‘A new assignment: Pick books you like’: Verne, too, please—not just Austen and the rest
Will children fare better as readers if they can pick their own books? Yes, say Nancie Atwell and some other reading gurus.
The New York Times has the details. The key, as I see it as an ex-child, is balance—between the compulsory assignments and the joy-of-it books that can build the reading habit.
A little Jules Verne to go along with Jane Austen, please.
I know: Austen books may be more “literary.” But Verne himself excels as a story-teller. Good teachers can introduce students to both kinds of writing and try to point out the difference. Some sprawling major literary classics—masterpieces by today’s definitions, such as Moby-Dick—would probably have appalled Austen. (Update, 11 a.n.: No anti-Austen slam intended. Here’s to variety!)
One justification for the TeleRead vision of a well-stocked national digital library system is that it would put online a greater variety of books to match students’ precise needs and interests. TeleRead would be in line with S.R. Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science, including “Every reader his book” and “Every book its reader.”
Again, as I see it, the optimal scenario would a mix of compulsory books—Moby Dick among them?—and for-fun ones. If nothing else, how about more efforts to point students in the direction of classics that share common themes with popular books and movies of the moment? Teachers can also work to nudge students toward the better and more challenging books matching their interests, just as the Times article notes.
In a related vein, female teachers and female curriculum specialists often favor books of more appeal to girls than to boys, and student-chosen titles would be at least a partial solution.
A cause for commercial publishers
Let’s hope that commercial publishers get behind the choice movement without overdoing it. First off by far, it’s the right thing educationally. Second, along the way, it’s good market development. Gung-ho young readers are more likely to become enthusiastic older ones.
Some of the most eagerly read fiction may even come from authors in the same cities as the students. The movement for “choice reading” could be open up some interesting possibilities for local and regional literature, especially if libraries, schools and bookstores worked together to identify the most promising homegrown titles.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:46 am
Sigh. Why the slam at Austen? Austen is funnier than Verne, that’s for sure. No slam at Verne, I enjoy both, but there’s no need to revile one great writer because you like another.
Maybe times have changed – I don’t remember being given much required reading until high school. We had to do regular book reports in elementary school, but we always got to pick what book we reported on.
August 31st, 2009 at 10:07 am
Hi, Kate. Good for your elementary school teacher. In fact, maybe she erred in the other direction and didn’t have enough meat-and-potatoes.
As for Austen, here’s to a variety of tastes! No slam intended, and I’ve modified the copy to make that clear.
Thanks, and keep speaking up!
David
August 31st, 2009 at 11:16 am
I’m talking about 10 different teachers, both male and female, 4 different schools in two different states (we moved around a lot when I was a kid).
As for meat-and-potatoes, I’m not sure what you mean. I was reading on a high-school level in 4th grade, so something must have been working. We did have short reading assignments (colored readers, to the best of my recollection), but when it came to *books*, I could read whatever I liked.
Oddly enough, my older brother and I were and are heavy readers. My two younger brothers never were.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:40 am
Many thanks for the helpful information, Kate. Why do you think that your younger brothers weren’t heavy readers? Optional question! I’m not trying to start a family feud. But might their braining wiring have something to do with it? Or might your parents not have had as much time–when they were somewhat older–to encourage reading? I also wonder if the existence of e-books might have helped your younger brothers. Maybe not. I’m just curious. Any guesses, if nothing else?
I’d welcome similar thoughts from other readers, reflecting on their own family experiences.
Thanks,
David
August 31st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
But will they let kids choose Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies?
August 31st, 2009 at 1:57 pm
David,
My wife and I were lucky. We filled our house with books and our son didn’t have to leave home to have just about anything he wanted to read. And then along came Amazon and Alibris and almost unlimited choice.
My wife used Reader’s Workshop over twenty years ago and feels that you should let kids chose their books from a suggested list of books. She let them chose so they thought they had a choice, but actually were choosing from a list of “good” books that she knew children already liked to read.
Don Smith
September 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am
When I was in school, through 7th grade, I never got a chance to choose what I read. Everyone in the class (or when I was younger in my reading group) read the same stories. I hated reading then. My Mom would bring me and my brothers to the library and I would always get the same books out… WWII and Astronomy books with lots of pictures. While I might do some reading, I wanted to look at the pictures more.
Then in 8th grade it all changed. My 8th grade teacher made us do an oral book report every week. While we had to get her approval for the book, we were generally free to choose whatever books we wanted (Approval was basically denied only if she thought the book was either too simple, or was age inappropriate… though quite a few more adult novels slipped through because she was not familiar with them). After that, I became a reader… I still generally hated the assigned reading I got in High School, but whenver I got to choose what I read, I was a voracious reader.
Frankly, in my experience, people become readers despite what their schools give them to read, not because of it. Now, maybe current schools do better, however, I can think of no worse way to instill a love of reading than assigning reading that has little interest for the student and then forcing them to do additional work beyond the reading.
Mellville, Twain, Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, etc. These authors fill the pages of HS reading and kids often find them boring because there is so little within the books that they can relate to. As adults, we can appreciate these works for the masterpieces that they are (Though I still think it is a horrid crime to be forced to read Shakespeare… Plays are not meant to be read through, they are meant to be peformed), but I am firmly in the camp that kids should left free to choose the books they want.
–
Bill