Paperback's Pondering's is a weekly discussion when I take a topic and well, ponder about it! This week's topic is about those dreaded school required readings.
Every year since about grade 4, I've had to read books as apart of English. The books are always some sort of classic, that is supposed to teach us a lesson. Now in high school, we've had to read one Shakespeare book, and one classical book, but I've never quite enjoyed the choices.
Required reading can either go really bad, or really well. In most cases, a lot of the students in my class will dread reading, and sometimes not even finish the book. I think that this problem stems from the fact that the books we are reading, aren't necessarily what the normal teenager will even want to read. In most cases, they can be incredibly boring.
I've only ever remotely enjoyed one book that I read as a required reading, and that was Life of Pi. Even so, it was extremely heavy and philosophical, and totally not something that I would ever pick up for myself on my own. I always wonder why all of the books we read have to be some sort of self-help book, and none of which that we will actually enjoy reading!
I personally think that if schools made us read books that we could better relate to, then more students would enjoy reading. I mean' let's be honest, what student can really relate to a boy stranded at sea with a tiger? I'd say, not many. There are so many amazing ya coming of age books out there, that I've felt would be a lot more appropriate for students than what we're reading now.
Now don't get me wrong. but I'm not making this post to bash classical or more philosophical novels. A lot of people do enjoy reading them, and there was definitely a lot of heart and soul poured into them, but I'm just speaking from a student's point of view. In a world where reading is not normal amongst teens, I feel like these books can drive students away from reading.
So what do I want done about it? I want more ya to be read in schools! A couple of schools I know have been putting in popular ya books as required reading, and I have seen such positive feedback from them! Students can relate, enjoy and actually understand them better, and they are less likely to feel obligated to read them.
Now I want to hear your opinion! Do you have required reading for school, and do you enjoy the book that you read? Or, do you think that you would like to see changes to what you read? Let me know!
Emily @ Paperback Princess
I mostly loved the required reading I had for school. I took a lot of English classes in high school (I even got to design my own independent study, so I picked the reading material), and was an English major in college with a concentration in East European and Asian literature (which meant I got to read a lot of really cool stuff). I got introduced to The Secret History, wrote a paper on The Ring trilogy, and read a lot of classics I might not have otherwise. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you had a positive experience! I plan on taking any English course I can get my hands on, so hopefully I'll get to learn some cool stuff :)
DeleteFor the most part I did not like the books I read in high school, except for when I was in AP Literature because they were more exciting and pertained to things I actually liked. I agree with you, if the books were more along the lines of what teenagers like to read, then more people would actually like required reading. Part of it might just be that teens don't like being told what to do and be given homework, especially reading which takes up time they might want to spend doing something else.
ReplyDeleteThat's also true. Even I'm not that excited to read when there's homework to go along with it! Hopefully my reading experiences will be better.
DeleteI totally agree with you, and that required reading can be such a pain sometimes. Especially with reading Shakespeare plays because they are so hard to understand sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI don't completely agree with letting YA being studied in school because literally EVERYONE reads YA. It's easy to understand and yes very relatable. There's a reason why schools let students read classics and heavy novels -- simply because they're hard to understand and are often underappreciated, since most teens nowadays read YA all the time. Classics shouldn't be neglected. Like Jane Austen books, they were published in the 1800's, and if it weren't for school, they wouldn't have been appreciated as much as they do now. :) Which is a good thing, if you think about it, no matter how hard it is to read it :)
The Shakespeare plays shake me up the most!! You made a good point! I would personally not have any trouble with reading maybe a classical and a more relatable novel ,because that makes things more diverse, but in a school where not a lot of people like to read at all, I'm not sure how that would go down lol!
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