ve taught the readers that sometimes, what the author meant and what the author expressed aren’t necessarily the same thing, and that reading is both personal and interactive—it’s a highly solitary activity, in that the reader generally reads alone, but the reader is engaged in a dialogue with the text itself. Reader insights may not have anything to do with what the author meant, and may have everything to do with the reader’s own experiences, and you know what? That’s OK. In fact, that’s great. Language is slippery, and meaning is even slipperier, and we all have something to contribute to the dialogue surrounding books and the reading experience.

Ultimately, I think I’m in favor of some kind of hybrid approach: have a mandatory reading list together with a bunch of books the kids get to pick for themselves. But more than that, I think we need to change the way we look at books and talk about them. I’m tired of the old dichotomies. Some of the most depressing books I’ve read have been romance novels (Devil’s Embrace by Catherine Coulter is deeply, deeply depressing, because holy shit that book is one long, loving paean to the joys of Stockholm Syndrome), and some of the most hopeful and uplifting, even if they have a pang of bittersweet, belong on many mandatory reading lists (most Austen novels, Far From the Madding Crowd, several Dickens novels).

I’m also a big fan of an approach that embraces the maxim that even though reading the book may not have been fun, thinking about it and talking about it certainly can be. (C’mon: most of y’all love the D- and F reviews best, and don’t even pretend that isn’t true.) The singular agony of having to suffer through a bad book, or a book we don’t like, tends to bring on passion and comedy in equal measure, and we need to tap into that. I think we need to free kids from the expectation that they Must Love This Book Or Else; honest reactions and dialogue about those reactions would be a far better teaching tool than some kind of rote “see Symbol X in Element Y” lesson plan.

Filed: Random Musings

Tagged: reading processes, new york times, meg cabot, mandatory reading lists, literary analysis

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melem said on 08.31.09 at 11:48 AM • [link]

I don’t think Meg Cabot experience is an isolated case of a few miserable-ass, misguided English teachers, but a very common experience for studentas all over the world… There are just too many teachers who have either become too embroiled in the ‘arcane secrets of signs and symbols’ to be able to teach them to their ignorant students or too fed up with teaching the same book to another class every year.
Laura Vivanco said on 08.31.09 at 12:13 PM • [link]

as an author myself, I can tell you–THE PEOPLE WRITING ABOUT THESE BOOKS DO NOT KNOW. Seriously. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE AUTHOR REALLY MEANT AT ALL, AND ARE MORE THAN LIKELY WRONG. THIS IS WHY THESE AUTHORS ARE IN HIDING.

Cabot’s right that when one’s doing literary criticism one often cannot know for sure what the author “really meant” but by the same token, Cabot herself cannot know for sure what other authors intended and many authors have stated that they did mean to include particular symbolisms in their works. Cabot gives the example of “someone is going on and on about Arthur Dimmesdale and what Nathaniel Hawthorne really meant by naming him that.” If one looks at what romance authors have said/written about the way they name their characters, it becomes clear that many of them do choose names very carefully. For example, Lindsay Townsend’s stated that “I always try to discover if names have meanings and bear those meanings in mind as I write,” and Leigh Michaels in her book on writing romance advises that
Not only can a character’s name help to show what kind of person she is, it can hint at the character’s history and background. It may even help in a minor way to foreshadow story developments or to push them along. If a character named Courtney is told that her birth father was an attorney, her mother’s action in choosing that name takes on significance and helps to convince Courtney that the story is true. (127)

Valerie Parv writes that when she called the heroine of The Leopard Tree Tanith Page she “chose Tanith because it is another name for Astarte, ancient goddess of the moon; my Tanith is a UFO enthusiast” (43-44).

Not all choices are as premeditated as this. Jennifer Crusie’s written that “the best of what we do comes from the subconscious soup that’s bubbling away beneath our logic” and when she accessed that “subconscious soup” via making collages, she was able to see more of the symbolism that her own subconscious had already put into the books she was writing.

Symbolisms can work at a subconscious level, for both author and reader. Most of us have particular associations with particular colours, for example, and if a hero appears dressed entirely in black, we’re going to have a different response to him than if he was clothed from head to foot in beige. The author may not have to bother thinking that through, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some underlying meaning to the colour choice.

I can understand that some people may prefer the symbolism to remain unexamined, as Cabot clearly does, but that in itself isn’t proof that the symbolism wasn’t placed in the text by the author, either deliberately or not.
Ebony McKenna said on 08.31.09 at 12:21 PM • [link]

I’ve had great teachers and crappy teachers in both the government system and private system.

A good teacher will show you ways to enjoy reading the chosen text. Or at least let you argue why it’s a steaming pile of crud.

A bad teacher will make you feel like a failure no matter what’s on the reading list.
Mary G said on 08.31.09 at 12:55 PM • [link]

I was incredibly fortunate that my mother was a total bookworm. She taught me to read before I ever went to school, by the time I was in grade 1 I was reading at a grade 4 level. By the time I was in grade 4, I’d read every book in the school library… I drove the librarian bat-shit crazy, because mostly she’d be trying to balance buying new books for me, and buying new books other kids would be interested - the entire book budget shouldn’t be spend on one kid yanno?

Most of the books on the Queensland schools’ list weren’t presented as a “mandatory” list. There’s the book you read for English class and then you’re expected to read X number of other books yourself. I remember reading The Grapes of Wrath (hated that one, probably hit a bit too close to home being a farm kid), The Pearl also by Steinbeck (loved that one). No Scarlet Letter in an Aussie school… we had “For the Term of His Natural Life” by Marcus Clark - which was roughly contemporary. That one was a fun book (the language was hard for kids… I think anything from the 1800’s tends to be).

I don’t think it’s reading lists/non-reading lists frankly that makes the biggest difference. I loved books because I learned to read early and proficiently from my mother. I continued to love books because that’s what was fun and normal in our house (well… that and we had no TV from the time I was 6 until I was 17… and when you live on a farm 45 minutes drive from the nearest town there’s not much else to do)! Among my school friends the ones whose parents were readers enjoyed reading. The ones who had trouble reading and generally hated it were those whose families didn’t value, enjoy or practice reading.
MicheleKS said on 08.31.09 at 01:10 PM • [link]

I had a few crappy English and Reading teachers over the years (7th grade was the worst year for that) and they couldn’t make teach interesting if their lives depended on it. What I hated was the regimented discussions and point-by-point analysis required back then that was 99% boring crap. I think if you really want to make reading fun and intersting to kids then have the discussions fun and intersting as well- let kids speak their minds freely.

Now, I didn’t hate everything on the assigned lists but some of it I might have liked more if the teachers had just handed the book to me and let me form my own ideas and opinions about it.

But wait, we can’t have free-form discussion in a classroom can we? Kids speaking their minds might have more original thoughts and therefore might want to read and learn more.
Kimberly Anne said on 08.31.09 at 01:48 PM • [link]

Man, what kind of miserable-ass, misguided English teachers did she have?

Apparently, she had mine. We were assigned The Scarlet Letter on a Friday, and I thought I would like it. I scrambled to finish it before Monday, because I knew the teacher’s obsessive prattling about symbol, theme, and such would make me hate it. She had killed other books before.

I hate To Kill a Mockingbird to this day because the teacher (not the same one) penalized you for original thought. If you didn’t parrot what he thought - automatic fail.

I was lucky that my passion for books wasn’t destroyed by this crap.
krsylu said on 08.31.09 at 01:59 PM • [link]

I read the NYT article just this morning, and have emailed it to my boss. I am a Youth Services librarian (without the MLIS) and have been an avid reader all my life. I totally agree with “Mary G” that growing up in a home that values reading helps to create children who love to read.

My oldest, now 18, struggled with reading until the Christmas vacation during his 3rd grade year. He was REALLY frustrated with his difficulty because he saw how much I and my DH read and he felt inadequate. But, seeing how much we value reading, he persevered and over that vacation, some switch in his brain clicked. Practically overnight he became a proficient reader. If you ask him his favorite past-time today, he would say, “Reading” without any hesitation.

From the beginning, we monitored his choice of reading, and encouraged him with suggestions, but largely let him go his own way. The only time I put my foot down about a book was when he was about 15 and brought home a book with a rather sensual cover. I asked to look at it, and after reading the front flap and skimming the book (especially the parts where the book fell open easily) I told him in no uncertain terms that he would not be reading this one. I was as vague as I could be, because who wants to discuss bestiality with their 9th grader?

I am a firm believer in letting kids choose their own reading materials. I see the value in having a group assignment, to make it easier to teach literary criticism BUT I also believe that you have to let kids practice those skills on works of their own choosing. Otherwise, what good is the lesson?
Shannon Stacey said on 08.31.09 at 02:08 PM • [link]

My oldest wrapped up middle school last year, where they used a sort of hybrid reading system.

There was the mandatory reading, of course, complete with annoying essay questions, which made me point and laugh at my son. We suffered through them. Now it’s his turn.

I swear there was one short story that was so unrelentingly depressing I wanted to fling myself in front of a bus, but instead I had to finish it in order to help him answer that most awful of questions: What is the theme of this work?

But they also used the Accelerated Reader program. Every student sets a goal for the semester and then they’re free to read. Some books are worth 2 points, some are worth 30 points, but the kids get to choose them. Then something like ten minutes of each class—-along with a suggested 30 mins at home—-was dedicated to the independent reading. There’s a test, I guess, that proves the child read the book.

I think it also helped foster conversation about books—-the kids would talk to each other about what book they were going to read next, and the teacher would make recommendations. When TK had ploughed through nearly all the available Clancy novels, his teacher turned him on to Cussler.

I think it achieved a nice balance of stale mandatory reading lists and personal “leisure” reading in the classroom.
Lisa said on 08.31.09 at 02:18 PM • [link]

2 thoughts
First: I have always felt that non-readers were never presented with enough opportunities to read something that engaged their interests. As you mentioned, assigned reading is nearly automatically booooring.

I worked at a bookstore when the Goosebumps series was starting, and the number of people (not just parents) who complained about the kids reading “that trash” was depressing.

I usually tried to say something to the effect of “But they’re READING and liking it!” OK, not all kids used Goosebumps as the gateway drug to harder “better” reading, but so what???

Second: I can still remember with excruciating clarity the day in my high school sophomore year (late 85 or early 86) when the class started discussing Pride and Prejudice.

The teacher had us open to the chapter that begins with describing Pemberly. He turned to me and told me to explain “what does the description [of the grounds] tell us of Darcy’s character?”

I had no clue. He let me dangle there stammering “I don’t know” for what seemed like ages. He had me re-read the passage and “try” again. I felt so frustrated and humiliated. Which feelings were compounded and heaped on with a huge dose of bafflement when the teacher FINALLY turned to another student and the kid rattled off all this stuff about precision and highly controlled and tightly contained and and and…

Despite that effort by the teacher, I now adore Austen, but it took me years to overcome the nasty mental taste and try reading her for pleasure.
Barb Ferrer said on 08.31.09 at 02:22 PM • [link]

My biggest problem with the mandatory reading lists, at least around here, is their homogeneity. The majority of the books for sixth grade were some variation on eco-issues (the one exception was The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which my daughter saw and said, “Mom, I see you reading this one a lot, can I read that one?”). The seventh grade books are all Holocaust books, the eighth grade books are also WWII-oriented, but all boy adventure books.

I twitched, just reading the lists—I mean, I know there are good books on those lists, I’ve read most of them, but there is so little variation. With most of them also being incredibly depressing as well—way to foster a love of reading as enjoyment, school district.

I’m glad that my kids read on their own. I let them choose, for the most part, and I’m also grateful I have so many friends who are such wonderful writers and whose books I can recommend to my kids because the schools? They’re kind of doing a suck-ass job of it.
nutmeag said on 08.31.09 at 02:41 PM • [link]

I firmly believe my private school education allowed me to really love reading (I also have a book worm mother and we lived on a farm, so I’m sure those helped). Unlike the public grammar school system, we weren’t forced to read whole books for class. Instead, we had a reader that had tons of excerpts from popular, classic, and Newberry award winning children’s lit. And these excerpts we read together in class. What would end up happening is that we’d read one that I loved, then I’d go to the library and pick it up.

We also had to visit the school library once a week, but we were allowed to pick out whatever we wanted, as long as it wasn’t too far under our reading level and wasn’t the same book every week. I also don’t think I wrote a book report until I was in the 5th or 6th grade . . . at least not for class. I think I wrote a few for extra credit, though.

I wasn’t an early reader, but I’ve had a library card since I was at least five, and have never been without one. Reading is my world, and for that I thank my school. I got lucky.
Carin said on 08.31.09 at 02:57 PM • [link]

I had the same kinds of lit teachers as Meg Cabot. Even the ones I liked hit plot and symbolism SO hard that they sucked the joy out of the book. I remember reading ahead like Kimberly Ann, so as to be able to finish a book before someone disected it.

I also remember arguing with a teacher about whether an author intentionally put symbolism into a story (The Great Gatsby, holy cow did my teacher have a two page list of symbols and themes!) or did we just find it after the fact. And if the author didn’t mean for it to be there, should we really have to learn it. (Yeah, I was one of those kids.)

I’m not sure how it happened, but I think, like others mentioned, I saw the required reading list as a challenge, and spent a semester of independent study reading through some of the books on the list. Picking my own books, even off the list, was a much better fit for me (and my teacher!).

As for the slob/snob debate… I used to read books because I wanted to prove how smart I was (hence the independent study of tucking all that required reading in). Now I read for two reasons… to learn something or for personal enjoyment. There is enough crap in my life, I don’t need it in my reading material. I’m pretty comfortable with myself now. And my favorite discussions of symbolism? Cover snark. I’m very good at spotting phallic symbols now!
Tina C. said on 08.31.09 at 03:04 PM • [link]

Among my school friends the ones whose parents were readers enjoyed reading. The ones who had trouble reading and generally hated it were those whose families didn’t value, enjoy or practice reading.

Growing up, I was not only not encouraged to read, I was made fun of by various stepmothers for “always having my nose stuck in a book.” I’m a voracious reader and I go through 2-4 books a week. So, to say that I value reading is a bit of an understatement. My kids? Well, the oldest writes poetry and song lyrics, but if you asked him to read something for the fun of it, he’d laugh. (I think Kurt Cobain’s biography was the only exception.) My youngest reads if he’s absolutely bored (he got a lot of reading done in Iraq and I’m very happy about that for a couple of reasons). As for my middle child, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that she goes to the library quite often and has even joined a book club (to discuss them, not buy them). This is a major change from her teenaged years when reading was only for people with no “real” lives. My point is that reading isn’t necessarily engendered by your upbringing. Sometimes you’re a reader no matter what anyone says or feels about it and sometimes you won’t read despite growing up surrounded by books. There’s got to be more to it than whether or not your parents read—unless we just want to say, “Oh, well, that family doesn’t really value books and that’s why he/she doesn’t want to read and it’s pointless to try to find something that makes him/her more interested.”

As for mandatory book lists, chalk me up for one that hated being told what to read and hated almost every book that was forced upon me. (To Kill a Mockingbird and Turn of the Screw were the notable exceptions.) My first experience with the mandatory reading list was Red Badge of Courage in the fourth grade. This was also when I realized that the teacher would discuss the book ad nauseum and if I paid attention in class and took notes, I didn’t have to read the book to pass the test. I learned several things by the time I graduated from high school:

1) The Scarlet Ibis was a good story until we spent 4 days disecting ever tiny bit of possible symbolism in it. Well, mostly the teacher would ask about the symbolism of this or that, tell us we were wrong in a frustrated tone of voice, and lecture us on what it really meant. God, I hated that story by the end.

2) I dislike, intensely, pretty much everything Hemmingway ever wrote—especially The Old Man and the Sea. (See above for why.)

3) I like Shakespeare better when I can just watch the play. (See above for why.)

4) Reading ahead frustrates the teacher nearly as much as not reading it all for some inexplicable reason.

5) If you take good notes, you can write a paper about a story or book and tell your teacher exactly what he/she wants to hear and get an A without ever finishing the thing.

5) I would rather read about anything other than something off of some school reading list.

I will say that I noticed that the reading lists were getting more diverse and balanced by the time my kids went to school, however, so maybe the education is beginning to get a clue.
RStewie said on 08.31.09 at 03:06 PM • [link]

I think I’m echoing a little what others are saying here, but I think your aptitude for reading (ie reading faster and with comprehension) makes for a love of reading. Most of the kids I know that don’t like to read, aren’t “good” at it. Those that do, it comes easily to.

But another huge factor is how much reading is emphasized in the home. I buy my step son books I know he’ll read—he’ll get a book at every gift-giving opportunity (along with masses of other toys). My neices and nephew all have extremely large collections of books, some classics, and some they’ve chosen for themselves. My sister gave up trying to get her step-daughter to plow through the LHOTP series…and bought her age appropriate gossip-girlesque books, instead. Which she still has to MAKE HER READ. It’s a work in progress.

I myself have no experience with mandatory reading lists. In college we had some books we had to read, but I think by that time my love of reading had already become a part of me. I don’t think they’re so bad, except to echo what Barb said: SOO homogenous…my stepson is mixed, and to me it’s not fair to set him up with only examples of White writers and White experiences.
Tina C. said on 08.31.09 at 03:12 PM • [link]

Apparently, I should have proofed a bit better:

5) I would rather read about anything other than something off of some school reading list.

That should be a number 6, not 5.

I will say that I noticed that the reading lists were getting more diverse and balanced by the time my kids went to school, however, so maybe the education is beginning to get a clue.

