Last weekend, Bookmarks hosted its 15thAnnual Book Festival, the largest book festival in the Carolinas. Bookmarks works tirelessly to secure authors, from near and far and representing a variety of genres, to discuss their craft. As an avid book lover, I get goosebumps just thinking about this event, and I now look forward to the festival as a kickoff to the school year.
I try to stay abreast of the latest book releases, but the volume of great reads available abounds, and I always discover a talented author who is new to me at the festival. I have learned to identify at the book-signing tent which authors have the longest line, some wrapping around the block, each fan waiting for the opportunity to secure an autograph and to gush. I then race to the book sales tent to ensure that I get a copy of that author’s most-read title before it sells out. Those books have never disappointed and are often YA titles, from Sarah Maas, to Jason Reynolds, and, this year, to V.E. Schwab. I didn’t think I liked fantasy or superhero books, but the festival pushes me beyond my usual comfort zone.
While I saw plenty of teens at the festival, on a daily basis I recognize that most of our children do not read, and, perhaps, more disturbingly, they don’t like reading. Any book nerd knows what a travesty reading avoidance can be because of the joy these youngsters are missing. Any teacher knows, though, that a love of reading is essential to the development of our best lifelong learners.
With so many riveting reads available in paper and ebook form and in compelling audio versions, where do we as educators and parents miss the mark? Why do most of our children dread reading?
I attribute this degeneration to the confluence of numerous factors, many of which are borne in English class.
When I was in the eighth grade, Animal Farm was assigned reading. With no background in Russian history (not even in school), this novel, an allegory for the Russian Revolution, was a drudgery. I simply was not mature or learned enough to appreciate Orwell’s intentions. The novel study was more than a waste of time for me; it was a total turnoff to reading. Today’s teachers, some of whom still assign this novel to middle schoolers, regularly engage in this misstep: assigning historical fiction written in obscure language that the children struggle to understand and from a time period about which our students have no knowledge.
The students then, understandably, turn to online resources to help them grasp the novel’s meaning, but teachers and parents send the message that doing so is cheating. While I am not a fan of relying on such resources as a replacement for reading, I am a fan of doing so to support an understanding of the text, especially where the student struggles to keep up with characters or with archaic language and has minimal exposure to the novel’s context.
English teachers often also demand that their students annotate text, noting in the margins each character, literary element, and reference to the book’s theme. To me, this process is more akin to revising a strategic plan than to extracting any pleasure from the novel’s overall impact, particularly for a youngster.
Add a layer of reading quizzes and comprehension tests, followed by a five-page essay analyzing how well the author accurately interpreted this era of history, with which the student knows little, and we have created a recipe that will leave in most teenagers’ mouths a very sour taste.
Contrary to what you may think, I love a strong English teacher, but, collectively, we must rethink how we introduce reading into the curriculum. We need fresh titles. We need to dedicate some classroom time to reading for pleasure, even in high school. In our race to fulfill AP curriculum requirements, we are frequently sacrificing, in every class, not just English, the joys of learning and exploring.
Visit Bookmarks. Visit our Downtown Forsyth County Public Library, too, because it is amazing, and pick up a book to read today, maybe even to enjoy as a family. As parents of high schoolers, try to rekindle that love of reading that you cultivated in your toddler long ago.