Earlier this month, a high school English
teacher contacted me asking how she can get her students to read and fall
in love with books. I’ve been making notes for the past couple of weeks, and I’m
finally ready to share my thoughts on the subject. So Ms. H., this post is
for you and your students.
First, a little background. I grew up on
a farm in rural Wisconsin. In my elementary years, my class consisted of 12
students; my graduating class was 48. Our town had a library, but I don’t
remember being in it more than once, and I believe that was on a field trip to
see a polling place during the 1984 election. I was a slow, reluctant reader. I
detested reading aloud because I was so shy, and I was afraid of stumbling over
words and other kids laughing. During library time, when we had to choose
books, I could never find any that interested me, and I don’t remember anyone
taking the time to suggest any. My parents weren’t readers, although there was
a small bookcase in my parents’ bedroom full of books my grandmother sent to my
father when he was in the Navy. I have no doubt he’d read them all. But he
never picked them up again.
In high school I took honors English classes,
and our teacher, Mr. Davis, was a wonder. We read mythology, poetry, Hamlet,
Great Expectations, To Kill and Mockingbird, The Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man, As I Lay Dying, and Song of
Solomon. Eleventh grade English was American literature (non-honors), and
we read The Red Badge of Courage, The Grapes of Wrath, and
lots of short stories by Hemingway, Hawthorn, and Melville.
In college, I declared a creative writing
major with a technical writing minor. I took a few literature classes including
20th Century British Lit, Literature of the African Diaspora, The Short Story,
Critical Approaches to Literature, etc.
And yet, it wasn’t until after college that I
learned to love reading.
What I muse over still is if those teacher
and professors planted the seed that I later brought into bloom or if I became
a reader in spite of their efforts. That seems a nasty thing to say,
but there it is. What we’re up against in a high school and college curriculum
is providing a foundation of English and American literature (and perhaps some
African, Asian, and South American if you have time) that will provide useful for
further study in English and American literature. More charitably, we’re
also providing a common base of knowledge that will unite the culture. I
understand and love this about English classes.
And yet.
It wasn’t in English classes that I learned
to love reading and fall in love with books. That came on my own. What would
have helped? What would have made a difference? Three things.
First, I think it’s the English teacher/professor’s
job to inspire students to pick up a book that’s not assigned.
English teachers are really up against the ropes, because not only do they have
lifelong readers and lovers of words in their classes, but they have a whole
lot of students whose interests lie elsewhere. Think of your high school
English classes and think about where those students ended up. It’s a fact
that not all will go on to college, though some may go on to technical and
trade schools. They’ll take jobs as cashiers, bank tellers, middle management,
mechanics, gym coaches, veterinarians, yoga instructors, artists, HVAC
technicians, engineers, chefs, pianists, and stay at home moms. The
valedictorian of my class went on to be a farmer. How do you inspire a group as
diverse as this to open a book ten years out of high school?
Second, teachers need to be able to choose
good literature. Mostly we do this by pulling titles from the canon of
safe bets. Austen, Melville, Hardy, Hemingway, Faulkner, Chaucer, Twain, the
Bronte sisters, Dickens, etc. are all good, teachable books. The plots are
interesting, the characters are well-fleshed, the writing is challenging, and
they offer ample opportunities for classroom discussion of the techniques
and tools of writing: metaphors, allusions to the Bible and
mythology, diction, etc. And if you’re lucky, you might even stumble upon
a bit of humor and an a likable character.
But choosing good literature is often at odds
with my third postulate. I think that English teachers need to allow
students to form a personal connection to literature.
Looking back on the two tiny communities that made up my high school (with a
combined population of less than 2,000), there was very little diversity. If I
remember correctly, there was one black student and one Hispanic student in the
student body. I remember one student who was gay, though of course there were
likely others. We were mostly Lutherans and Catholics, came mostly from
intact homes, and lived mostly at the same economic level.
And yet, could you choose a single book that
would appeal to us all, wholly homogenous as we were? Does Dickens go that?
Does Shakespeare? Does Twain? While I believe in the universality of good
literature—why, after all, are people still finding and loving Pride and
Prejudice?—your average dentist or farmer or construction worker aren’t
apt to pick up a classic. In fact, they aren’t apt to pick up a book at all.
The median number of books read by adult Americans in an average year is five
(that’s median, 50% read more than 5, 50% read less than 5). That takes into
account folks reading for work or school, folks who read that book of cat
poems someone gave them for Christmas, folks who only read the
Bible, folks who don’t read anything, and folks like me who read
150 books a year. While it’s not possible nor desirable to abandon the canon of English literature, I think there’s plenty of room to enhance it. Those of us who know how powerful the written word can be, who read like we breathe—because we have to, whose list of favorite books is continuously being adjusted and shuffled, we know it’s all about finding the right book.
Had I known in grade school that there was
such a thing as nonfiction books, I would have been hooked on reading as a
seven-year-old instead of a 22-year-old. But until I could take my reading
into my own hands, until I gave myself permission to roam the public library
and try things, I was completely unaware of what I liked to
read.
Maybe the teacher’s only job when it comes to
inspiring readers, choosing good writing, and forming a personal connection to
books, is to help each student find one book they love and let their reading
snowball from there. Or maybe the only thing teachers need to do is to give
permission to students to like what they like.
I’m still on the fence over the classic debate of whether it’s more important
that a child read good books or whether they read at all. But maybe I’d say let them read what they like, and they’ll find good books on their own.
So how to high school English teachers do that?
First, give them good writing. It doesn’t have to be written by George Eliot, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Henry James, or John Steinbeck to be good. It doesn’t have to
have been written 100 years—or even 30 years—ago to be good. It doesn’t have to
be unambiguously moral to be good. It doesn’t even have to be written by
someone you’ve heard of before. But don’t stop at non-fiction. What about fantasy? Science fiction? Graphic novels and comics? Children’s literature? Mystery? Historical fiction?
It’s simple: the only way students will develop a passion for reading is if they
read. Those of us with years of reading experience know how one good book
leads to another, and how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole of reading.
Even if a reader knows what she likes, being exposed to other genres, authors,
and books will lead to other experiences and broader horizons. And this
leads to what I believe is meant by the term “well read.” So if every high school English class could afford to incorporate a unit where classics are put aside and newer books are read, it would be a true refresher of the curriculum. Perhaps this has happened in the more than two decades since I left high school, but if not, let’s begin.
Part 2, a list of recommendations, will follow shortly. Stay tuned....