...so maybe the education system is beginning to get a clue.
Natalie said on 08.31.09 at 03:12 PM • [link]

Larger issues of this post aside, for this alone…

“Every Big Book I read was like leveling up in a video game: it was proof that I was getting older and smarter. Reading the big, intimidating classics wasn’t a chore; it was sign that I was growing up, that I was getting smarter and more capable. “

...I will love you forever. This is a way to talk about those tough books with my kids that they’ll get. Thank you!
Lynne Connolly said on 08.31.09 at 03:17 PM • [link]

My son is dyslexic and reading, for him, is a chore. Until he discovered JK Rowling. She made him read because he wanted to, and then he discovered Terry Pratchett. So I’d say that sometimes you have to “work up” to the greats, and you definitely need a wide reading experience to know why Dickens is great and some of his contemporaries aren’t, why Jane Austen is great literature, and Georgette Heyer is genre (superb genre, but nevertheless…)
I hate and detest literary snobbery. It should come from the heart, not what you’re told. You should want to know more, not be forced to read about it. Great literature works on several levels, and if you’re happy with “Great Expectations” as a blisteringly good story, then that’s enough.
My daughter loves literature, but her experience with Jane Austen reminded me of mine. I didn’t “get” Jane until I was in my late twenties. I think some of her subtleties pass the younger reader by, or rather, don’t address what people in their late teens are interested in. “Emma” bored me stupid, I couldn’t see the point. So perhaps there are ideal ages, too.
For me, 13 was perfect for “Lord Of The Rings,” for instance.
Cathy said on 08.31.09 at 03:17 PM • [link]

(Haven’t read the NY article or Cabot’s response yet, so sorry if I’m repeating either.)
I had a mixed bag of English teachers. The real gem was my 12th grade teacher, whose name I sadly cannot remember. Even the books that I wasn’t interested in, plot-wise, he made interesting and helped me learn something. And he taught the hell out of Hamlet.

Other teachers, though, not quite so good. I wonder if part of the problem is that the teachers themselves either aren’t interested in the text they teach, or are so tired of it, that the book loses all spark for them and it just becomes a regurgitated lesson plan. I’m not trying to make teachers sound lazy or something, just that if I had to re-teach a book I didn’t enjoy every.single.year, I’d have trouble inspiring young students to learn to enjoy it. It might be nice if teachers could pick the books for their individual classes from a large list, as opposed to assigning the same book to every 9th grader in the city. That way, at least the teacher could pick books that he/she was more interested in personally, and might enjoy teaching a bit more.

(By the way, enjoyed The Scarlett Letter, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Sadly, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings killed all Maya Angelou for me, and I can’t stand Steinbeck and Melville.)
shaunee said on 08.31.09 at 03:28 PM • [link]

Tina C,
I couldn’t agree more with #5 of your list. I read Jude the Obscure at least 4 times in college for 4 different classes: 18th Century Lit, 19th Century Lit, The Gothic and Women in 18th C. Lit.

Wrote many papers, got several A’s and do this day can still quote from that book.

Never finished it.

I remember thinking that the title was weird and after reading the first 50 pages, wishing to god that Jude had remained in obscurity.
Nancy said on 08.31.09 at 03:28 PM • [link]

I am going to agree with Meg Cabot 100%. We must have had the same teachers. GACK! I hated reading…until I was in my 30’s and discovered romance. Every book on the required reading list was depressing and horrible. Don’t even get me started on the ones about dogs. WHY MUST THEY ALL DIE?! Just awful. I got tired of being disturbed and depressed, and I was certain that all books were like that. Well, no thank you then.

I volunteer in the elementary library at my kids’ school, and I make this complaint constantly. Our educational system is making our kids hate reading. I know it made me hate it.
Lynne Connolly said on 08.31.09 at 03:40 PM • [link]

I remember thinking that the title was weird and after reading the first 50 pages, wishing to god that Jude had remained in obscurity.

I wanted to beat Jude’s head against the nearest wall. And his beloved’s, too. When it got to the “Old Father Time” bit (you know the bit I mean) it became the first book I ever hurled out of a window. Wallbanging was too good for it.

But that in itself is great because I had a reaction to the book, and because of what I’d been taught, I could say why I didn’t like it. And it’s great because it provoked such a reaction.

I grew up in a working-class environment with lots and lots of books. We couldn’t afford central heating, so we had big tall bookshelves and books by the yard, to help insulate the large house we lived in. I just worked my way through them, no clue which was a “classic” and which was “trash.” I found that out for myself. Still love the Leslie Charteris “Saint” books, especially the early ones, to this day and I discovered a love of the hard-boiled detective novel, particularly Hammet and Chandler but with a side order of Spillane.
My parents regarded books as cheap entertainment, which they were and are. So I’d already read most of the classics when I started studying English, which is pretty useful, and I had the breadth of knowledge to be able to compare books and put the set book in context, also a useful thing.
Education got me out of the working-class grind, so I can’t be sorry I had it, or that I had teachers who tried hard to get us to pass the exams we needed to get on to the interesting bit - real life.
La Reine Noire said on 08.31.09 at 03:40 PM • [link]

Probably echoing pretty much everyone here, but I grew up a bookworm and remain one to this day. But there were always teachers who tried to ruin them for me—my eighth-grade teacher almost succeeded in ruining Romeo and Juliet, a play I’ve loved since I was nine, by focusing exclusively on minutiae. Thankfully she didn’t succeed.

The oddest example, however, came a few years later, in tenth grade. This teacher was otherwise wonderful; she taught me Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew, and then somehow proceeded to three weeks of torture involving The Old Man and the Sea. Now, to be fair, this might have been Hemingway’s fault and not hers. I never even finished that book. I still don’t understand why people insist on forcing it upon students. I was one of those students who liked trying to pick books apart to figure out how they worked (I’m now finishing a PhD in English. Who’s surprised?). But when she was going on and on about Christ symbolism in Hemingway, all I could see was a story about an old man who couldn’t catch a fish.

I do think it makes a massive difference if kids are choosing what they read. But they need to begin with the basic assumption that reading can be entertaining, and not everybody has that.

As for book snobs, people keep assuming I’m one. Then they take one look at my bookcase and are forced to reconsider.
Jill Myles said on 08.31.09 at 03:50 PM • [link]

I have to echo Meg Cabot’s sentiments - I loathed anything that was required reading. And being in honors classes? MY GOD, there was so much of it. I cracked more copies of Cliff Notes and muddied my way through symbolism bullshit essays far more often than I ever opened up The Grapes of Wrath, Tess of the D’Urbevilles, Macbeth, or any other brutal type of book of that nature. Why should I have to spend endless hours reading that stuff at home? Even worse, when we got back to class to analyze it, the conversations would inevitably go like this:

Teacher: So, give me your impressions of the book. What did you think he meant when he said X? There are no wrong answers, I just want to get your impressions.
Student: I think he meant Y.
Teacher: No, that’s wrong…
(Um, seriously. How are there no wrong answers but your answers are wrong?)

The best experience I had reading something in high school? I had a coach that taught social studies and government. On the first day of class, he pulled out 30 copies of All Quiet On The Western Front, gave us each a copy, and told us to read. We did nothing but read that class period, and every class period after for 2-3 weeks. We couldn’t take the books home with us - we were just supposed to sit quietly and read. Any discussion that we had about the book came at the end, and it was just chatty, and discussed how the story fit in with the real history.

That was the best book I’d read in high school, hands down.

I remember that
moonduster (Becky) said on 08.31.09 at 04:03 PM • [link]

I grew up as the only one of four kids who loved to read. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on.

Fast forward to now, and I am a mother of seven who rarely can find time to read, but still tries. My kids love to read (or love to be read to for the really young ones). However, I have one daughter who was never much of a reader.

I worried.

Then she picked up a Meg Cabot book. She’s now read all of Meg Cabot’s books along with books from other authors and I am often having to repeat myself to her because she is too engrossed in a book to hear me.

And I no longer worry.
Edie said on 08.31.09 at 04:05 PM • [link]

I hated 85% of the books that we studied at high school, sorry Thomas Hardy was number one of the hate list. (though I got one of my highest literature marks ever on that book even though I basically tore the thing to shreds.)
Now I was a voracious reader, in my small country school I read every single reader that school had and took all English related classes I could. But I still hated all the allocated books except for TKAM, John Marsden, Heart of Darkness, and Much Ado.
I think there really needs to be a balance of classic and popular to instil a love of reading, I feel as much can be learned by studying popular stuff as well as classics.
I think for many the over-analysing does kill the classics and the joy of reading for some. And frankly there is always going to be a number who do not like classics and never will, my sheepish hand is in the air on that one.

I remember one book that got 90% of the class reading and fully involved in class discussions and that was John Marsden’s Tomorrow When the War Began, now this is not a literature masterpiece, but it had a teenage voice and it was something we students related to and I think it was the most successful book studied that year and I feel the majority learned a lot more from the study of that book, then the classics we did. Though it wasn’t on the main list.. lol

And I am rambling badly, but hopefully there is a point in there somewhere?
Edie said on 08.31.09 at 04:12 PM • [link]

You know with all the rambling in the previous post, I simply could have said I agree with Candy, that a hybrid would probably be the best way to go.

*headdesk*
Theresa Meyers said on 08.31.09 at 04:12 PM • [link]

Meg’s Right.

I know from personal experience. The first piece I ever had published nationally was a short story titled My Mother, Unusual in a Normal Sort of Way, that was published in Merlin’s Pen, a national magazine of student writing. Hey, it was extra credit in a jr. CP English class. And basically it was easy to write. All I did was cobble together a string of different incidents from real life about how my mother handled things.

My English teachers were so thrilled when it was published that they ordered copies for every student and we read it in class together. (Nothing like airing dirty linen in public…especially for a teenager.) What absolutely and totally floored me was when we started reading the discussion guide produced by the editors of the magazine. “How did the author use exaggeration and hyperbole to deepen character?” Huh? WTF?

I turned to my best friend behind me in class and said. “What exaggeration and hyperbole? That’s really how my mom is. It’s the truth.” She shook her head and said. “I know.”

So Meg’s right. Sometimes the snobs and literary educators don’t have any effing clue what the author really meant. They are projecting their self-worth into the story by eschewing the concept that perhaps the author was just telling a story rather than trying to secretly encode some vital “deep inner meaning”.

Which leads me to quote Mark Twain: “Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”

Regardless, I have one child that totally loves to read (and literally goes through my recycle box digging out the draft print outs of my books in progress) and one that has to be forced to read because he’s still struggling - unless I read Harry Potter or some other book because he likes that I give every character their own voice.

Having done some teaching, I would still agree with Meg. I’ve seen it in action. First you have to hook the kid on the experience of reading - loving the way pictures form in their mind from the words. Then let them broaden their appreciation and try different things.

If you give a kid Hemingway to start with and tell them this is a good book, it’s rather like handing a prime rib to a six month old. Sure they can gum it, eventually, but are they really going to appreciate or enjoy it? Probably not. Strained peaches would be far more appreciated.

Just my .02
Kim said on 08.31.09 at 04:23 PM • [link]

Unfortunately, I would say that Ms. Cabot had the same kinds of burned-out English/Literature teachers I did. I remember vividly being made to memorize classic poetry line-by-line, in order to regurg it for the class. It sucked all the joy out of every single poem we read.

And I also distinctly remember a pop quiz on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, wherein the first question was “How many times did the author use the word ‘divers’ in chapter one?” And although I didn’t then and don’t now know the answer to that question, I do know that it did NOT make me want to read more for that class.

I think older kids probably do need some sort of guide, but for the younger ones, when you just want them to read? Let them read what they want. They know it’s dreck, but it’s enjoyable dreck.
Julie said on 08.31.09 at 04:28 PM • [link]

I agree wholeheartedly that it’s all about the teachers. Too many teachers get hung up on the “right” way of looking at a work to the point that disagreement is not tolerated. My kid went through some soul-sucking English teachers in high school, only to find one in his senior year that brought the joy back. And now he’s in college, learning the lesson that the tenured professor is ALWAYS right, even when he/she is wrong. Don’t get me started on that one…

(Captcha is cars67. Here’s hoping Kid’s car will start this morning so I don’t have to drive him to class.)
fiveandfour said on 08.31.09 at 04:36 PM • [link]

This is one of those things I’d never thought much about until I saw it debated during one of Michael Dirda’s reader interaction days. Since then, it has weighed on my mind at various times.

I came to realize that nearly every English teacher I’d ever had just about ruined reading for me. I, too, read just about whatever I wanted and took on reading “above myself” as a challenge. Then I’d get to class and have things I’d loved turned to ashes.

The good teachers, though - they were worth their weight in gold. They were able to take something we *should* read and make it something we *wanted* to read. To me that speaks as much about assigned reading lists as it does to how teachers are matched to their subjects and how bad teachers are allowed to hang in there and keep doing a bad job.

At the stage that I realized how bad some of my teachers were, I also realized how I had a rare privilege in being one of those “talented and gifted” kids because it meant I got to choose projects for myself. We were given the luxury of choosing who/what we read and presented, but we were also given the responsibility of doing the critical analysis and making it count.

I can’t imagine why such an educational experience couldn’t be more widely applied. Those lessons that nurtured the skill of thinking and analysis turned out to be the most valuable of my entire student career for a variety of reasons and did more than I can say for preparing me both for college and for working life.
Lynn M said on 08.31.09 at 04:49 PM • [link]

I really haven’t been able to figure out why some kids turn out to be readers and others not. Growing up, my entire family read voraciously. We’d take family trips to the library and spend Christmas morning with our noses buried in our new Christmas gift books. To this day, all of us are readers.

But of my two kids, my daughter is just like me but my son just doesn’t have that love of reading despite the fact that they’ve both been exposed to my love of reading. I keep trying to find things to pull my son in, but short of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, nothing has captured his attention for long. I think he’s like my husband, who reads newspapers and trade magazines like crazy but just doesn’t have the attention span for longer books.

So I worry what’s going to happen to my son when he’s required to read things that bore him to tears. It will be a constant battle and he’ll suffer from procrastination. Any tiny spark of a love for reading will be completely extinguished.

Ideally, I think kids should be given two lists - one a list of “classics” that conform to certain guidelines and the other a list of more compelling, contemporary and perhaps less “worthy” title. Kids pick alternatively from the lists, reading a combo of classics and things that entertain. But if they can at least choose from among a list of classics rather than be forced to read specific ones, at least they can have some hand in making things more palatable for themselves.
Anna the Piper said on 08.31.09 at 04:51 PM • [link]

I don’t actually remember what got me started on reading, but my father used to tell me about how at around age four I won a bet for him by reading an article from the newspaper out loud. So it’s safe to say I was probably slurping up words as soon as I knew what they were. I was certainly buying books with my allowance money as soon as I got old enough.

It certainly helped though that I had a string of wonderful English teachers in middle school—like my sixth grade teacher who had us tackling Tolkien and The Hobbit. I had my share of the assigned titles several other commenters have mentioned, but man, I ate The Hobbit right up. <3

My high school situation was shakier, but by then I was already a dedicated reader, enough that I blew my free period in the school library devouring as much of the fiction section as I could. I found Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters that way, as well as Victoria Holt. And I’m pretty sure that’s how I also came across another title that I normally associate with school reading lists: Julie of the Wolves.
heathero said on 08.31.09 at 04:53 PM • [link]

I now feel fortunate that I remember the required reading (happily for the most part) but none of my teachers :)

I LOVED the Scarlet Letter from the very first moment I read it. Hawthorne writes in cycles (beginning, middle & end all at that platform in the center of town in TSL). It was my first experience reading about character growth. Each time one of those characters stood at/near/on that platform, the characters were a bit different, and not always for the better. But I don’t remember what my teacher said about the book specifically or about symbolism in the book. She was not really memorable except for that rumor that she was having an affair with a high school boy.

I’m all for the hybrid model, a bit of required & choice reading in school. I know for a fact that I did not get through AP History because of that delightful text book but rather my love of Historical romance.
Renae Johnson said on 08.31.09 at 05:12 PM • [link]

I started reading at two and a half, and by kindergarten was reading on something like a fourth grade level, I think. For me, reading was fun and an escape. Elementary school reading wasn’t bad, since for the most part the teachers let us read stuff from the library we wanted to, or Newberry award winners (like Island of the Blue Dolphins), or here in Texas Bluebonnet award winners. I discovered romance novels in junior high, which balanced out some of the less appealing stuff we had to read. Basically, I made a rule for myself—finish the book for class, then I could pick up that Johanna Lindsey or Virginia Henley that was waiting for me.

High school, however…the required reading lists were horrible. I remember even then wondering why everything we had to read had been written by dead white guys, with the exceptions of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Gone With the Wind (which I HATED, mainly because I wanted to bitch slap Scarlett). Luckily, though, I was in honors and AP courses, and one of those gifted and talented kids, so I got to choose *some* of my own reading—mainly for research paper purposes. So freshman year, I chose to do a research paper on Virginia Woolf. Senior year, I did one on Collette. My junior and senior years, though, I had two fabulous English teachers. Junior year was taught by the women’s volleyball and basketball coach, but she kept things fun while still making the work rigorous. The best part was that she never told us our opinions were wrong, and I made some really high grades in that class, mainly because I was able to say what I thought, not what someone wanted me to regurgitate. My senior English teacher was fantastic, too, and tried to make even the most boring stuff seem interesting, and instead of writing a bunch of endless papers we were allowed to explore the books in more creative ways, such as short stories, poems, illustrations, dioramas, etc.

I have to say that I agree with Meg Cabot—and a lot of other people here—though, in that suggested reading lists don’t really turn kids into readers. I looked at romance novels as a way to reward myself for getting through The Grapes of Wrath (which I also hated) or anything by Hemingway, and hell, as a way to reward myself even after something I enjoyed. I do believe that students need to read the so-called classics, because like Candy said, they definitely serve an important role. But you can learn just as much from reading genre fiction (otherwise I wouldn’t have a Masters degree in genre fiction, now would I? ;-)), and it too serves an important role. I’m all for the hybrid system of having required reading, but allowing kids to choose from a list of more current, popular books.
Lady T said on 08.31.09 at 05:17 PM • [link]

I agree with the hybrid approach,too-assign certain titles to give kids the basics of literature while encouraging outside reading for extra credit(or just fun). My assigned reading for school wasn’t very ambitious-it was mostly a couple of Shakespeare plays and brief reads like Of Mice and Men. One teacher in high school had us read The Good Earth and even played the movie in class(which is becoming a standard practice these days).

