Who decides what kids should read?
By Morgan on December 4th, 2009
From The New York Times to EdWeek and, I’m sure, to school administration offices and classrooms throughout the country, a debate is brewing: who should choose kids’ reading assignments – teachers and school officials, or the kids themselves?
As I read last week’s EdWeek piece, which handles the debate with insight, I pulled out my time machine and traveled way back to the mid-90s, when I was in high school.
I was, and am, a passionate reader, and my high school curriculum was filled to the brim with fantastic selections which have remained some of my favorite books of all time – The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid’s Tale. But there’s another part to the story of my high school reading list: more than once, a teacher would assign a book or a play that I had no interest in reading. I would look at the cover, read the back copy, and think, “No way am I going to like this.” I guess you could say I was a reluctant reader when the reading wasn’t of my choosing.
But then a funny thing would happen. I would fall in love with the assignment.
Back here in the present, I’m reading the EdWeek article and thinking, wow, it’s definitely cool that students in some schools are able to help choose which books they’ll read throughout the year; that’s certainly a way to engage students (especially reluctant readers) and allow them autonomy over their education. But at the same time, there’s a space – and a need! – for teacher input. I trust teachers. I trust the lessons they impart, the expertise they share, and I even trust them when they hand out books like My Name is Asher Lev, or A Separate Peace, or my ultimate favorite, The Sound and the Fury – all books I never would have read on my own, but which have stuck with me till this day.
I asked the other OOMers which books they loved that, had they not been assigned in a classroom, they probably wouldn’t have read:
Jen: My Antonia by Willa Cather
Tyler: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Sarah: Native Son by Richard Wright
Ivy: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Amanda: Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. She adds, “It was my junior year English class (British Lit) and I had had enough of petticoats and pining. But I ended up riveted, often reading well beyond the chapter assignments each night.”
What about you, readers? Which books would you not have bothered with had they not been assigned by a teacher, yet you ended up loving them?
Photo credit: Ian Wilson
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Previously On Our Minds:
* ‘Tis the Season for a Holiday Books Giveaway!
* Save the date! August 24, 2010 – The Hunger Games Book 3
* No Reader Left Behind
Posted: December 4th, 2009 under Books. .
8 comments
Comments
The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, and The Good Earth come to mind. Not sure if I would have read those books but I loved them.
Comment on December 4, 2009 at 4:37 pm
My least favorite English teacher introduced me to two of my absolute favorite books: "The Awakening" and "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Both are books I've read again and again.
Even though her teaching style was terrible, at least she had good taste in books!
Comment on December 4, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I actually loved a good amount of what was assigned to me at school. Some of my favorite assigned readings have been: Crime and Punishment, Tess of the d'Ubervilles, anything by Henrik Ibsen, The Cherry Orchard (I love my Russian authors), The Things They Carried. I read mostly YA lit, but have always been appreciative of my school for providing me with the opportunities to read these must-reads.
This is actually a topic that greatly fascinates me, and I have actually just written a blog post about whether or not YA lit belongs in classrooms. I agree that there are classics that almost everyone SHOULD make an effort to read, but people's education will by no means be flawed or incomplete if they have not read those books. It just saddens me when people are so adamantly against changing the curriculum to possibly accommodate contemporary or teen literature. But as time goes on I'm sure this issue and those who take either side will fluctuate!
Comment on December 4, 2009 at 8:41 pm
It's so important to draw attention to reading, and attract reluctant readers to it,especially boys. In fact, I've recently completed a feature magazine article on this subject that came out in October, "Help for Struggling, Reluctant Readers."
I grew up as a reluctant reader, in spite of the fact that my father published over 70 books. Now I write action-adventures & mysteries, especially for tween boys, that avid boy readers and girls enjoy just as much.
My blog, Books for Boys http://booksandboys.blogspot.com is dedicated to drawing attention to the importance of reading.
Keep up your good work.
Max Elliot Anderson
Comment on December 5, 2009 at 2:15 pm
To Kill A Mockingbird, and Into The Wild
Comment on December 6, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I guess I was odd. I liked most of what I was assigned and even asked teachers for suggestions for summer reading. When I was in high school there wasn't really a lot of "young adult" so you read adult books or "classics". I read a lot of classics then.
As a teacher now, I try to keep a balance between assigned reading, and getting kids hooked on books by finding things they are interested in and then finding the right book for them. It is wonderful when the world of reading finally opens up to them.
Comment on December 6, 2009 at 11:03 pm
For me, it was Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, in a high school English class in The Bronx in 1967. I was a teenager, so of course I thought I knew everything and resented being assigned a book by an author I had never heard of. I found the book intensely moving; its lessons have stayed with me till this day along with another lesson: teachers, like mothers, generally know best.
Comment on December 7, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I didn't even love The Great Gatsby after it was assigned, but years later I figured my teachers may have known a thing or two, and I went back and reread it. Since by then I had more experience with some of its major themes, I fell head over heels for the book and Fitzgerald's writing. And I still recall a teacher who told me I would love Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood years before I actually picked it up and discovered he was so right.
Comment on December 8, 2009 at 5:28 am
