You know what kills the love of reading faster than anything
else? Making students read literature
they're not ready for and then repeating that over and over, feeding teens a
steady stream of classics many of them may find long, boring, and unrelatable (and
which were mostly written by white males—though that's probably gotten better
since I was in high school).
Many modern novels have beautiful language, metaphor,
personification, foreshadowing, symbolism, themes, good plot structure and
characterization, and all those other things we studied in junior high and high
school. They also show different perspectives
and help you relate to people very different from you (super important for understanding
the world and becoming a good person).
And…they're interesting. I really
think we should teach more of these modern novels in the classroom.
I was a kid who loved to read. I was also quite academic, with good reading
comprehension and a big vocabulary. Yet
I wasn't ready for a lot of the books we had to read in junior high and high
school. It's not that I couldn't read
them or understand them, but I didn't really appreciate them, didn't FULLY
understand them...and often didn't like them.
Many were a slog. I believe it
totally turned some students off from reading.
And that's really, really sad.
One of the things I try to teach the parents of small
children in my storytimes at the library is that you need to make reading
fun. You want kids to WANT to read. I think that's the most efficient way to turn
them into good readers. As kids get older,
it's also the most efficient way to turn them into continuing readers and
voluntary readers…which in turn contributes to success in many areas of
life.
So, if you're a parent or educator, consider this when
planning your approach to your kids.
If you teach them to love reading, they'll discover the
classics in their own time, and the rewards will be much sweeter.
Some examples from my own education:
Hemingway in 7th grade: yawn.
Hemingway in college: fascinating!
Heart of Darkness in high school: yeah, yeah, he went native.
Heart of Darkness in college: possibly the most brilliant book ever
written.
The Great Gatsby in high school: let's sit around drinking mint juleps and
feeling sorry for ourselves.
The
Great Gatsby in my 30s: okay, yeah,
I see why some people think it's great.
Steinbeck in junior high and high school: yawn (with a
few good heart-rending parts).
Steinbeck in my 30s: amazing.
Orwell in high school: interesting, but not as good as it's cracked
up to be.
Orwell in my 30s:
just as good as it's cracked up to be.
Shakespeare...ok, let's be real. Shakespeare hasn't gotten much better.