The most challenging books given to me in high school were Lord Jim and Far From The Madding Crowd,which I barely got through and I’m a lifelong book junkie. My sister had a bad experience in high school,with an English teacher who kept turning the class literary discussions into political diatribes that had nothing or very little to do with the book in question which turned her off to reading for a long time.

Fortunately,she’s tapped into her inner biblio powers as an adult and now has several TBR piles to her credit and laments about not having enough time to read! Music to my ears:)
Madd said on 08.31.09 at 05:25 PM • [link]

I loved required reading. I grew up in a house where NO ONE read for leisure and saw reading as a waste of time. I would have to find an out of the way spot to read because if someone saw me reading they would interrupt me. The other kids would want me to go do something with them and the adults would find a chore for me, because that was at least a productive use of time. Assigned reading, though, was homework and so they would leave me to it. I also read pretty much anything I could get my hands on, which in a houseful of non-readers who scarcely went to the library and much begging involved, wasn’t much. I’m pretty sure I was the only person in my neighborhood who would skip school just to spend that time reading in the library. No body monitored my reading material so I often read things that were not appropriate for my age. Like when I was 12 and read a book titled Bitch. It was a about a prostitute who started out very very young and all the craziness of her life. I think it was that same year that I read The Tuesday Blade. I liked most of the books that I was assigned. Aside from Shakespear my favorite ones were Lord of the Flies and Ten Little Indians.

My husband came from a household with a similar attitude towards reading. We are both avid readers. Of my children only the oldest, Monk, likes to read. Unfortunately what he likes to read most is manuals.
Marianne McA said on 08.31.09 at 05:33 PM • [link]

I wonder if part of the problem is that the teachers themselves either aren’t interested in the text they teach, or are so tired of it, that the book loses all spark for them and it just becomes a regurgitated lesson plan.

LOL. My mum still hates ‘To kill a Mockingbird’ because she had to teach it so often…
Jen Penny said on 08.31.09 at 05:38 PM • [link]

I am so grateful for the structure of my high school’s summer reading lists. The list was extensive with a wide variety of authors and genres, everything from Dickens to Crichton, plus a high concentration of female-centric books (it was an all-girls school). And instead of a straight up book report we had a list of projects. Typically teachers would also assign specific books for us to read over the summer, but occasionally it was something along the lines of “choose a book written or set during this period of history” with some examples.

It definitely helped that I was a bit of a book nerd. But I think any other type of summer reading would have been unbearable.

Meanwhile I have nothing but fond memories of the excellent English teachers I had including my 7th grade teacher who when she heard I liked Jane Eyre suggested that I read Jane Austen. Totally changed my life.
Jen said on 08.31.09 at 05:40 PM • [link]

From my personal experience, I think part of the challenge is that our education system squeezes all the literature study into younger years when people are not necessarily ready. I never had any really awful English teachers and got good grades (advanced writing skills helped) but I didn’t really “get” literature until I was in my 30s and participated in a classics book group at my local library, led by a retired English teacher. We reread many books that I had read as a teen or college student, and what I discovered was that I was finally at a point to “get” it—appreciating literary craft, enjoying the building of character even when there wasn’t much plot going on, seeing things to appreciate even when I didn’t enjoy the book, etc. And I have been a voracious reader since age 5! I am training in a particular art appreciation teaching method, and one of the ideas behind the approach is that skills are built in levels, and you never see Level 5 in anyone younger than 40s-50s. It’s not about teachers, or natural talent—you just have to put in the time looking at the art. So I would vote for any approach that fosters love of reading and starts building skills for analysis—I liked the idea of using poems or maybe short stories rather than novels, which can be a bit of an endurance test. The one piece of literature from school that has stuck with me forever is the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner.
Jody said on 08.31.09 at 05:41 PM • [link]

I’ve always been a reader of the constant nose in the book variety, and I HATED lots of the books on the required list. I, too, thought my teachers pretty much sucked all the joy out of reading for pleasure with all the mind-numbing harping on themes and characterization and symbolism. Not to mention all the books I had to read that I’d never, ever pick up on my own.

Those classes were required, just like learning how to prove theorems, conjugate French and Latin verbs and memorize the period chart of the elements. It’s part of the education process and necessary for learning analytical and critical thinking skills as well as a valuable lesson in finishing a job even if you don’t enjoy it.

I love to read. No teacher could ever take that away, no matter how exhausted and bored, and I’m everlastingly grateful that I know how to read analytically. Thanks to my teachers, I can quantify why I like or don’t like a book.
I hated The Old Man and the Sea, too, but that fish springs to mind every now and then as a metaphor for some particularly frustrating and unrewarding task, and my life would be the poorer for not having read it.

When did it become necessary for students to enjoy everything they study? No one ever accuses math teachers of taking the fun out of solving quadratic equations.
Julie said on 08.31.09 at 05:46 PM • [link]

Back when my son was in public school they had a program called DEAR - Drop Everything And Read. The idea was that a student was supposed to spend 20 minutes a day on a book of their own choosing - reading in class. It was a great idea, but class schedules beyond the sixth grade didn’t permit such a luxury.

My son was an avid reader until he had the joy sucked out of him by a couple of awful English teachers. He’s now rediscovering a few authors he liked back in high school.

(Captcha is position59. Hmmmm…...)
Lostshadows said on 08.31.09 at 05:46 PM • [link]

I think I’m beginning to appreciate the book reports we had to do in elementary school more. It generally wasn’t a written paper, and it was on a book we picked. (And standing behind a bully who was having both really skinny little kids books turned down, while holding something really thick is a sweet memory.)
I also lucked out in HS, since while we got assigned reading, I got several teachers who had some imagination. (Okay, Dune is long enough to scare most sophomores, but it almost made up Ethan Frome.) Summer reading that’s a mystery book, a fantasy book, and a SF book? Woohoo!

I think most required reading would also be improved by teacher realizing that, just because it’s a classic, doesn’t mean everyone will like it.
(To this day, I still remember the HS teacher who wrote the note on a paper, “I seems like you didn’t like this book. Why don’t you write something positive about it?”)
And if the word symbolism was verboten. (Poor “Outcasts of Poker Flats” you never stood a chance.)

@La Reine Noire:
But when she was going on and on about Christ symbolism in Hemingway, all I could see was a story about an old man who couldn’t catch a fish.

I’d blame the teacher. Hemingway said that “The old man is an old man, and the sea is the sea.”
ocelott said on 08.31.09 at 05:56 PM • [link]

Yeah, I have to say, every high school English teacher I ever had told us “THIS IS WHAT THE AUTHOR IS TRYING TO SAY THROUGH SYMBOLIC MEANING” with no room for discussion or argument. In fact, once or twice someone asked “isn’t it possible we’re reading more out of this than the author intended to put in? That this symbolism is just a happy accident?” and was told “NO, THIS IS THE WAY IT IS.”

Ok, they might not have shouted it, as my caps might suggest. But the rest of the conversation is pretty much accurate.
Bookfiend said on 08.31.09 at 06:01 PM • [link]

I read this post just as I’d finish preparing a literature lecture :D , and thought I’d add a couple of thoughts from someone who also takes a hybrid approach (I teach the ‘serious stuff’, but read mostly sci-fi and fantasy on my own time).

In my experience, there are two things that are killing a balanced approach to reading:

1. On the snob side, literary theory. Really, if you want to eliminate all desire to read, ask a student to do a ‘structuralist reading’ of a work of literature. I hated this approach to literature as a student, and have banished it from my own work with students as a professor. I like to look at a work in the context of the history and philosophy of its time, without trying to fit a square peg into a round hole (because really, a ‘Marxist reading of ‘Julius Caesar’ ‘...???). Students will always make all kinds of interesting comparisons to other works, and discussions are fun. As Candy wrote, there are reasons why these works have lasted (besides being part of that Dead White Male canon), and I try to explore these reasons. We focus on the books, and if my students want to read the critics, more power to them; but I won’t force it on them.

2. On the slob side, I see genre fiction becoming increasingly compartmentalized. We no longer have plain old ‘science fiction’. We have ‘hard science fiction’ or ‘speculative fiction’ or ‘military science fiction’, and so on. While these are informative labels, I find that they have the effect of pitting groups of readers against one another (I’ve seen this in sci-fi and fantasy forums), and of alienating non-genre readers who might have wanted to try dipping their feet into the genre. Myself, I like organizing things into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ (and yes, I know I contradicted myself at the beginning :D ). Any well-written work is worth reading in my opinion, no matter the genre.

Okay, back to work ;).
Lostshadows said on 08.31.09 at 06:02 PM • [link]

and Gone With the Wind (which I HATED, mainly because I wanted to bitch slap Scarlett).

What? I’m not actually alone in that opinion?
Bookfiend said on 08.31.09 at 06:03 PM • [link]

Above, “I’d finish” should be “I’d finished”.
RoseG said on 08.31.09 at 06:23 PM • [link]

No one ever accuses math teachers of taking the fun out of solving quadratic equations.

Actually, a mathematician name Paul Lockhart wrote quite a wonderful essay doing just that. His basic premise is that pure mathematics is an art, and that the standard maths curriculum kills the creative components of it.

And most people probably aren’t going to argue that all education should be happy-puppies-and-rainbows all the time, but our current system greatly privileges the ability to give the “right” answer to “What is the theme of To Kill a Mockingbird” over critical thinking and genuine reading comprehension, which is a problem. And if the former is consistently dead dull and the latter more often genuinely engaging (if not necessarily fun), well, we should probably run with it, even if the kids are *gasp* having fun in school.
Julie said on 08.31.09 at 06:37 PM • [link]

RoseG, your comment needs to be framed. No, it needs to be tattooed into the forehead of every so-called education expert responsible for ruining our schools.
English Teacher said on 08.31.09 at 06:58 PM • [link]

@Jen - Your comment about reading books too early taps into something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

Last year I read “A Tale of Two Cities” with a class of high school seniors. I adore the book. They hated it. But one thing they loved was when I handed them construction paper and a few other materials and told them that they had to MAKE something 3 dimensional (no drawings), as a way of identifying with Dr. Manette’s shoemaking. They all remembered Dr. Manette and the shoes after that. They equally LOVED when I brought in knitting needles and yarn and showed them how to knit when we got up to Madame Defarge. Most of them had never SEEN anyone knitting, or making shoes, or doing any kind of manual creative work. So of course some of the most vivid images about obsessive repeated activity in the book didn’t speak to them at all. Same problem with the chapter “Drawn to the Lodestone Rock.” Start out: what’s a lodestone? It’s a magnet, used here as a term for a compass. What’s a compass? Something people used before GPS to find their way in the woods. (How does it work? What does a compass look like?) I’ve run into the same problem teaching the Odyssey with 9th graders; the whole romantic thing about Penelope weaving and unweaving so that she can hold off the suitors gets lost because the kids don’t know what weaving is and have never seen weaving (even those little potholders). Odysseus stringing the bow makes no sense because they’ve never played with bows, and have no innate concept about tension and work and why it’s hard to string a bow.

My point is that we tend to think of reading as something that PROVIDES information of things we DON’T have experience of, whereas when we read for pleasure, I think we’re mostly activating memories and/or prior knowledge of things we HAVE experienced. Of COURSE we have to read for information sometimes, and the magic of a good book (I’m thinking especially of historical novels here) is that it provides us with information but also with enough cues to make us feel as if the unfamiliar is ACTUALLY FAMILIAR. But it stands to reason that (hopefully) as we get older we’ll have more experiences to draw on, so our reading will become more meaningful.

So what implication does this have for teaching a love of books? I’ve seen (and used) something similar to the DEAR program Julie mentioned, but my unscientific anecdotal observation is that it just cements a love of books among those who love reading already, and doesn’t do much for those for whom it is a chore. I would argue that the problem is that our educational system at least in the lower grades is SO focused on reading that it blanks out the experiences that make reading meaningful. Kids should do more “summer camp” type activities (e.g. making models out of wood, clay, plastic, paper and every conceivable substance affordable, knitting, making potholders, building with blocks, USING THEIR HANDS AND EYES AND NOSES) rather than reading books about kids (or adults) who do these things. It may not be “the real thing” (I can see worries about putting an actual longbow into a kid’s hand just to help appreciate Robin Hood) but it makes reading about the real thing more familiar, and thus (I suspect) more pleasurable.

And @Jody, yes, I think critical and analytical thinking are necessary, and thanks for pointing out that not everything has to be fun for everybody. Most teachers I know bend over backwards to try to find relevant and exciting texts for students, only to be told “Miss, I can’t read this book because it doesn’t interest me,” by little dears who have learned that “reading is fun” and therefore if it involves ANY challenge they shouldn’t have to make the effort.

Forgive the length of the post. But I thought it was worth weighing in, since I’m always a little saddened by the general assumption that English teachers are incompetent fools who enjoy making brilliant students like Ms. Cabot suffer.
Kris said on 08.31.09 at 07:26 PM • [link]

RoseG, your comment reminded me of my favorite math teacher in high school who taught us the quadratic formula to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Her class helped me resolve many of my prejudices against math (we’re still not best pals, but we don’t need to be).

I agree that a hybrid system is probably best. I was fortunate enough to have a mother and grandmother who encouraged reading for fun and enlightenment. They didn’t really guide me too much, occasionally they would suggest that I might be tad young for the subject matter, but otherwise they trusted me to make wise choices.

I’m an English Major who has an aversion to large portions of canon (most stem from high school, where there didn’t seem to be any joy in most of my classes). However, as I make myself go back and read some of it, it grows on me. (I hated Steinbeck in HS, but took a class this summer as sort of a personal challenge, and while I still think that he can be incredibly depressing, I really loved his voice, and how well he understood human nature and social unrest.)

I think that it’s important to find a balance for the classroom, the student (of all ages), and our personal reading lists. I usually manage two Sci-fi or Romance novels for every “literary” I read, just because I can read them faster.
Wayward said on 08.31.09 at 07:41 PM • [link]

I was like Kimberly Anne - I’d read what was given fast so I could enjoy it ( or not, if it just plain stank ;) ) before the teacher could suck all the life out of it with over-analysis.

Didn’t help that I kept getting teachers who were married to their own personal interpretations. Made it easy to get good grades, though. We used to joke that one would give an A+ to anything titled ‘Greek People In The Bible Having Sex’, his three favourite themes. For another, all you had to do was claim that everything was penii. Is there a tall building? It is a penis. A rock? It is a penis. A cheese sandwich? IT IS A PENIS!

Catchpa: every47. My brother’s bookshelves are an interesting mix of Obligatory Classics and whatever the fad flavour of the week is - he works in a bookstore, he likes to have an idea of what people are asking after.
joykenn said on 08.31.09 at 07:49 PM • [link]

You know to really enjoy something (skateboarding, batting, or reading) you have to be somewhat proficient at it and that means practice. My oldest son didn’t enjoy reading until I took him with me to a science fiction conference. He absolutely loved a presentation given by a writer and a Emergency Room doctor about how to kill off your characters or give them lingering conditions. A few other presentations about wars and fighting got his interest. (Sigh, no he did not become a serial killer but young teenage boys are pretty gruesome!). He actually went with me to the library to find books by some of the authors and ....the more he read, the better he became at reading and the more he enjoyed it. Now reading is one of his greatest joys and he’s a very fast reader. Get kids to read whatever it is and you might “hook” them for life.
Robin said on 08.31.09 at 07:59 PM • [link]

I’m still trying to get my breath back from reading Cabot’s essay. It took me aback for the pure invective in her tone and what seemed like a massive oversimplification regarding WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING (I can use the all caps, right, since she did?).

On the one hand, she says this:

Fortunately, no one, not the librarians, my parents, my teachers, no one ever said, “Hey. Don’t you think you’ve read this novelization of a movie enough times, Cabot? How about moving on to some Nathaniel Hawthorne now?”

Then this:

Why are people always making kids hate to read by forcing them to read things they don’t want to read, or aren’t ready to read yet?

And this:

I actually did read To Kill A Mockingbird on my own (because my mom gave it to me one day when the library was closed and I couldn’t check out The Fantastic Voyage again). And I really liked it.

But guess what? I still hated The Scarlet Letter (and yes, Wuthering Heights too) with a passion (and still do today) because I was “required” to read them in school.

Okay, so the upshot here is any book she was required to read in school she hates, therefore no kid should be required to read any book in school. And that “people” are “always” forcing kids to read what they hate and therefore fostering a hatred of reading.

So how is that overgeneralized argument any different from what she’s arguing against? There seem to be a few pervasive assumptions, namely that a) any book assigned in school will be hated, and b) that EVERYONE is making kids hate reading by downgrading genre fiction and elevating esoteric literary fiction and c) THEN insisting that teachers are being unbelievably arrogant by pretending to know what the author meant.

Really? REALLY?

Okay, so my counter-arguments:

1. EVERYONE is not doing ANYTHING, because schools and teachers are different. Since Cabot had teachers who didn’t trash her SF reading, why the generalized assumption in the other direction? I’ve never been a primary or secondary school English teacher, but I’ve worked with plenty of them (through NEH, NIH, or other outreach-type initiatives), and has anyone really stopped to consider lately how much shit these teachers take—from their students, from the parents, from society—for one of the least financially lucrative jobs in the US relative to work expended? Beyond that, though, there are so many teachers out there who want nothing more than to share their own love of reading with their students, and who are implementing all sorts of innovative and integrative approaches. Here’s a curriculum bit from the Science Fiction list of the Yale-New Haven Teacher’s Institute, which has been active since 1978 (and extends well beyond New Haven), for example. But there are lots of examples out there. Lots.

