What’s the “Right” Book?
By: Kristin Rogers
What should students read? Or rather, what literature should we – the teachers – assign for our students? And what do we need to consider when choosing these texts? It is always easy for us to say “Oh, well, I remember some of the texts that I read in middle and high school. I should teach those, because they’re good texts – the classics, you know?” Perhaps this is one of the problems that students face with literature courses today. Finding relevant texts for our students, texts that address issues that THEY care about not what WE care about, is the first step to opening up the door to the world of literature.
How many times have you – as a teacher – thought “Well all of this speculation is great, and all of this talk about being innovative in my text choices, is nice. But how do I actually DO that?” I know I have. Does that seem like a problem to you? I’m sure you’re all nodding your heads right now, in silent (or maybe not-so-silent) agreement. Steven Wolk, author of “What Should Students Read?”, asks the same questions.
[Adolescents] read emails, texts messages, and endless websites. They read manga, vampire novels, graphic novels, romance novels, comic books, “Harry Potter,” and dystopian fiction. They read fantasy, sci-fi, steam punk, and sports stories. They read informational texts they’re interested in, from skateboarding to animals. (11)
This last statement is what really made me think. What are my students interested in? Do I even know? Do you know? My proposal is this: before you decide what texts you will assign your students, you must discover what they are interested in. Providing engaging reading for your students is one of the first, and perhaps most important, steps in creating a productive, open, comfortable environment in your classroom (which is what we all want, right?). According to Wolk, “If we want students who are readers, not just students who can read, we must surround them with high-quality books they want to read.” (13). Make these books the assigned reading! You’ll be amazed how different students act in a literature class when they care about what they’re reading.
By now, I can practically hear you screaming in your mind “But what about the classics?!” Take a deep breath, because I’m not asking you to toss those timeless works of art in the trash. All I said was that we need to provide texts that students will be interested in. Vampire novels? Introduce Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sci-fi novels? Provide Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein as an option. You see what I’m getting at here? just because a book is considered a classic, that does not mean that students will automatically not be interested.
In “Teaching for Joy and Justice”, Linda Christensen advocates for “creating a curriculum that matters, a curriculum that helps students make sense of the world” (7). Part of this is providing texts that inspire your students, texts that they can really dig into because the content is something that they want to read about. Literature explores the world and its many dimensions; it explores the human experience. What we want is for our students to be able to make their own discoveries about the texts we assign them. That being said, there are some restrictions we must place on ourselves as we consider the literature we will use in our classrooms. The texts we choose to provide for our students must contain practical, discussable ideas. That is, the texts we choose cannot be so simple – however interesting they may be – that there is nothing to discuss or investigate. Otherwise, what’s the point in reading that text? Sheridan Blau makes an excellent point in The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and their Readers when he says that “confusion represents a necessary starting point for any act of interpretation and therefore is an essential part of the experience of literary study” (22). That is to say, when a student is confused, it means he or she is on the brink of making an interpretive discovery, which is what we all want of our students when we assign and discuss literature. So this means that we must provide our students with literature that is interesting, relevant, and confusing to our students. Sounds easy, right? The best part about this whole situation is that you don’t necessarily have to have read, much less discussed, a book you choose for your students. Now, if you haven’t read a certain book, reading it alongside the students is a good idea so that you will be prepared, if only as much as your students are, for discussions. Or even read the book before you assign it, so you don’t have to encounter the nightmare of parents and administrators jumping own your throat for assigning literature that is not seen as“acceptable”. Now doesn’t that open up a whole new world of literature, a world full of all the books you haven’t even read yourself?
So next time you’re in a bookstore – because we all know that bookstores are our sanctuary – take a look around in the adolescent literature. See what books are on the best seller list and give some of them a try. You just might find the perfect book that you never knew existed. Or, if you go to the library, utilize your resources – by this I mean the librarian him or herself. Ask what the most popular adolescent literature is, what young adult literature has he or she had trouble keeping on the shelf? Those are the books you need to investigate; those are the books you need to use
How many times have you – as a teacher – thought “Well all of this speculation is great, and all of this talk about being innovative in my text choices, is nice. But how do I actually DO that?” I know I have. Does that seem like a problem to you? I’m sure you’re all nodding your heads right now, in silent (or maybe not-so-silent) agreement. Steven Wolk, author of “What Should Students Read?”, asks the same questions.