2. It is not true for everyone that mandatory reading = hatred. I still remember my experience of reading Tale of Two Cities in 9th grade English and being totally overwhelmed with the way my teacher helped us read and understand the novel. I still remember the moment where Madame Defarge’s knitting was revealed for its true significance, not only to the plot, but also to the way the story was constructed. OMG it was like a whole new world opened up once I understood how many levels books could work on, and I owe that to a mandatory reading list. I probably even owe to those lists the way I argued with my 12th grade English teacher over what Hawthorne meant in The Scarlet Letter, because he was WRONG, dammit, and I wasn’t going to accept what he had to say! Because, amazingly enough, I had an actual brain and wasn’t just a little robot child accepting everything a teacher told me as the WORD OF GOD. And it was some solid -albeit annoyingly precocious and anti-authoritarian - critical thinking skills trained on those mandatory books that bestowed such a gift on me.

3. Having worked with more than a few students who did not like reading, I found that a critical partner in the battle to encourage them was the parents. Parents making room for their kids to read, parents who love reading themselves, parents who read with their kids and who read to their kids. Parents who facilitate any sign of their kids’ interest in reading. Parents who go to their kids’ class conferences and who keep in touch with the teacher and who don’t expect school to polish junior into a shiny penny of civic engagment and academic excellence. Parents who are active in their school system and who are paying close attention to what their kids are learning and why. Who are willing to work with teachers and assist in their kids’ learning. For older kids, peer groups make a difference, too.

4. Back to the issue of teaching books as if the author meant a, b, or c. Yes, this is something that as grown-ups we know does not exist. That no reader can scientifically deduce what the author meant, any more than any author can communicate exactly what s/he means directly and without an unconscious counter-text being written simultaneously. Texts are their own critical world, and neither author nor reader has the final word on what it means to anyone. But even accepting that as true, I don’t see it as an argument for the elimination of required reading, since that approach is not book specific, but pedagogical in nature.

5. As I said last night on Twitter, I support a mixed-genre approach to reading in school, and a healthy balance between teacher-directed and student-directed reading experiences/activities. Not only, IMO, is is important to promote autonomy in kids by empowering them to choose and read the books they want, but it’s also, IMO, important to help students find books that they might not find themselves. And those books are often on the required reading lists. And IMO those books help fortify the idea of a unified learning community, giving students of all abilities the opportunity to engage in a shared experience, one that they may not love at the time. Because that’s one of the most difficult things about this issue: you often don’t know the pay-offs or the costs until later.

I cannot tell you how many hours I felt were wasted in middle school learning about Mark Twain, traveling to his dusty old home, seeing Hal Holbrook impersonate him on Broadway, etc. I swore I would never read another freaking Mark Twain book ever again! And I probably kept that promise until I took an entire seminar on Twain one summer in college (it was the only class left!). And I learned to love Twain in a way I never thought possible. And to be so incredibly grateful for all that stuff that I thought was shoved down my throat in seventh grade. Now all that occupies a position of grateful remembrance for me. I know it’s nothing I ever would have chosen for myself if I had the choice, because I didn’t have the wisdom as a 12 or 13 year old to know any better. Which, to me, is one of the most powerful arguments for mandatory reading lists in school. It may not mean that every kid will love every book assigned (I still don’t like The Grapes of Wrath or The Red Badge of Courage), and it certainly doesn’t mean that the lists have to be all about classic lit or that they shouldn’t evolve over time (honestly, I’m way more concerned about race and gender equity than genre equity, but that’s another argument). But at least those lists provide a common thread of ideas and experiences on which to build, and that is still a critical function of institutionalized education in a democratic society.
English Teacher said on 08.31.09 at 08:13 PM • [link]

Thanks, Robin. You said everything I was feeling but was trying to be too sweet and reasonable to say. (Teachers learn to take disrespect and smile. It’s part of the job description.)

But I have to share this because the timing is so perfect: I had a kid in my 9th grade class last year who devoured the Twilight series, and within a week of our summer reading list being handed out (the kids had to pick 2 books off a list of six choices, in a mix of genres) was already almost done with her first “assigned” book. So at the end of June I sent her a link to this site’s comments section about “recommendations for YA romance” (in response to a request from YA librarian), with a boatload of recommendations, discussions about what was appropriate/inappropriate for her age group, links to other review sites, etc. and told her she might enjoy sifting through it. Five minutes ago I got an email from her saying “Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed it.”

I have no idea which books (if any) she tracked down, but a huge THANK YOU to all the members of this community, who showed a bright kid that there’s a place where people argue passionately about books, and gave your suggestions to a girl who was worried about being bored over the summer.
quichepup said on 08.31.09 at 08:15 PM • [link]

One of the main reasons some kids hate the required reading lists is because teachers aren’t excited about the books themselves. Many teachers are teaching what the kids need to know to pass the standardized tests and little else. I’m reminded of the Simpsons, where Lisa’s teacher hit the “independent thought alarm” when she voices a contrary opinion in class.

Besides some books just suck, even if they are canon. My son and I share a deep hatred for Catcher in the Rye, a book we were both forced to read 25 yrs. apart. On the other hand I remember my beloved AP English teacher got us reading Canterbury Tales by pointing out the dirty parts.
Robin said on 08.31.09 at 08:29 PM • [link]

@English Teacher: I fully support people’s right to complain about our social institutions, but I also get frustrated by over-generalized criticisms backed up by absolutely no interest in supporting or participating in change. And for education, it’s particularly problematic, IMO, because everyone, not just those who have children, are affected by the quality and viability of schools. I’m still breathing deep over that Cabot essay, trying for a zen calm, and it helped to vent a little, but yeah, I am so over the blame game when it comes to education. I don’t think people really understand the immense and diversely situated challenges facing education, especially public education, in this country, nor the critical need for more public involvement and support in supporting educators. Although if public funding continues its current downslide, we may eventually be in a position to see what, exactly, society would be like if it weren’t for those much-derided schools and teachers.
Madd said on 08.31.09 at 08:30 PM • [link]

I also lucked out in HS, since while we got assigned reading, I got several teachers who had some imagination. (Okay, Dune is long enough to scare most sophomores, but it almost made up Ethan Frome.) Summer reading that’s a mystery book, a fantasy book, and a SF book? Woohoo!

I LOVE Dune. It would have rocked to have something like that assigned. Your post reminded me of a line in Grosse Point Blank where the lead character says to his former English teacher “are you still inflicting all that horrible Ethan Frome damage on your students?”

and Gone With the Wind (which I HATED, mainly because I wanted to bitch slap Scarlett).

What? I’m not actually alone in that opinion?

You mean there are people who didn’t?
Candy said on 08.31.09 at 08:46 PM • [link]

@Robin:

But even accepting that as true, I don’t see it as an argument for the elimination of required reading, since that approach is not book specific, but pedagogical in nature

Jesus, yes, that’s what I was trying to say for a good chunk of my blog entry and didn’t quite articulate. There’s nothing broken about the idea of mandatory reading lists; the biggest issues seem to lie with the way those mandatory books are taught.

...honestly, I’m way more concerned about race and gender equity than genre equity, but that’s another argument…

When it comes to mandatory reading lists, I have to admit that race and gender equity being more my concern, too, because if there’s some sort of hybrid system being implemented, I don’t see genre equity being an issue, because the kids will more likely than not correct that deficit all by themselves. I think that genre equity becomes more of an issue when a school implements nothing but a mandatory reading list, because I’m all for trying to capture the attention of kids who find reading difficult and/or boring, and if that takes robots, wizards, hot vampires, or Captain friggin’ Underpants (which, by the way, I love, love, love, and I didn’t find those books until I was 25 or 26), then I say Go For It.

Something else that would be interesting for schools to explore as a way to capture and foster readers, especially resistant readers: adding graphic novels to mandatory reading lists. There’s so much that’s good out there, and not just superhero stories (because most people still associate comics with dudes in tights and capes, though there are several excellent superhero comics out there, too), but works like Maus, or Persepolis, or Blankets. But is that not book-ish enough? I’m pretty sure there are schools out there that already have a program like that in place, but I was wondering how invested people were in the idea of Mandatory Books Being Strictly Text, Thank You.
Jennie Blake said on 08.31.09 at 09:05 PM • [link]

(I, for one, will forever hate “The Grapes of Wrath” because of a teacher who basically battered the symbolism in the book to death with a variety of farming implements.)
I would just like to second, third, and fourth to infinity and beyond the idea that the love of reading is most helped by giving people both choice and guidance and encouraging them to have books scattered about the house.
As a middle school teacher, I saw more teenagers being taught to *hate* reading by mindless worksheets, essay assignments, and “pop quizzes” than anything else, and it made me deeply depressed. Mandatory reading lists only work if they are very, very, very, very carefully thought out AND if there is some leeway for student’s personalities.
Of course, in my classroom, we basically had a reading free-for-all (you like it? then read it! you finished it? then read something else!) and you know what? They could ALL spell, read, and write darn good essays by the end. Because they had all READ enough good writing to be able to.
There is simply no substitute.
Love,
the girl whose father once had “strong words” with a librarian who tried to block her from checking out “Are you there God? It’s me Margaret” at what was deemed a “tender” age.
Jocelyn said on 08.31.09 at 09:05 PM • [link]

I was so lucky in my English teachers - I didn’t universally love everything they assigned, but they never tried to suck the joy out of reading. When they discussed the books, they didn’t talk about the symbolysim, but about the motivations of the characters, and the things we liked and didn’t like about the novels. There are books I read that I loved and never would have picked up on my own (the Scarlett Letter is one of them) and they really opened my eyes to new things. In fact, when they did discuss symbolysm, they spoke of it like a great, fun secret that was a lovely add-on to the plot, instead of the real meaning of the book. Dudes, it sounds like some of your teachers would have been happier teaching you about decoder rings.

Though my love of reading came mostly from watching my mother read and write, and discovering books and genres that worked for me on my own, I think my teachers did a great job of encouraging and expanding that love.

Honestly, I think the only thing any of them did to put me off reading was a fourth-grade teacher who accused me of padding the number of books I was reading because she was displaying the number on a chart on the wall, and my line on the graph was much higher than everyone else’s (I was actually minimizing the number because it was a little embarassing how much I read). I still feel a little indignant all these years later that she thought I was reading for her dumb graph and not just because I liked to read. That was an elementary school teacher, though, my English teachers were fantastic.
Candy said on 08.31.09 at 09:12 PM • [link]

@Jody: You make interesting points (that I think are echoed in Robin’s comment, too) about the necessity of learning certain things, and how having fun while doing it isn’t necessarily the point—that having kids finish books they don’t enjoy, just like finishing anything they don’t enjoy in school, is part of the process of teaching discipline. I agree with you, in that I don’t think kids should read only books they love. If nothing else, having to read a bad book throws a good book into starker relief, ditto reading a book you love vs. a book you hate. But I do think that making the learning process engaging and a pleasure (if not strictly “fun”) is a better way to go, because even though not every book a kid reads needs to be a keeper, keeping that kid engaged in the process of learning about that book instead of seeing learning as a source of pain is important. And it’s so easy to confuse the two. I think Meg Cabot has done exactly this: confused bad teaching for bad books and bad book lists.

I think we’re in such an uproar over reading because it’s one of the parts of the educational process that we think NEEDS to be fun and engaging—that something is drastically lost to us if we don’t have a large population of smart, engaged, critical readers. Your comments about math, Latin and French got me thinking that we don’t typically treat the other aspects of schooling in that way (though I like RoseG pointing out that math is, can be and should be taught in fun, creative ways). If people don’t like math, or don’t get it, we shrug our shoulders and move on, because math occupies a sphere that’s more strictly compartmentalized as academic. That’s not to say that basic math skills aren’t every bit as essential as basic reading skills, but we’re not used to seeing people mathing for fun. So when kids don’t like reading, or are turned off books completely because of bad English teachers? It’s a tragedy. And I think it says something about the importance of the process to us.
Julie said on 08.31.09 at 09:12 PM • [link]

I hope no one thinks I’m down on teachers. My mom is a retired teacher and I’m aware of all the BS she went through to do her job.

I applaud the teachers who work hard to make any subject interesting for their students, because I’ve seen what they’re working against in the public school systems. It can be soul sucking. I just saw @JennyBlake’s post and that’s what I mean.

Jocelyn wrote:
Honestly, I think the only thing any of them did to put me off reading was a fourth-grade teacher who accused me of padding the number of books I was reading because she was displaying the number on a chart on the wall, and my line on the graph was much higher than everyone else’s (I was actually minimizing the number because it was a little embarassing how much I read).
I still feel a little indignant all these years later that she thought I was reading for her dumb graph and not just because I liked to read. That was an elementary school teacher, though, my English teachers were fantastic.

OMG! The same thing happened to me. It took a visit from the aforementioned school teacher mom to set that particular teacher straight.
Candy said on 08.31.09 at 09:23 PM • [link]

@Natalie: so glad one of my bad analogies has been helpful! Anybody want to hear about my analogy about how learning new vocabulary is kind of like picking up extra ammo packs and new equipment?
Jody said on 08.31.09 at 09:29 PM • [link]

I meant to say periodic table of the elements. Oops.

Perhaps we’re confusing ‘reading’ with ‘literature’. How many commenters have said they hated some of the required books, but maintain they still love to read?

There’s never been a school course entitled ‘Loving To Read 101’ as far as I know and yet reading proficiency is essential to academic achievement. Is there any argument that avid readers are more successful in school?

Instilling a love of reading is just as much a home issue as is personal hygiene or responsibility for a pet. While teachers and schools can and mostly do create reading-friendly environments, their job is to teach content (lliterature), not context (a love of reading). Holding teachers responsibile for whether or not a child loves to read is a WTF of the most F-edness.

Sure, some teachers are more nurturing than others, but the same goes for doctors, Scout leaders, Sunday School teachers and every other adult a child comes in contact with. That’s life.
ninjapenguin said on 08.31.09 at 09:33 PM • [link]

Okay, first of all I just wanted to reiterate what so many people have said here about being a voracious reader from early on. We didn’t have much required reading in my school (other than what was in the textbook) and I usually preferred what I read on my own—even when it was on the list of Recommended Classics my teacher had given me. But then my college freshman English class killed my love for Jane Eyre by making me write a five page paper on the symbolism of Gateshead (her childhood home) and going on and on and how the moon was her mother. Seriously, WTF? Thankfully, my Shakespeare class was kickass. We examined the plays as scripts, talking about casting choices and how we’d stage or play certain scenes, which seemed to me such a natural way of looking at them. I think everyone was really excited about that class, and I know my writings and discussions were much more in depth and opinionated than in that horrible English class.

Second, I lately read Enchanted Hunters (which I highly recommend), an examination of childhood reading and literature. One point the author brings up that I hadn’t realized before is that while we, as a culture, say that we highly value reading, we often tend to, in the next breath, disparage people who read. We call book lovers bookworms; we talk about it using the language of drug or alcohol addiction or else of gluttony: we’re addicted to books, voracious readers, we’re desperate for a fix of our favorite authors, we consume books and glut ourselves on them. There is a general feeling that reading “too much” is unhealthy both physically and mentally. So I have to wonder if this also has much to do both with how to foster a love of reading and, perhaps, why some teachers do so poorly at such.

Thirdly, I just want to say that you guys are awesome, and thanks to you (and Dear Author) I have read my first romance novels as an adult: Devil’s Delilah by Loretta Chase and The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer. BTW, totally loved them! I am definitely going to have to track down more. (Captcha agrees with my tastes: british78)
Robin said on 08.31.09 at 09:34 PM • [link]

@Jody: You make interesting points (that I think are echoed in Robin’s comment, too) about the necessity of learning certain things, and how having fun while doing it isn’t necessarily the point—that having kids finish books they don’t enjoy, just like finishing anything they don’t enjoy in school, is part of the process of teaching discipline.

I just want to make the clarification that I’m not suggesting that mandatory reading is about teaching discipline; I think it’s also about learning, and perhaps more generally about the difference between enjoying the process of learning and enjoying every single thing you’re learning. As well as the reality that even subjects or books you didn’t like might have (likely have) actually taught you something you value.

No collective educational environment is going to match every student’s needs every time. I had teachers I hated in school, teachers I look back on now and realize just shouldn’t have been teaching. And I had teachers who were clearly born to it, who were talented and dedicated and would have taught (and did!) no matter how crappy the pay. And I’ve had students (albeit at the college level) who came back to me at the end of a term or even years later and thanked me for opening them up to books/ideas/interpretations they would not otherwise have been aware of/open to. Because the dynamic of teaching and learning is active, dynamic, and unpredictable beyond a certain point.

Which is part of why for every kid who hates The Scarlet Letter, there’s one who loves it. For every kid who loves Pride and Prejudice, another hates it. And so on.

If I had to distill my response to the ‘let’s toss the reading list out the window’ argument into one sound byte, I guess it would be ‘let’s focus on the appreciation of learning as opposed to haggling over what books are Good or Bad.’ And by that I mean, let us parents, students, teachers, everyone else value learning more. Let us be more active in supporting the educational institutions in our community and let us fight for every kid’s right to flourish in a learning community. Let us embrace equity in educational opportunities, let us stop being content with the reality that many of our most needy kids are being educated in PRISON rather than school, and let us all take responsibility for our own part in how much or little we value and support schools in our local communities. Because if we’re not more attentive, this is going to be the ubiquitous reality against which we’re battling, wishing for the good old days of required reading lists.
Lynn said on 08.31.09 at 09:49 PM • [link]

Thinking back about what I read in school, what comes to mind isn’t so much what I read. I remember talking a lot about theme and symbols and such but not much about plot or character motivations or story structure. To the point where I was often confused about what was actually going on in the story.

The Great Gatsby was a particular offender in this case. I remember the green light and everything it could represent, but don’t ask me what the plot was. And you can bet I was bored by it. (Although, with Gatsby, I suspect it has something to do with things that are obvious to adults but not so much to 15-year-olds.)

Anyway, I wonder if kids are bored because they’re confused? And that spending some time talking about what is actually happening in the book might help?
Tina C. said on 08.31.09 at 09:49 PM • [link]

Robin wrote:
But even accepting that as true, I don’t see it as an argument for the elimination of required reading, since that approach is not book specific, but pedagogical in nature.

I agree. As much as I may have disliked a lot of my mandatory reading in my pre-college years, it wasn’t necessarily because of the specific texts. Okay, in a lot of instances, it was, but there were some that I liked well enough before all the interest was sucked from my body until I draped across my desk like a deflated balloon, praying that the bell would ring or a meteor would hit the school, one or the other. I was bored and frustrated by the process—the tedium of it was stupefying. There are better ways of teaching these books and engaging the students so that they are part of the process and not just voice recorders that will reproduce the “right” conclusions later on some essay test or term paper.

And I have noticed that things have changed somewhat since I was in grade school. My daughter read Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt, and Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, in elementary school and just loved them. (Red Badge of Courage didn’t get assigned until 7th grade—vast improvement over making 4th graders read it!) Also her required reading included a much greater diversity of authors than I was offered in high school, with books from all different cultures and a separate section for women authors. So, it seems that things have changed for the better. At least in some places.

But I thought it was worth weighing in, since I’m always a little saddened by the general assumption that English teachers are incompetent fools who enjoy making brilliant students like Ms. Cabot suffer.

I don’t think that English teachers are incompetent fools. My AP English teacher was great! I still didn’t much care for the Book of Job (one of the 3 main texts that we covered that year), but she really brought us into the discussion and if one person talked about how something we read reminded him of some Police lyrics, she was not only open to it, she got him to make a short presentation about it. So I’m not saying that all of my teachers were like the ones that I complain about—just, unfortunately, most of them. However, when I say my experience with the way that The Great Works of (Dead, White, Male) Literature were taught generally sucked, I’m only referring to my experience.
SusannaG said on 08.31.09 at 09:53 PM • [link]

I am having flashbacks to ninth grade.

Mrs. Carter was a notorious book-killer.

The only Hemingway that I really like is the one we didn’t have to read in her class - The Sun Also Rises. My God, do I hate The Old Man and the Sea!

I’ll never forget getting in trouble for, of all things, reading the unabridged Great Expectations, “Because the REST of the class is not reading that version, Susanna!” (My parents are English professors. They laughed their heads off.)

I think the only reason To Kill a Mockingbird survived Mrs. Carter is that I had already read it. It was, interestingly enough, enjoyed by about the entire class, and was easily the most recently published book we ever had as assigned reading. Also, we saw the movie, and what’s not to like about watching Gregory Peck IN CLASS?

On the other hand, I had several very good English teachers in school (a couple of whom used the “pick books from a long list for different amounts of points” system). But somehow I’ll never forget Mrs. Carter or the assignment to diagram sentences from Silas Marner.
Jody said on 08.31.09 at 09:55 PM • [link]

I do think that making the learning process engaging and a pleasure (if not strictly “fun”) is a better way to go.

Candy, I posted before I read this. You’re exactly right, and I’m off and running on my next rant, which is to say, ‘if only”. These days, the sort of magical creative teachers who go the extra mile to make their subjects memorable and exciting are not only largely unrewarded, but actively discouraged.

The teacher who performed the math miracles immortalized in the movie Stand and Deliver went unacknowleged by his school system.

In the current public school climate, with school systems sanctioned if students don’t meet standardized test score goals, unbelievable amounts of paperwork, mainstreaming and providing individual attention to students who really have no business in regular classrooms, No Child Left Behind and litigious parents, it’s a triumph if and when any actual learning goes on at all.

Rant over.
Julie said on 08.31.09 at 10:00 PM • [link]

In the current public school climate, with school systems sanctioned if students don’t meet standardized test score goals, unbelievable amounts of paperwork, mainstreaming and providing individual attention to students who really have no business in regular classrooms, No Child Left Behind and litigious parents, it’s a triumph if and when any actual learning goes on at all.

Quoted for truth.
pamelia said on 08.31.09 at 10:39 PM • [link]

I also agree with several people who’ve stated some books are too advanced for high-school readers; Gatsby for instance which I thought was incomprehensible when I was 16. I read it again at 22 in college and loved it because I could understand not just the words but the characters and their motivations. Pride and Prejudice which I read on my own at age 13 and found intensely boring because NOTHING HAPPENED is now one of my favorite books. I think a lot of the curriculum is chosen without a nod to the ages of the intended readers. Does a 16 year-old really relate to Hester Prynne? When I was in elementary school my Grandma’s cousin who was an English teacher in Canada loaned me some of her textbooks for her classes which were full of stories about young people from their perspective and I didn’t want to return those books!
me and not you said on 08.31.09 at 10:40 PM • [link]

In grade school, up until high school that is, we had a mix—books we were required to read (usually in class) and we discussed as a class. And then we had to do a number of book reports, on whatever we wanted. The one stipulation was no babysitters club, or ... ghostbusters or whatever that series was. Sweet Vally high probably wouldn’t have been allowed either.

In high school that changed, but I went to a private school, where you didn’t have time to read for fun if you wanted to. Several of us would bemoan the start of school because we couldn’t read for fun anymore.

Overall, I probably had more good english teachers than bad, with the notable exception of Mr. ... apparently I blocked his name. Anyway, he had us reading the same book my little sister (4 years younger) was reading, and we were supposed to be in the “advanced” class. We read several different versions of Anne Franke (one, her diary, two, the play, three, watched the movie, four, went to see the play)—should he really have been surprised when we were so bored we were quoting the lines at each other? I don’t honestly mind a mediocre teacher, as one who is patently bad. I’ve had plenty of teachers who did all they could to make the material interesting, but ultimately weren’t actually teaching us acurate information (not entirely sure if that’s the teacher’s fault)

However, I loooved Shakespear. And, at least with Scarlet Letter, the “symbolism” seemed to actually be real, as opposed to “the teacher is totally making this up, holy poop” (Cold Mountain—hate it with a deep passion). With the exception of the symbolism-happy teacher, I always enjoyed english class (ironically, she’s probably the one who taught me most about writing, keeping in mind I tend to write more in a “scientific” manner, and less in a “creative”/“critique” kind of way). On the other hand, I was the kind of kid who read “the handmaiden” when I was in 5th grade. Got in trouble when my mom finally took a good look at it (its not that graphic, I don’t know what her problem was). It was my first introduction to dystopia, and I probably would have benefitted from having someone to talk about it…
Jocelyn said on 08.31.09 at 10:41 PM • [link]

I just have to say, I love Hemingway (though I don’t like old man and the sea - I think most programs choose that as your Hemingway gateway drug because it’s short and supposedly unintimidating to young readers).

I love his work because of all authors, I think he’s the one that invites the reader to bring the most to the story. He’s only telling you a very limited number of things, giving you the outline, and then letting your imagination fill in the details. He’s horrible to read as a young reader for that reason, too - I remember reading his story “Hills like White Elephants” in high school and having no context to realize he was talking about abortion.

At any rate, all of you who met him when you were young, try going back and reading “A Moveable Feast” or some of his books about traveling, or the one that was published posthumously, “The Garden of Eden” which is my favorite of all of his books. He doesn’t do happy endings, but he makes you really think and engage with his text. Which is wonderful.
caligi said on 08.31.09 at 10:59 PM • [link]

I think summer reading lists just need to change, that’s all. Few high school students want to spend lazy summer days reading heavy-hitting classics. Requiring those sorts of books be summer reading is very much a fast-track to resentment. Summer lists should have lighter fare and even some genre fic in there. Just something to keep them using their brains a wee bit.

During the schoolyear is the time for Tolstoy, Steinbeck and Dickens. Sure they’re not the sort of books high school students want to read, but they should anyways, and they’re at least in the habit of reluctantly doing schoolwork during the schoolyear. I still hate Tolstoy, but I’m glad I was forced to read him. Had I not been forced, I would never have read any of his stuff and I would have missed out on an experience, even if I never want to read it again. Even if I didn’t like the books forced on me, I didn’t resent the books themselves because my time was not my own then as it was during the summer. I understood that they were boring me to tears for my own good much in the same way I was expected to joylessly churn out algebra homework.

I hear people on the “book ruined by teacher” experience. My AP English teacher way back in the whens was notorious for finding homosexual overtones in every.single.book we read that year. Still to this day I can’t look at To The Lighthouse without giggling. He was so ridiculous that I was able to draw my own conclusions, since I was absolutely not accepting his.

Yet another teacher ruined Thomas Hardy for me. His very favorite book was The Return of the Native. I try to read this book once every 5 years or so and have never managed to get past the first page without cringing. All I can remember is him yelling at us, with that nasty skin tag on his nose, telling us we wouldn’t know a great book if it bit us on the ass. Similar tirades turned me against Bronte and Austen, though recent readings were successful. Was that the fault of required reading? No, I just got unlucky when I ended up with a nutty teacher that year. Another teacher was a dream, having us read Rebecca, The Hobbit, Lord of the Flies, an Agatha Christie book, the Catcher in the Rye, etc and then having a class-wide discussion of the books.

I did not come away from school with a love of reading, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, until I started reading romance in January, I think I read maybe 2 or 3 novels a year. A Vonnegut here, a Pratchett there, and that was about it. I kept trying to read lit fic books people suggested to me, but could never get more than a chapter in before getting bored. I decided I must not like fiction. All those years, was my life poorer? I didn’t think so. I don’t think my life’s any richer now, just different.

I don’t think there’s really any reason to try to foster a love of reading in kids. I’d rather focus on fostering curiosity, however it manifests itself. Some people read, some tinker, others do. I don’t think loving to read is actually integral to loving to learn. It’s merely one tool of many.
Alisa Neil said on 08.31.09 at 11:01 PM • [link]

I’m trying to remember exactly what was req. reading. As a class we did 1 book a semester & had 4 book reports off the “approved” list. What I do remember we did: Hamlet, Tale of Two Cities, Romeo & Juliet (watched the 60s Zefferelli(?) movie—complete w/ permission slips sent home because I think there was a boob in it 9th grade), Jane Eyre, Jekyll & Hyde, To Kill A Mockingbird… I read a lot off the lists on my own, even not for class.

Our approved lists that we had to pick off of to read/do reports on had all the expected (Austen, Dickens, Hawthorne, Hemmingway, the Brontes, Shakespear, all your typical classics most teens won’t touch unless forced to at least crack Cliff Notes for class lots with archaic language to make your eyes cross when you’re worried about Friday night’s football game). It also had Wells, Verne, Bradbury, Frank Herbert’s Dune. Judy Blume never went off the reading lists—Are You There God it’s Me Margaret and Deenie were still on the lists all the way through Sr. Year. Lois Duncan & SE Hinton stayed on them. So did the Little House on the Prairies & Newbury’s like Island of The Blue Dolphins & Witch of Blackbird Pond. My graduating class had 29 kids and we were *huge* avg was about 20. K-12 in one building so the varied reading levels weren’t made an issue of on the independent book reports. Kids who simply weren’t able to slog through Dickens had Twain or Ingalls (rural farming area, those books made sense and language not difficult) the main english teacher we had 7-12 was awesome and all 3 were good about steering to reading level on the pick from the list reading, though the other two could make Stephen King’s goriest or the raunchiest erotica (not that that would have been allowed) bore high school boys to tears.

School my kids are attending is bit bigger (avg about 35-40 kids per grade but still K-12) and has the same sort of limited mixed approach. I was a bookworm in a non reading family. The mixed lists got me trips to library 7 miles away.

My kids…I’ve got 2 readers who’d read a cereal box for something to read. My daughter, and honestly the youngest who is autistic is fascinated w/ letters symbols and reads better than his 10yr old brother. My 9yr old reads well, but has yet to find the hook. wants to read, but what he’s interested in is written below him & he’s bored. What’s his level reading, is not his interest. 10yo has learning dificulties. Unless it’s military history, football or spongebob he won’t touch. My eldest is *finally* getting into books with Harry Dresden really catching him at going on 15. The girl rolls her eyes at the books forced to read she doesn’t care for. The Eldest skims by BS’ing to a D I could throttle him for and doesn’t crack the book, asks his sister for what it’s about if it’s one she’s read just to read. Not hit the issue w/ the younger boys so much yet.
Lostshadows said on 08.31.09 at 11:08 PM • [link]

I LOVE Dune. It would have rocked to have something like that assigned.

I can actually only suspect that Dune would have survived for me on it own. I’d actually read it after I got dragged to the movie. On the other hand, I did get stuck writing a paper on “Dune as an Epic.” :P

Your post reminded me of a line in Grosse Point Blank where the lead character says to his former English teacher “are you still inflicting all that horrible Ethan Frome damage on your students?”

Our class assignment for Ethan Frome was to rewrite the ending. Much cathartic bloodshed of characters did ensue on my part. >:)

and Gone With the Wind (which I HATED, mainly because I wanted to bitch slap Scarlett).

What? I’m not actually alone in that opinion?

You mean there are people who didn’t?

I have never, ever seen anyone saying bad about the book or movie. It always struck me as odd.
Karen said on 08.31.09 at 11:32 PM • [link]

I went to public school and was very fortunate to be in advanced English classes 3 out of 4 years in High School. The only year I did not enjoy reading was that one year not in advanced AP. The teacher lost me with the necessity to memorize songs from the musical “Don Quixote” rather than actually see the musical/read the play/read the book!

I will say that the more trash I read, the more impatient I become when a book requires me to think. I guess I am thoroughly on the “slob” side…

being31….I wish I was 31!
willa said on 09.01.09 at 12:04 AM • [link]

I have to disagree that giving a book meaning or symbolism that the author did not intend is wrong. It’s not wrong (with the usual sensible caveat: that nobody is clearly reaching for meaning that isn’t there).

Lots of authors have no idea what they’re giving away when they write a novel. Stephen King, in his memoir On Writing, states that he didn’t realize the symbolic importance of blood that was weaving through Carrie as he wrote it, only after writing it did he see the symbolism he’d put in the novel. (That’s a paraphrase, but close.)

Lots of authors also are extremely unreliable as narrators. Laurell K. Hamilton is the best example I can come up with right now. I haven’t read her most recent Anita Blake novels, but I do know that in her later AB books, the author was telling me one thing about Anita and showing me quite another. While the author would have me believe her main character was caring, brave, strong, beloved, and always right, I saw the character to be an almost sociopathic frightshow, not at all caring, not at all brave, but hateful, mean-spirited, cruel, and hypocritical in the extreme, as well as incapable of truly loving other characters in the book. Would the author agree with my assessment of her main character? I really, really doubt it. Is the author right about her character, while I’m wrong? I really, really don’t think so.

I’m sure that that’s not really what other commenters are saying about reading symbolism and meaning into a story without the author’s direct say-so, but it made me nervous all the same.
MJ said on 09.01.09 at 12:24 AM • [link]

@Candy: Lots of colleges now have all incoming freshmen, regardless of major, read and discuss a chosen book, and this year several colleges have chosen Persepolis.

@Robin: You said it!
SonomaLass said on 09.01.09 at 12:30 AM • [link]

I found the NYT article thought-provoking, but I do find the “let me alone to read what I want and don’t ruin it by making me discuss it” perspective ridiculous as applied to formal education.

Without any assigned reading, there would be no shared reading. It’s hard to teach about literature unless everyone in the class has read the same book. So, if we’re going to have any discussion of lit., someone has to assign the same book to everyone. That means some will hate it, some will love it, and most will be somewhere in the middle—not counting the ones who don’t read it at all, which is another discussion entirely….

Do teachers try to pick books they think are interesting? Mostly; a lot of us have “great books” thrust upon us by some sort of standardized curriculum, but we tend to think those books are “great” for a reason. (Yes, even Hemmingway.) Will our students all agree? Nope. But students don’t enjoy reading their textbooks for other classes either—and yet they do, and no one cries that “they ruined my love for reading by making me read this boring book.” Last I checked, textbooks were both longer and more boring than most literary “great works.” I think there’s a lot to be said for the inherent value of reading great literature, even if you don’t learn to love it.

My son had to read A Tale of Two Cities last year for sophomore English. He moaned the whole time, but I know it had value. On several occasions since, we’ve been watching a movie or a play where there’s a reference to “the best of times, the worst of times” and he says, “OH! There is is again.” He has also used images and ideas from the book to make points in discussions of various subjects—“you know, like in Tale of Two Cities, where the guy…” So while he didn’t enjoy reading it, it definitely had educational value. It also didn’t ruin his love for reading, because his teachers use a hybrid method and encourage students to do some (guided) selection of their own reading material.

My childhood experience of literature was very much like Candy’s—I was rewarded with books, and with the cautious estimate “MAYBE you’re ready for this.” Not all of us get that, and it doesn’t work for everyone (three of six in my family), so it falls to English teachers to try and instill a love of reading AS WELL AS a knowledge of literature in their students. I agree that our society seems to expect that more with literature than with other subjects, as if people coming out of school hating math, or history, or science, was somehow not as bad as hating literature. It’s a difficult challenge for teachers to try and foster both mastery of and love for the subject matter, particularly with inadequately prepared students, too many at a time, with too many other demands on their time and energy, and without enough resources. That so many teachers are still trying, and still considering different methods and models, gives me hope.
Laura Vivanco said on 09.01.09 at 12:34 AM • [link]

I have never, ever seen anyone saying bad about the book or movie. It always struck me as odd.

I haven’t read Gone With the Wind or seen the film, but I have read an essay (admittedly dating from 1986, so not the most recent of commentaries) in which the author wrote that
It is interesting that in recent years the text (book and film) has tended to attract uncritical enthusiasm or good-natured amusement; although at the time it appeared, its idealisation of the Old South and racist revival of neo-Confederate sympathies for antebellum social and racial relations came under considerable attack, these are today widely regarded as matters for the historian or pedant. [...] it is left to Black women to point to the political problems raised by book and film. (Taylor 114)

Taylor, Helen. “Gone With the Wind: the mammy of them all.” The Progress of Romance: The Politics of Popular Fiction. Ed. Jean Radford. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. 113-136.
mingqi said on 09.01.09 at 01:11 AM • [link]

This is wonderful! I feel that a copy of this post should be sent to every parent and teacher. Though I had suffered through some boring books, I had for the most part ended up reading some wonderful books because of required reading in classes and required summer reading (which wasn’t too bad since most years, I was allowed to choose 5 out of a list of 80+ books). My parents only read the Chinese newspaper; my cousins whom I saw a few times a year weren’t voracious readers; and I was too shy to pester the librarians- so these lists really did help!