[Adolescents] read emails, texts messages, and endless websites. They read manga, vampire novels, graphic novels, romance novels, comic books, “Harry Potter,” and dystopian fiction. They read fantasy, sci-fi, steam punk, and sports stories. They read informational texts they’re interested in, from skateboarding to animals. (11)
This last statement is what really made me think. What are my students interested in? Do I even know? Do you know? My proposal is this: before you decide what texts you will assign your students, you must discover what they are interested in. Providing engaging reading for your students is one of the first, and perhaps most important, steps in creating a productive, open, comfortable environment in your classroom (which is what we all want, right?). According to Wolk, “If we want students who are readers, not just students who can read, we must surround them with high-quality books they want to read.” (13). Make these books the assigned reading! You’ll be amazed how different students act in a literature class when they care about what they’re reading.
By now, I can practically hear you screaming in your mind “But what about the classics?!” Take a deep breath, because I’m not asking you to toss those timeless works of art in the trash. All I said was that we need to provide texts that students will be interested in. Vampire novels? Introduce Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sci-fi novels? Provide Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein as an option. You see what I’m getting at here? just because a book is considered a classic, that does not mean that students will automatically not be interested.
In “Teaching for Joy and Justice”, Linda Christensen advocates for “creating a curriculum that matters, a curriculum that helps students make sense of the world” (7). Part of this is providing texts that inspire your students, texts that they can really dig into because the content is something that they want to read about. Literature explores the world and its many dimensions; it explores the human experience. What we want is for our students to be able to make their own discoveries about the texts we assign them. That being said, there are some restrictions we must place on ourselves as we consider the literature we will use in our classrooms. The texts we choose to provide for our students must contain practical, discussable ideas. That is, the texts we choose cannot be so simple – however interesting they may be – that there is nothing to discuss or investigate. Otherwise, what’s the point in reading that text? Sheridan Blau makes an excellent point in The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and their Readers when he says that “confusion represents a necessary starting point for any act of interpretation and therefore is an essential part of the experience of literary study” (22). That is to say, when a student is confused, it means he or she is on the brink of making an interpretive discovery, which is what we all want of our students when we assign and discuss literature. So this means that we must provide our students with literature that is interesting, relevant, and confusing to our students. Sounds easy, right? The best part about this whole situation is that you don’t necessarily have to have read, much less discussed, a book you choose for your students. Now, if you haven’t read a certain book, reading it alongside the students is a good idea so that you will be prepared, if only as much as your students are, for discussions. Or even read the book before you assign it, so you don’t have to encounter the nightmare of parents and administrators jumping own your throat for assigning literature that is not seen as“acceptable”. Now doesn’t that open up a whole new world of literature, a world full of all the books you haven’t even read yourself?
So next time you’re in a bookstore – because we all know that bookstores are our sanctuary – take a look around in the adolescent literature. See what books are on the best seller list and give some of them a try. You just might find the perfect book that you never knew existed. Or, if you go to the library, utilize your resources – by this I mean the librarian him or herself. Ask what the most popular adolescent literature is, what young adult literature has he or she had trouble keeping on the shelf? Those are the books you need to investigate; those are the books you need to use
Personal Reflection
I could not agree more with all of what Kristin has proclaimed in this article. In order to have success in the classroom, the teacher must the success to his or her students; and this really pertains to the choice of texts. Teachers can keep on going about their "I will choose these texts because it's required to keep my job" way and expect mostly nothing out of their students, or they can create a mutual classroom environment. Just like Kristin has mentioned, pertaining the students' interest is crucial for a successful classroom. If students will be reading texts that they feel that they can connect to, can relate to, can finish the story feeling thankful that they have read a particular text, their levels of interest, comprehension, group discussion, everything that is crucial in the reading will improve dramatically - those infamous standardized tests that us teachers obsess over will become less of a burden, even.