Someone mentioned Ethan Frome. It was the most hated book of sophomore year high school. By the time it was my class’s turn to have the books, I had endured months of various friends and classmates complaining about it. And yes, the book was as bad as they said it was. However, the experience of reading it was fun because my teacher, while teaching us the important “literary” aspects of the book, also mocked it and discussed it. It was awesome! The experience was much like reading the D/F reviews on this site! She even made The Great Gatsby sound fun and romantic (I read it a few years prior to her class and thought it was boring and dumb).

My other English teachers didn’t really look at the book as a whole- they just told us what the themes and symbolism. It was more like “this is what I am telling you. Write it down”. One teacher had even given out an exam asking us what Jane Eyre’s eye color was! I think a lot of these teachers are just burnt out and it doesn’t help when they have school boards controlling every aspect of how something should be taught. It takes a very energetic teacher to satisfy the rigid curriculum rules while injecting their own creative approaches and activities and hoping they don’t get criticized for it during their weekly/monthly department meetings. When I was in high school, I notice that the younger teachers in their 20s tended to be more creative, helpful, and energetic (though I did have 3-4 teachers in their 50s as well), so I do think that incoming new teachers are trying their best to make reading more approachable.

As important the classics are, there are just too many of them to get through them all and schools should just accept that it wouldn’t hurt to take a few out of the curriculum and put in a few non-classic books with characters teenagers can identify with and happy endings. There is enough angst in teenage life- it would be nice to have some required escape.
Jody said on 09.01.09 at 01:13 AM • [link]

What SonomaLass said.

This discussion has sent me off on a tear that began last summer when the college graduate daughter of a friend said she’d never heard of Willy Loman. There are simply some things everybody should know the same way we know the multiplication tables and the capital of France; ‘It was the best of times…, ‘Please, sir, I want some more’...‘Rosebud’, and poor Willy Loman. The only way to make sure of this is to require it. Period.

I just now read Meg Cabot’s article and IMO, I don’t think she really thought the issue through. Her implication is that the ONLY books kids will read are the ones they are required to. She makes it sound like NYCS students aren’t ALLOWED to read any book not on the lists. ‘Let kids read what they want to’ is the mantra.

Can’t they?

It seems to me that lumping assigned reading and reading for pleasure in the same category is a disservice. Yes, they’re both reading, but isn’t reading for pleasure a recreational activity just like sports and video games? Should a tenth grader expect credit for Grand Theft Auto?

I’d be interested to hear Ms. Cabot’s opinion of other books she was required to read in school, say history or biology textbooks.

Okay. I’m done. Really.
Marie said on 09.01.09 at 01:22 AM • [link]

Oh dear, I was one of the “nerdly” ones whose passion for books was nigh unkillable. I do remember intense frustration that the books I loved best (science fiction/fantasty, mysteries, historical novels and romance) were always ineligible for book reports even when we were allowed to select our own books… or when I did sneak them in the teachers never “got it.” I had a succession of terrible English teachers—in fact, I’ve never actually had a *good* English teacher—and I don’t think it mattered one way or another, but hopefully for a kid who isn’t already in love with books it would make a difference.

That said… I mentor a little girl who is a reluctant reader, and she goes back to the same “baby” books over and over and REFUSES to read anything even slightly longer or harder. Thank goodness for required reading, because I couldn’t even get this 5th grader to read “Alanna: the first adventure,” or any of my childhood favorites despite doing everything possible to help her and make it easy and exciting. She just wants picture books or for me to read aloud to her… so depressing. :(

I guess the point of my comment is I’m not sure reader choice is the best answer for the hard cases. I think it’s great for kids who are on the fence and can be tempted into reading more—but like the failures mentioned by the teacher in the NY Times article, some kids just hate reading. For those kids, there’s required reading—so that they achieve at least a basic level of literacy before they have to fend for themselves.
Candy said on 09.01.09 at 01:28 AM • [link]

@willa: Yes, I get all twitchy, too, when readers and authors claim that the authoritative meaning within the text is what the author chose to put in there; some even go so far as to assert that it’s the ONLY meaning, especially when the author is explicit about her symbolism and/or pooh-poohs any analysis she doesn’t agree with. I wrote my senior thesis on Flanery O’Connor, and while her assertion that all her stories are about achieving grace (in the Christian sense) is certainly one possible way to interpret her stories and the way she uses the grotesque, I thought even more interesting (and telling) readings could be found when you abandoned that lens and looked at the stories from, say, feminist perspectives. O’Connor, in fact, had some interesting things to say about literary analysis, and the way literary analysis is taught:

In most English classes the short story has become a kind of literary specimen to be dissected. Every time a story of mine appears in a Freshman anthology, I have a vision of it, with its little organs laid open, like a frog in a bottle.

I realize that a certain amount of this what-is-the-significance has to go on, but I think something has gone wrong in the process when, for so many students, the story becomes simply a problem to be solved, something which you evaporate to get Instant Enlightenment.

A story really isn’t any good unless it successfully resists paraphrase, unless it hangs on and expands in the mind. Properly, you analyze to enjoy, but it’s equally true that to analyze with any discrimination, you have to have enjoyed it already, and I think that the best reason to hear a story read is that it should stimulate that primary enjoyment.

From Mystery and Manners, quote lifted from this page. Don’t know that I agree with O’Connor regarding how analysis with discrimination requires prior enjoyment, because valid—and sometimes the most insightful—analyses are arrived at by strongly critical eyes that didn’t necessarily enjoy the story. A lot of the most insightful critiques of Gone With the Wind and James Fenimore Cooper, for example, come from people who didn’t especially enjoy the works and wanted to unpack exactly why.

In any case, I think part of the critical reading process is learning to go beyond the explicit text and what the author tells us; we need to see what the author is showing us, too, and to see the skips and gaps between text, expectation and interpretation.

@Robin: Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to put words in your mouth!
Manna Francis said on 09.01.09 at 01:36 AM • [link]

No set book I ever had to read at school—not even ‘Brighton Rock’, which was a book I didn’t like, taught by a teacher I didn’t like—, made me as bored, frustrated and finally extremely annoyed as ‘Size 14 Is Not Fat’.

Spam word: view87 - coincidentally, the very year I did my O-level English Lit exam.
becca said on 09.01.09 at 01:58 AM • [link]

Why oh why does literature have to equal depressing? I had some great English teachers in High School - one particularly was young, creative, and enthusiastic - but all the books we had to read were depressing as hell. I had enough trouble fighting endogenous depression in high school as it was, I didn’t need the extra kick in the kidneys.

On the other hand, I was challenged by a college professor to write an unusual critique of Crime and Punishment. I critiqued it as a police procedural novel (it does fit!) and came close to getting kicked out of class because police procedural novels were (gasp!) *genre* writing, and therefore beneath contempt. He had to give me an A because he couldn’t argue with any of the points I made, though.
SusiB said on 09.01.09 at 02:16 AM • [link]

I have been thinking for a very long time that more people would read books if school didn’t teach them that reading is a mentally painful experience. Nearly all of the stuff I had to read for school was horrible (Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the worst book I ever had to read), and if I hadn’t loved books even before I went to school, I would probably have read those books I absolutely couldn’t avoid, and would never have picked up another book after finishing school. I once met a 16 year-old who said that she never voluntarily read a book until someone gave her the first Harry Potter book, because she hated all the books that her school made her read. So I think anyone should get to read what they like - as long as they read at all.
Valerie Parv said on 09.01.09 at 02:17 AM • [link]

I’m on the hybrid team supporting both choice and guidance as a way to foster a love of books as well as an awareness of nuanced writing. In HS we read King Solomon’s Mines to death but I then devoured the whole series, shedding tears when Alan Quatermain died. Would I have done so without being assigned KSM in the first place? Maybe. I was and remain a book junkie, joining the Shakespearean Authorship Society at 10 and retaining a love affair with the bard (whever s/he was) to this day, despite the attempted hatchet job in school.

Theresa Meyers’ comment that “Sometimes the snobs and the literary educators don’t have an effing clue what the author really meant” resonates with me. My MA thesis completed last year deals with how we authors “restory” (perform a kind of narrative therapy) on ourselves through our fiction, unconsciously and mostly understood only in hindsight. Stephen King was a case study, stating “Annie was booze, Annie was drugs, and I was sick of being Annie’s pet writer” facts he didn’t get while writing Misery. So even authors don’t always understand the symbolism of what we write - at least at time of writing. However, I also see a book as a transaction between writer and reader. We put into it what we deem essential to story and character. If the reader then draws different conclusions to what I intended, then great. You might be seeing something I put there unconsciously. Analyze away. At least you’re reading me.
Jocelyn said on 09.01.09 at 03:12 AM • [link]

Candy, this:
A story really isn’t any good unless it successfully resists paraphrase, unless it hangs on and expands in the mind.

is such a great quote. One of the things that really defines a great book for me is how often I think back on, and how it redefines my mental map of the world. Like SonomaLass’ story about her son and “A Tale of Two Cities”, there are certain books that I’ve read at a certain time in my life that take on so much more importance after the reading than they did when I was reading them. A few of them were assigned reading (Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”) which I never would have picked up on my own. Some I found because I heard other people talk about them so much (like the Foundation series). Other I stumbled over through sheer serindipity (Sandman graphic novels). But they all expanded in my mind, like grain in broth, and became touchstones for how I felt about things, or how I imagined other people to feel about things.

I suspect this process is hit or miss - I read plenty of books that didn’t mark my thinking that way even though they were literature (I liked the Scarlet Letter, but maybe because I wasn’t raised in a religious family, it didn’t resonate deeply and I think I got a different take-away from the story than my classmates).

Hey, that was kind of off-topic. Sorry!
Jocelyn Again said on 09.01.09 at 03:18 AM • [link]

Neglected to add to the last post: But I’m not sure about the “resists paraphrase” part. Sure, using the best, most evocative language is important to great literature, but I think the important part is the ability of a story to stick with someone and “expand in the mind.” And I think that quality shows that the book allows the reader to bring themselves into it.

Sort of like the Nietzche quote “When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you” but with fiction playing the role of the abyss.

(Still kind of off-topic. Oh well).
Lizzy said on 09.01.09 at 03:33 AM • [link]

There are so many comments here, and I haven’t had time to read them all, so I’ll bet one or more will same the thing as mine and for that I apologize in advance.

I was raised in a very literate family. Readers, all. Thus, obviously, much of what was on those various mandatory reading lists for me was stuff my parents had read, and I was already interested in reading too. But frankly, when I read Scarlet Letter in 9th grade, let’s face it—there was no way I was able to fully understand the language or the cultural nuance. I tried, but that had to come later. I read M. Bovary as a 10th grader, on a lark, and thought it was SO COOL, so fabulously tragic. I read it again, last year, as a 32-year-old woman, and wept. Not cool, not at all.

My point is this. We give 11-16 year-olds texts that are difficult in tone and concept and say, Read this and get it. I don’t know that it’s fair—to them, or to the work. The other day, I saw that HS sophs in my county are reading Camus’ “The Stranger.” I’m sorry, but as a 14-15 year-old, what more can you do with a text like that than read the words? Do you have the life experience to really, truly, deeply get it? And when you don’t, as many won’t, does reading it do anything for you except convince you that you don’t want to do more?

My mother was a literature professor. First, she showed me the pleasure of reading—she read aloud to me, taught me to crave a story—then, she taught me HOW to read, how to understand, how to get to the thing. But that was later, once I understood. I know not every child gets that kind of teaching, and I think all we do is make reading another chore when we foist things that are too challenging upon them.
Edie said on 09.01.09 at 04:05 AM • [link]

I just spent way too long reading all these comments, lol.

It is kind of funny, we are on a book blog, so of course we are all readers. ;) So we obviously didn’t get our book passion killed. But there were so many when I was at school who struggled with reading and English classes it wasn’t funny. I ended up tutoring several friends who were barely scraping through. But the one book I didn’t have to help them with was the John Marsden I mentioned earlier, they managed to read it without the cliff notes, and it was analysed as much as the other books were, but through there enjoyment and more immediate comprehension, they were able to pull more from the text and better analyse it.

I actually think the argument is not necessarily to make it fun, but to make it engaging to as many of the students as possible and mixing up the standard required reading might be one way to go about it.
And let me tell you, as some one who passed maths by two points in HS pretty much only because the teacher found her entertaining, I sure as ell wish someone would do the same with maths.
Edie said on 09.01.09 at 04:07 AM • [link]

there = their, I did pass English by much more than 2 points despite my atrocious posts. lol
Sharon Buchbinder said on 09.01.09 at 04:20 AM • [link]

My comment is at the end of the line here, however, I feel I must weigh in.

I grew up in a blue collar mill town in Connecticut, which is sadly, 40 years later even worse. Books saved my life. Literally. When I was abused, beaten, berated, and depressed, I could fall into a book and escape my horrific home life.

My team of high school English teachers (2) was demanding, held us to painfully high standards, and gave us a list from which to choose. Okay, so “Two Years Before the Mast?” Kill me. Please.

But the rest, gleefully, happily, I dove in and could say, “It’s homework, put the beating off, I’‘m working.” Symbolism? Bring it on. Themes? I’m there. Vocabulary, arcane or otherwise? Here, over here! I lived in the library.

Tidbit du jour: Out of 20 people in my English class, 10 of us have doctorates. Coincidence? I think not. I think it’s the teacher who makes the difference—and the student’s desire, where ever that comes from. The interaction is not only between the reader and the page, but the guide at the side, and the expectations of the students. We were always expected to do our best.
Julia T. said on 09.01.09 at 04:30 AM • [link]

I grew up around books. My parents read to me when I was little, my father would take us on weekly trips to the library, but still I somehow lost my love of reading (or getting read to?) in grade school. We had the required reading of two or three books a quarter on a list (a very extensive list but still a list), and more often than not I would be the one who would just chose a book from the list and guess at the answers. That was until I found CS Lewis. He reawakened that passion for me, showed me that even required books can have that engaging quality to them.

My point with all of that is that despite many things and circumstances, sometimes it just takes one book to awaken a love for reading. And that book is going to be different for everyone. But that’s only one of the issues being discussed.

As for required read lists in a high school setting, my favorite class was Classic and Modern Novels. When the class started we read one novel together, but after that we could read whatever we wanted as long as we 1) read one classic a quarter 2) read 30 pages at least a night and 3) wrote an essay after completing a novel.

Every so often we would have a quiz alone the lines of “tell me about the setting of your story” or something like that. It was very refreshing to be able to chose what I wanted to read. I even read a romance novel for that class (I asked before hand, pretty sheepishly, if I could read it, promising fervently that I would be done in a day… I was.) The class was spent reading or taking the aforementioned random quiz, everyone with their own book. It was so relaxing!

The one thing that I just realized reading this thread that really made me love her was that even if we were reading a book we did not click with, we had to finish or give a damn good reason to why we wanted to throw in the towel. She really knew what she was doing with us. You have to take the bad along with the good. How else will there be any “good” without trudging through the “bad”?

I also had my share of the “symbolism must be this way (my way)” teachers. I am convinced that this is why I still hate the transcendentalist movement. My “symbol” teacher had a definite hard on for them… maybe in a few years I will be able to hear the word Thoreau without visibly flinching.

In the end, I am also on the hybrid bandwagon, because those books are required for a reason. But only having students read “the classics” and then killing them with book dissection is not going to foster anyone’s love of anything but the period ending bell.
Lan said on 09.01.09 at 04:41 AM • [link]

I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and finally found myself really motivated to comment. I agree with your response wholeheartedly about the hybrid approach to reading. I think it’s a lot easier and often more fun to read a bad book and afterward, spend time talking about how bad it was. I most often side with the snobs (being an English grad student) but can begrudgingly admit that crappy books do serve a purpose if that is to get kids into reading. I really like your point about how a book like Twilight is going to speak to teenage girls and possibly (or hopefully) make them think a little more critically than say The Scarlet Letter. However, there are certain texts that stick around and are taught for a good reason. I think “classic” books, like Frankenstein, can be sexy—it’s all about how you dress them up. I think these days, everything is about combination.

I don’t think mandatory reading lists are bad. I think mandatory reading lists that coincide with mandatory singular interpretation is the problem. Talk about sucking all the fun out of books, college is worse at that than high school—especially if you’re an English major. I really disagree with Cabot’s statement books are ruined by someone going on and on about symbolism that isnt’ there. There seems to be some contradiction there. If she hates being told about what an author means or what is or isn’t there in a text, then whey is she ranting on about how people don’t get the one meaning she set forth in her book? I’m with the people who favor reader response; once the text is published, it is out of the author’s control; it’s up to the readers to make meaning. I can see in certain books there is one big obvious statement being made. However, part of the fun in reading is finding the new meanings for a text looking through different “lenses” or even stages of your life. Like you said, being able to read “bigger books” is a sign of age growth and maturity. Thanks for writing such a fantastic post that really weighs both sides of the issue and comes up with a solution pretty much everyone can agree on.
Liz said on 09.01.09 at 07:30 AM • [link]

I tend to agree with what the others have said about required reading lists. As far back as I can remember, I have always hated the books that I was forced to read. In elementary school (private school), the lists were a bit worse then the ones in high school, although i hated them too. There were a few exceptions of course (Under the Blood Red Sun and Night—summer before 8th grade—, Number the Stars—summer before 6th grade—, and Maniac Magee—summer before 5th grade), but for the most part the books I had to read absolutely sucked (especially something with Silence in the title—about WWII).

I remember when I was in 6th grade, my teacher let us choose 2 books to read—1 classic and one other book—, i chose Wuthering Heights (which i never finished) and HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone (which is one of my favorites). That was the best reading experience i had in school (up to that point) because i got to choose what i wanted to read.

In high school, some of the books were a little bit better, but then the teachers spent FOREVER cramming symbolism, irony, and FORESHADOWING down my throat that I hated the books on principle. I remember kinda liking Gulliver’s Travels at first, but when we spent 2 weeks in Liliput, I was ready to tear my hair out by the root.

The same teacher that ruined GT for me was also one of the teachers that hated you if you disagreed. We read this poem in which a man is afraid of this monster that is trying to eat his heart (the narrator’s heart) and at the same time staring at himself in a mirror, so I suggested that it was about introspection and how the narrator did not like what he saw in himself. My teacher simply told me that I was wrong, even though half of my class agreed with me. (I don’t remember what she said was the theme and i do not care).

That is not to say that all of my hs English teachers were of the asshat variety. I absolutely loved my sophomore English class. We got to read Richard III and All My Sons, AND he made it FUN. We did these projects, and even though they were assigned topic, we could do what we wanted with them—I even got to write about Rock ‘n’ Roll for the project on life after WWI (All My Sons)!

I think that getting kids to read is a tricky thing, but that if teachers found a way to make it fun that they would be more likely to read than if they were told to look for symbolism or foreshadowing in the death of Candy’s dog in Of Mice and Men. It also couldn’t hurt if some of the assigned books were more interesting to them. If you have to read a classic, why not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as opposed to Asimov? Why can’t learning be fun?
SonomaLass said on 09.01.09 at 08:32 AM • [link]

Just reading over these comments illustrates a big part of the problem—no one can agree on what the “interesting” books are! One reader says she loved the Foundation trilogy, while another uses Asimov as the author she’d like to see replaced. I found Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” fascinating, but someone else says it was a horrible reading experience. Arthur Miller? Votes for, but I’m sure there are votes against as well. It’s the nature of literature—you can’t please everyone, or you will please no one. One thing English teachers have to learn is that a book can be “great” in a cultural sense and still not be to your personal taste. (Teaching Camus’ The Stranger to college freshmen was one of the hardest things I ever did.) Finding a way to help students learn something from books they don’t like is what teaching literature is all about—it would be easy if everyone liked all the books, but that’s never going to happen.

Lan said
I don’t think mandatory reading lists are bad. I think mandatory reading lists that coincide with mandatory singular interpretation is the problem.

I strongly agree with her. More flexibility about interpretation is usually a good idea. However, the students who hate the book are often the same students who don’t want to engage with it, and who just want to be told what to think. I call it the “teach me something” attitude, and it is particularly pervasive in public high schools. What’s a teacher going to do with a class full of that attitude? What would YOU do, if you did your best to encourage discussion and sharing of opinions, but no one had anything to say? That’s how eager young teachers become disillusioned old teachers, telling students what to think and no longer expecting (or sometimes even permitting) students to thing for themselves. It’s sad, but given what we put into our education system, I can’t say it’s surprising. Instead, I am surprised every time I hear about public high school teachers of any subject who are still enthusiastic and energetic about their work. Talk about depressing.

Still, most English teachers I know brighten up when they get a few students who a)read the assigned book and b)offer intelligent reactions. They just learn not to expect that all the time, and how to keep the class going when no one’s interested but them.
SonomaLass said on 09.01.09 at 08:41 AM • [link]

And yes, that’s “THINK” for themselves, not “thing.” Aaargh, I miss the editing function in these comments!
Jody said on 09.01.09 at 10:32 AM • [link]

It seems to me there are many educational issues in discussion here:

1. Commonality of knowlege, i.e. cultural icons such as Greek and Roman mythology, immortal characters such as the Fagins, Elizabeth Bennetts, Heathcliffs, Lomans, Beatrices and Benedicks, etc. that we think of as fundamental to cultural knowlege.

2. The academic rigor necessary to complete books we don’t necessarily like.

3. Bad teaching, as in ‘Here’s the author’s message. It’s the party line and learn it for the test. If you get it wrong, you’ll fail.”

4. Encouraging reading of any type and genre no matter what.

I’ve been an educator in many different environments. When I taught in an diversion type prison, the security people were always angry about books and magazines strewn all over the common room, but I always said, ‘How wonderful that our people are reading!”

I believe, and preached to my students that reading was the one friend who would never let them down. Most of my students operated at very low literacy levels; they’d dropped out of school and spent most of their subsequent years in correctional facilities. Getting these folks to read and glom onto the constancy and beauty of maths and algebra was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life. Some of them went on to college, which still makes me weepy to think about. It thrilled me no end when those people stole books. I had a hard time convincing the prison adminstration that book theft was a good thing, but book replacement was a line item in my departmental budget.

That said, as a teacher I had lower standards for those students than for students who weren’t starting out behind the 8 ball—non substance abusers, high IQ, no families to support as teenagers and the myriad other issues common to my incarcerated students. I demanded more of my ‘mainstream’ students. They are the ones who should know about Mr. Darcy, Willy Loman, the House of Atreus and Anna Karenina. Those kids already know how to read, and they read well. I’m going to push them to read the stuff that’s hard. because they can.
AJRyan said on 09.01.09 at 04:03 PM • [link]

Just to echo what so many others have said, when I was in grade school, I LOVED reading. I’d read just about anything. Then I got to Jr High and High school and required reading lists and the teachers who over-analyzed them killed my love for reading. When I graduated, and for about 10 years or so after that, I refused to pick up a fiction book and read. It seemed like too much of a chore, and I had convinced myself I pretty much disliked everything, since I disliked everything I read in school. I had forgotten what it was like to read for “pleasure.”

The one exception to that was a class I took my sophomore year in college called, “The literature of Mysticism, Meditation and Madness,” where we read books like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and “Siddhartha,” and instead of over-analyzing, we were free to express whatever thoughts and feelings each book gave us, and no answer was wrong. What a concept!! When we read “The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You,” the paper I turned in compared the book to the song “Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog, and I got an “A”!!

So, it’s really not that I’m against all “required” reading lists, but for me, the key is allowing each student to express their own thoughts and feelings in regards to what they’ve read. Instead of pages and pages of questions like “What does rosebush outside Hester Prynne’s prison door symbolize,” allow them to express, in their own words, what, if any, impact the book had on them, or what their thoughts and feelings were while reading it. You might get an answer back that you don’t like, but that’s ok. I think it’s ok for teachers to gently suggest a few things (like what the rosebush might symbolize), but don’t make a students entire grade hinge on whether or not they can answer a bunch of questions correctly according to what the “official” analysis of that book says.

Did they finish the book and get at least some small thing useful out of it? Then they get an “A”.
sopranolibrarian said on 09.01.09 at 04:09 PM • [link]

I have read quite of few of the comments and there is merit to all sides of the arguement. However, I think the deeper problem is turning reading into a chore.

I worked hard to foster and develop a love of reading in my daughter and by the time she arrived at school, she was reading above grade level. Somewhere about third grade, the public school system felt the need to require children to read 15 minutes a day and write about what they read. I appreciate the school’s position on this in order to develop young readers, but in the end, this daily chore has completely destroyed in less than 6 months what I spent the first 6 years of her life fostering. It wasn’t a mandatory reading list, they could read what they wanted, but the chore itself is the issue.

Today (4 grades later), I’m lucky if she actually finishes a book. I’ve spoken to teachers and librarians about rekindling the flame, we’ve tried all different genres, reading together, all without success. I’ve also had to come to the hard realization that my child is not a reader, but a doer. However, reading is necessary to her doing things.

This is alien to me as I LOVE to read and I read both trashy and “snobby” books. As a teen I made a point to read “banned” books (which I didn’t always enjoy) and I discovered Harlequins were steamy (to a “good girl”). As an adult, I impressed my husband by knowing all the responses to a British history category on Jeopardy! thanks to Barbara Cartland. I’ve been on both sides of the original issue. Yes, reading should be fun, not just fundamental; it should inspire life-long learning.

Books are my constant companions and my transportation to other times and places. For my child, they are a chore. That’s the real tragedy.
Lostshadows said on 09.01.09 at 04:23 PM • [link]

@Jody
There are simply some things everybody should know the same way we know the multiplication tables and the capital of France; ‘It was the best of times…, ‘Please, sir, I want some more’...‘Rosebud’, and poor Willy Loman. The only way to make sure of this is to require it. Period.

I’ve got to disagree with this point. For one thing, I can identify all of these references without actually having read any of the books in question. (I did see Citizen Kane.) But are you really that deprived if you have no clue who Willy Loman is?

@Laura Vivanco
My exposure to Gone with the Wind was after that attitude mentioned became prevalent. I watched the movie expecting a grand sweeping epic romance, and ended up with well…
its idealisation of the Old South and racist revival of neo-Confederate sympathies for antebellum social and racial relations

,and the niggling feeling that when Rhett carried a struggling Scarlett up a flight of stairs, that something was wrong here, in eighth grade history class.
Jody said on 09.01.09 at 04:46 PM • [link]

@Lostshadows

But are you really that deprived if you have no clue who Willy Loman is?

Yes.
Laura Vivanco said on 09.01.09 at 06:22 PM • [link]

There are simply some things everybody should know the same way we know the multiplication tables and the capital of France; ‘It was the best of times…, ‘Please, sir, I want some more’...‘Rosebud’, and poor Willy Loman. The only way to make sure of this is to require it. Period.

Is there agreement, though, about which “things everybody should know”? The discussion here has been quite US-centric, which is understandable since it began with an article looking at the US education system, but a lot of the books mentioned here are much less likely to be on curricula in other countries. There isn’t unlimited time for children to read and be taught every “great work” and there are so many of them, in so many different languages and written by authors of so many different nationalities.

While I’m on the topic of different approaches in different countries, I thought I’d also mention that I’m from the UK, and I didn’t come across a summer reading list, much less a compulsory one, until I reached university.
tracyleann said on 09.01.09 at 08:14 PM • [link]

@Lynn M- If your son likes Diary of a Wimpy Kid, he might also enjoy The Last Invisible Boy by Evan Kuhlman. It is also written in journal format, although the plot is more nuanced and a bit heavier in terms of pathos (but still with some light, funny moments). (Ages 10+)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Last-Invisible-Boy/Evan-Kuhlman/e/9781416957973/?itm=1&usri=1#TABS
Liz said on 09.01.09 at 09:19 PM • [link]

@Lostshadows

But are you really that deprived if you have no clue who Willy Loman is?

Yes.

Jody, I have to disagree with you. You are only being deprived of something if you cannot have a full life without the thing that they are not receiving. Can you live a full life without ever reading Death of a Salesman? Definitely. I have never read it, and i am doing just fine.

On another note, there was a program that was run in my school called the Bookit program. This involved reading 5 books within a certain period of time and then we would get a free pan pizza at pizzahut. While it was going on, I remember hearing parents praise the program, but about 6 months ago I read a report for a psych class claiming that this program may actually have killed kids’ love of reading. It claimed that the external reward of the free pizza canceled out the internal rewards (i.e. the pleasure of reading), and so the children “forgot” that they ever liked reading simply to read. This is called the Overjustification Effect.

I think this may have some implications on the way that reading is taught to young children in the American Education System. There has to be a better way to get children to read than bribery. It may get them to read in the short run, but once the external rewards are taken away they may be less likely to read than they were before the rewards were given in the first place. The bribes are only teaching them to read if they are getting something tangible in return. It is pure behavior modification. The problem is that the teachers aren’t providing secondary reinforcement in the form of praise. The children are only receiving a primary reinforcer (the food), and once that is gone the behavior that you are reinforcing (reading) will stop. If secondary reinforcement is given, it may be easier to keep them reading because by praising them for reading and giving them a chance to express the way a book made them feel, we would be instilling the feeling a pleasure that reading can evoke, the pleasure that programs such as Bookit erased by placing an external reward on reading.
KellyMaher said on 09.01.09 at 10:25 PM • [link]

My random musing on this after catching site of the new covers of “Wuthering Heights” on GalleyCat (hated that story because I hated the characters & new covers are using the Twilight series motif), and not having read through all of the comments here, is that if a kid gets turned off by books from a select list early on, the school/teacher will fall out of the student’s trust network. It’s the reader advisor in me musing about how we are only as good as our last recommendation. If the student doesn’t think the school/teacher has any clue about choosing books that will engage a reader of that age (note: engage =/ entertain), the student will do their best to avoid reading assigned books even if they’re a voracious reader. And yes, I can certainly count myself in that group.
Jimmy said on 09.01.09 at 10:53 PM • [link]

I’ll side with the slobs for the most part. Though I’ve come to love more and more poetry and literary classics, what I learned from honors and AP english classes was how to get As and Bs without reading a single book. Forcing a teenaged boy to read Pride and Prejudice isn’t education, it’s torture, and if a teenaged boy has got any problem solving neurons in his brain, he’ll realize the easiest escape is to skim for the sort of details that will show up on tests. Before high school, my parents couldn’t get me to stop reading- I’d pull all-nighters reading books for fun when I was young. In high school, with the advent of miserable required reading lists, I stopped reading for pleasure, and I didn’t start again until after finishing my undergrad.

just about all the books on the mandatory reading lists have something enduring and important to say about us: about us as individuals, about us as culture, and about us as civilizations. They’ve stuck around so long because they represent fascinating and enduring looks into what people used to value and what people continue to value, and are capable of resonating with us centuries—sometimes millennia—after they were written.

True, sure. But remember that these are kids who are just learning what sorts of fun and excitement can be had with genitals. Isabel Allende and Jane Austen may have had a lot to say about romance, but most high school students have no substrate on which these ideas can take hold.

I’m in favor of a broad, expansive reading list. Let the Victorian era romance novels be an option, but make something available to students who would rather read, say non-fiction (gasp!).
helen said on 09.01.09 at 11:24 PM • [link]

Liz-
I’d have to disagree with you re bookit. Behavior modification is a very successful method for teaching new behaviors. The hope with a program like bookit is that the external reward (pizza) will get them reading and that the internal reward will be found in the process of reading ie-the amazing world one can find in books. If behavior mod did not work many psychologists across the US would be out of business and teachers would have no control over their classrooms whatsoever. Behavior modification is extremely successful when the teacher is consistent and effective in using appropriate techniques. I have rarely encountered a teacher, either in my own educational experiences or in my experiences as a teacher who did not praise children for appropriate behaviors which would include reading behaviors.
Flo said on 09.01.09 at 11:51 PM • [link]

As a literature teacher myself (6th 7th 8th grade) the key is this…

The librarian and their parents handle their fun reading. They are allowed their own quiet reading time with whatever book they bring in.

In MY time we read some of the classics. Books that have universal themes and I help them relate to them even though they are years out of date. Treasure Island is a perfect example of a “coming of age” story that can be compared and contrasted with Harry Potter as well as the student’s own life.

Symbolism and the heavier stuff should really be saved for High School level when their brains are slightly more developed. But even then you can be introduced to the ideas of symbolism.

I think even if modern authors are PURPOSEFULLY (and I am sure that some are…) putting symbolism of “higher literary learning” in their stories there STILL is symbolism present. It would be like me drawing a peace sign on the board and the kids not understanding what is peace. It’s all building blocks.

Every time you analyze a story with students you make sure to say “Look this is how it reflects elsewhere! This is where you’ll see it in the stories that YOU are reading!” It’s also important when they are doing their own writing. Maybe adult authors can handle not knowing what they are doing but reading stream of consciousness from a 7th grader is simply PAINFUL. What the teachers are doing is putting down building blocks so that knowledge of theme and plot carry over to OTHER subjects as well.

For my own school, our list is vast. We take in every genre and try to get every type of taste. We even have some YA romance on it. The important thing isn’t JUST that they are reading. But that they understand what they are reading at different levels of understanding as well.

Consider this, the adults out there now who wildly love badly written schlock, can’t explain WHY they love it, scream and rant and rave when it IS criticized but can’t come up with a reason other than “Well I like it!” missed out on the analysis. Even fun fluff reading can be analyzed and critiqued and there is nothing wrong with that. As we grow older we SHOULD consider our entertainment on various levels. Otherwise we stangnate.
Lostshadows said on 09.02.09 at 12:28 AM • [link]

@Liz
@Lostshadows

But are you really that deprived if you have no clue who Willy Loman is?

Yes.

Jody, I have to disagree with you. You are only being deprived of something if you cannot have a full life without the thing that they are not receiving. Can you live a full life without ever reading Death of a Salesman? Definitely. I have never read it, and i am doing just fine.

Thanks, couldn’t have said it any better.

eyes68-That might help make a bigger dent in my TBR pile.
Robin said on 09.02.09 at 02:26 AM • [link]

One of the most interesting things in this thread to me has been the sheer number of people who feel that school killed their desire to read. That for these folks every single teacher in every single grade seems to have made an indelible negative impression. And I honestly an struggling to understand how that could be. I mean, how did every single teacher, every single year create such a monolithically negative experience?

I’m resonating with Candy’s insight that we seem to place added expectations on reading instruction over and above those we have for science or math or history/social studies, etc. Clearly that seems to be the case. And for the teenagers we all know who feel that school is the biggest drag they could ever imagine—well, of course. I mean, at one level students are the most authoritative source as to a teacher’s abilities and effectiveness, but at another level, they’re the least reliable evaluators. So there’s always going to be that tension there.

But for adults, for those of us who have had years of distance between school and now, who have had whatever intervening experiences and opportunities, there seems to be a distillation process in our memories, a reduction to something like ‘reading saved me life’ (and to Sharon Buchbinder, your comment was so moving and a poignant reminder that education is still the most important guarantor of social mobility in the US) or ‘those teachers ruined any enjoyment of reading I could have had.’ I realize this is really quite normal, but I’m still struck by the polarized nature of the comments.

So for those of you who found school a reading turn-off, a question:

Were your parents and/or siblings and/or peers avid readers?
KellyMaher said on 09.02.09 at 03:00 AM • [link]

I mean, how did every single teacher, every single year create such a monolithically negative experience?

For me, I actually had two teachers in high school, sophomore & junior years, who I think were fabulous teachers and probably got me to read more of the required reading than I would have with another teacher. Often, it’s not really the teacher who is at issue as it is the books determined by the curriculum. A good teacher works around the limitations, like mine did, but they can only go so far with the stubbornness of teenagers and books with limited appeal. The lack of engagement, on my part, with 90% of the books assigned to me in school certainly didn’t kill my love of reading. In fact, teachers routinely took me to task for reading when I should have been paying attention :D Also, it was my sophomore year English teacher who sparked the idea in me that I could one day be a writer. She made English an interesting subject again after my freshman year teacher who came thisclose to killing poetry for me for the rest of my life.

Were your parents and/or siblings and/or peers avid readers?

My dad is/was and I mainly hung out with other voracious readers, so I always had someone with whom to discuss books.
billie said on 09.02.09 at 05:56 AM • [link]

hi, i’m billie. i turned 14 last month and graduated to sophmore status only a few weeks later. i’m a book loving recluse who reads everthing from meg cabot to dickens with little or no influence from anyone. and i like dickens a lot better. (sydney carton still holds the title of coolest hero ever written, at least in my mind). i just started the oddyssey today, after my teacher told me it was a better beginning point than the iliad, cronology (that can’t be correct) be dammned. the idiot (seriously, you’ll have to take my word on this) senior sitting next to me is reading the Mahabharata and upton sinclair’s “the jungle.” still, no urging from teacher; he started them over the summer. i think that if children are presented with the books they should read (if they are to be well educated) and told a little about them, including how good they are, they’ll read them, curious monkey descendents that we are. forcing children to read is entirely the incorrect approach. and giving them so many things to read that they don’t have time for the good stuff of ALL genres (my copy of Lord of Scoundrels should come in the mail tomorrow!) will only put them off and make it so they’ll never really read a good book. it may be a bodice ripper, it may be about dragons, it may be another of the painful, ubiquitous, shitty Twilight rip-offs. but it’s still a book. and it may lead to another, and another. and maybe, at some point, they’ll get around to reading the three musketeers ratehr then just watching the disney version. but i haven’t been to a normal school since second grade so i wouldn’t really know what it’s like.
spamblocker word or whatever: dead53. ever if vampires are FUCKING SHINY in the sunlight rather than ashes, that’s still two thousand pages of reading.
simone said on 09.02.09 at 06:25 AM • [link]

i grew up on a farm, like many of the other commenters and grew up, like probably everyone, with i love of reading and books in general. one of my earliest memories if going to the library with my mom and sister and filling up a laundry basket with as many books as we could check out at one time and bringing them home to read as fast as i could, them bugging my mom to go back. both my parents love books and always have, both graduated from college, though my father went on through chiropractic college. i didn’t grow up with cable so there wasn’t much but books, and music: two of my greatest passions to this day. but i also vividly remember watching some movie (i forget exactly which) based on a book by dumas. i then went to the library, looked up the book, read it, and fell in love. same thing with pride and prejudice, though we never read that on school. i do remember reading “little women” though, and having it disected by a really bad teacher, i forget her name but her nickname was Stinky, and loving it anyway. so much for tryign to keep kids from reading. oh and
And my favorite discussions of symbolism? Cover snark. I’m very good at spotting phallic symbols now!

too funny
marley said on 09.02.09 at 07:13 AM • [link]

has anyone read Matilda by charles dahl? minus the telekineticism (?) i think that is the perfect example of a child discovering books.
marley said on 09.02.09 at 07:47 AM • [link]

i was just wondering if anyone would like to have adiscussion on propriety and content and ages of readers. like whoever made the comment about her father having “strong words” with a librarian who tried to stop her from reading “are you there God? it’s me, Margaret” at a “tender age”
i remember reading that and “julie and the wolves” in grade school, on my own, just because they existed. these days kids are exposed to so much sex and swearing so early on that it’s just…... i don’t know
Luke S. said on 09.02.09 at 03:54 PM • [link]

What a wonderfully insightful article! I agree with you that a hybrid approach is probably best: if kids are given just a little room to be themselves—especially in an activity as personal as reading—perhaps they won’t mind as much the mandatory readings to which they are assigned.

By the way, I love that you’re a fan of Thomas Hardy — I was the only one in my AP English class senior year who gave Tess any chance at all, and since then I’ve been a tremendous fan of the Hardster, eagerly devouring a number of his books and poems. The funny thing is, my experience in high school was not one of frustration with difficult books, but rather with books that were too juvenile — too basic for someone who at home regularly read books like Leon Uris’s The Haj and short stories by Melville, Kafka, Salinger and the like, as well as an ungodly number of artist biographies, scientific and philosophical manuals, and almost the entire Stephen King collection (I love his work!). Essentially, I think that readers in the real world consume a great deal of different types of literature (this, I believe, was similarly mentioned in the original article), and if we’d like our kids to grow up to be good, happy readers, we have to be able to steer them in the right direction while simultaneously allowing them to discover for themselves what really turns them on.
Lostshadows said on 09.02.09 at 04:03 PM • [link]

@billie- I agree with you, if a teacher can find the right way to sell books to their students, a lot more students would voluntarily read them. Unfortunately, this is not a skill all teachers have. More of them possess the talent of dissecting a story to the point where even the most eager reader never wants to see the thing again.
Hopefully, you’ll never get one of those.
Bonnie L. said on 09.02.09 at 06:00 PM • [link]

I have to give a lot of kudos to Mrs. Rishel, my 10th grade American Lit teacher. In that class I learned so many things that have been essential to my academic career and my greater understanding of literature that I could just kiss her. As you can probably guess, we read many of the dreaded classics in that class: The Scarlet Letter, Old Man and the Sea, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, etc. However, she introduced me to that second unseen level of reading, the one where you look past the obvious and delve into the meaning and ideas and, yes, symbols that are found in these works in order to garner a deeper understanding of the human condition. She never said, “This is what the author meant, so there!” She would point out symbols and themes and we would have a discussion about what we thought the author meant. I absolutely ate it up. Others did not. I remember getting comments like, “I think you are looking to hard at this. What if an albatross is just a bird and not a symbol for anything more?” Even then, those students weren’t slapped down. She agreed that that may be true, but that culturally albatross’s are identified with Christ who carried our burdens and that it is just as legitimate to discuss that meaning as to disbelieve that there was meaning there.

For me, just the idea that writing could be looked at on multiple levels was a revelation and greatly enhanced every single book or piece of writing that I’ve read since then.

I guess the upshot of all this is that I think that mandatory reading can be a vital tool in fostering a critical eye and analytical skills.
Liz said on 09.02.09 at 07:24 PM • [link]

Liz-
I’d have to disagree with you re bookit. Behavior modification is a very successful method for teaching new behaviors. The hope with a program like bookit is that the external reward (pizza) will get them reading and that the internal reward will be found in the process of reading ie-the amazing world one can find in books. If behavior mod did not work many psychologists across the US would be out of business and teachers would have no control over their classrooms whatsoever. Behavior modification is extremely successful when the teacher is consistent and effective in using appropriate techniques. I have rarely encountered a teacher, either in my own educational experiences or in my experiences as a teacher who did not praise children for appropriate behaviors which would include reading behaviors.

I wasn’t saying that Behavior Modification does not work. I know that it does, and if there was any one orientation that i would choose as a psychologist—I have a BA in psych—it would be Behaviorism. Applied Behavioral Analysis does wonders for Autistic children. The problem I had was with the Bookit Program and the way in which I was exposed to it. At my school there was no secondary reinforcement to go along with the free pizza. Maybe in other schools it was not done this way, but that was how it was done in my school. All I know is that once the program was over, there were less people in my class that wanted to read than there was when the program began, me included—although i was never really a reader to begin with. While on the program, I was willing to read just to get the free pizza, but once that was taken away I had no desire to read. If it wasn’t for Harry Potter and a neighbor with a bunch of used Harlequins, I would not be a reader today.
SusannaG said on 09.02.09 at 09:51 PM • [link]

I actually enjoyed (or could live with) the majority of the stuff I read in high school English - it was principally ninth grade with Mrs. Barbara “Book Killer” Carter that was the exception.

The English teachers my other three years in high school were all good, and I even enjoyed Scarlet Letter (twice!), which from the sound of it is widely hated by high school students.

I was already a reader, though. My parents are English professors, and both my grandmothers were book addicts.

It would have taken a lot more than just that one year of THIS IS THE INTERPRETATION OF THE SYMBOLISM THAT WILL BE ON THE EXAM to kill reading for me; I’ve been an addict since I was about 4.
Chasity said on 09.03.09 at 04:44 AM • [link]

I’m one of the long time addicted readers. There’s not much to do in our town. When I was a kid Mom and I spent a lot of time at the library. She’d get stacks of books to bring home, and I’d have a matching stack. We’d go to every story time session the library offered. I was reading on my own by the time I turned 4.

I was lucky in the sense that we had a pretty good library in elementary school. We were allowed to check out 1 book per week. I would come home, read my book, and beg to exchange it the next day. After I proving to my teacher and the librarian that I was actually reading the books, I was allowed to check out 5 books per week. My favorite was Moby Dick. For about 3 years, I read that book every single month.

Our high school library was less than adequate. To compensate, I made bi-weekly trips to the library in town with mom. She actually introduced me to romance novels about that time. Of course she read through them first to make sure they weren’t too racy for me.

What I remember most about high school was my 11th grade English teacher. She was young, fresh out of college, and loved pop culture. She picked out a handful of “required” reading, but allowed us to pick out the rest. She had this massive collection of random books all over the classroom and we were allowed to pick out whatever we wanted from her collection. It was awesome. And here’s the thing - if we read any book and found it to be awful, we could flat out tell her that. We had to give her a logical reason as to why we hated it though. In between reading and reports, we’d watch cool movies (Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho) and write our own version of the same - I’m sure to her it was like reading really bad fan fiction - but it was fun.

Now my 12th grade English teacher was a drag. She had this list of awful books we had to read. Then we had to write a 5 page report about whatever we read. We weren’t really allowed to argue why the book was a piece of crap and we were only to discuss the plot and hidden meanings.

My daughter, who just started Kindergarten, loves for us to read to her but had no desire to learn to read herself. Which never made sense to use, since we’re both avid readers. She brought home her first library book today, and sat on the couch reading to herself. I was such a proud momma at that moment. There’s hope for the kid yet!
Rosa said on 09.04.09 at 08:04 AM • [link]

English Teacher said something really interesting:
My point is that we tend to think of reading as something that PROVIDES information of things we DON’T have experience of, whereas when we read for pleasure, I think we’re mostly activating memories and/or prior knowledge of things we HAVE experienced.

I ran into this with the “aged-out” young adults I tutored - everything we read, really basic stuff from the GED prep, like an excerpt of a drama review - everything was just so full of new stuff that they couldn’t both learn to read it and understand it. That is, they could learn to sound out Chile but then they also had to learn that it was a country, in South America, and people speak Spanish there and there are Black, white, Indian, and Mestizo people there which is why the play is about race, and the Black people there speak Spanish too, but the dialogue is in English because it’s being performed here…

I imagine that’s how it is for all younger kids, including the high school kids. They’re not just reading for tone, structure, theme, plot, they’re learning a bunch of stuff about whatever setting the book is in, and having to look up hard words, and thinking about which parts are likely to be on the test, and maybe if you’re lucky comparing it to other stuff they’ve read…it’s hard to do all those things at once, and if they’re being told only one of the things they’re doing is the point, of course they resist.
Melissa Blue said on 09.05.09 at 01:44 AM • [link]

Just pondering if required reading colored us more because we were forced to read what we considered “bad” books, than the book being a classic. Not only that we had to talk about these “bad” books in depth. Reading a bad book, at least to me, is akeen to inhumane torture. Also a bad book is purely subjective. Of course, this experience is made worse because there is no opting out for a different story. There is no throw the book against the wall, you just have to suffer through it.

I would have immense hatred of reading too if that was my case. I read ahead with Death of a Salesman, Hamlet, Raisin in the Sun, and Of Mice and Men. I vaguely remember the question sheets that went along with the Salem Witch Trials play. *dear God shoot me now.*

But, I can’t attribute the teacher for my disdain of this play. I can count a few who made me realize not all teachers were cut from the same clothe. I can’t remember their names either, just who and what they stood for in my mind. Yet the teachers who I loved, who helped shape me in a positive way I can name them. That’s more powerful than a required reading list any day.

Sidenote: I was in the 7th grade when I decided to tackle Wuthering Heights on my own. We had to write a daily journal about what we read. This is my entry paraphrased: “I can’t forced myself to read this book anymore.”

The teacher’s reply: “Thank you God. I hated that book too. Read something you can enjoy.”

You can call me one of the lucky ones. This teacher actually taught Computer Science. We had to do this because the district required it.
Eva said on 10.09.09 at 01:30 AM • [link]

And this is why I homeschool.

It’s hard. It’s just damned hard and it’s kind of unfair to put all of the responsibility on a teacher to foster a life-long love of reading in a person. We all know reading taste is subjective. That’s the first ding. Second is that school is an institution, and there’s not going to be too much room for experimentation within it. So you have to hope that one particular teacher finds a way to mash a temptation of the palate with requirements. God bless them, that’s quite a demand to put on any one person.

I’m in the half and half camp. We need classics. They are the great conversation, they are the foundation of western civilization and we need to know ourselves and where we came from.

BUT, if you go forcefeeding something to a kid who is not ready- either without knowledge to make literary connections or emotionally ready, you will kill any inborn desire to read for pleasure.

I love reading, and have since I saw Nana in her chair every afternoon drinking tea with a paperback. As soon as I could, I asked for books, and God love that woman, she bought me what I wanted. Shilouette teen romances. I could not BELIEVE they printed people kissing! The toe curling commenced and I was hooked.

I got to HS, and the love of reading was torn from under me. I did it, but begrudgingly. And, for those few books I loved, I’m too afraid to go back and read them (Narcissus and Goldmund, The Great Gatsby). I don’t want the shine rubbed off my penny.

Here’s how we do it in my house. Right now we are all studying ancients for history. From the wee ones to the high schoolers. It’s a spiral. We read the great books from that era. The littles have been read a gorgeous rendition of the Epic of Gilgamesh, we discussed the times, the thoughts and the beliefs of the people. My HSer is reading Gilgamesh: A New Version (which is knock down gorgeous). She’s had it before, its not new to her, but this time she is digging deeper into the history of the time and myth of the story. She’s not reading it in a vacuum. I’ve read it, we talk about it. She is 14 and making connections that are making me pump my fist in the air. It goes the same with every book my kids encounter throughout their schooling-they’ve had it in the children’s version before, Padriac Column’s The Children’s Homer in a few years will become The Odyssey and Iliad. Geraldine McCaughrean’s Oxford Illustrated Classic The Canturbury Tales one day becomes Chaucer. You can’t read classics in a vacuum. They can’t be plunked on a kid’s desk and then the kid expected to glean what is required automatically.

To have this approach the whole nation would have to have one set standard of school. Heh. Good luck with that. (How’s that Public Option going?) But unless we stop trying to teach these kids classics in a void, they will hate them-they have no significance and no foundation.

Lastly, I don’t only allow classics. Ds just finished the Lemony Snicketts in record time and Dd will read anything to do with vampires. And I won’t see her for the whole day, either, she’s a glommer like her mother. The littles are reading Little House. A grand day is all of us being able to hit B&N. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.
Eco toys products UK said on 10.12.09 at 07:54 AM • [link]

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Lesley said on 10.14.09 at 03:21 AM • [link]

I think this entire thread should be required reading for anyone who has anything to do with required reading! As a Teen Services Librarian, I’m lucky that my work with young readers is all about choice and that I never have to worry about whether or not they’ve understood the symbolism.

I do think there are bad teachers, just like there are bad doctors or bad manicurists, and they’re the ones that people remember so vividly. But I also think there are prevailing beliefs that reading should be taught one way or another that even good teachers might end up subscribing to, plus all the standardized tests that have to be taught to. There seems to be some movement towards reading choice in schools, but it won’t happen fast or everywhere.

You could say there are three main reasons to teach reading. One is simply the task of reading, how to get meaning, how to turn around and craft language yourself. Some kids hate reading because they literally can’t read and they need a program like Read Right to help them re-train their brains. Or they have no way to relate to the people or situations in the books, as @English Teacher and others point out. Beyond the basic skills, there are critical thinking and analytical skills, although I’m not convinced you have to read books from the canon to acquire those—and teachers do more harm than good when they stifle the “wrong” answers that actually exemplify creative thinking. What about reading “bad” writing (as much as it’s possible to definitively say what’s good or bad since there are so many different tastes) so you can compare and contrast it?

Another reason to teach particular books has to do with having a shared cultural language, or as @Robin put it, “a common thread of ideas and experiences,” so when you’re at a dinner party and someone says, “That’s just like what happened to Hester Prynne!” you’ll know what they’re talking about. (It’s up to you whether that’s a dinner party you want to be at.) Some people learn things best when they read it in a story, as opposed to, say, a textbook—witness all the people who’ve learned everything they know about history from historical fiction.

Then there’s the third reason to make sure kids are reading, this idea that there’s something wrong with you if you don’t love reading. But @Jody and others are right: Why is it OK to not be that into listening to music or doing chemistry experiments but it’s not OK to not be that into reading? My job is to help teens who like to read find more stuff to read, no matter what they like to read, (and to provide them with a sanctuary where they can read it) and to help kids who don’t like to read but are being made to for one reason or another find stuff they might actually like. For some kids, it’s a matter of not having found the right thing to read yet, but for others, no matter how many books you give them, they’re just never going to like it. And that’s not the end of the world, although that might sound blasphemous to some.

One last point: There are great books that aren’t “classics” or “trash,” books from the YA shelves that some teens might never try, books that can be used to teach about language and the craft of writing, about the world around us and the cultural idioms we share, but that teens can relate to and even enjoy. I could make you a list of them if you’re interested!