Throughout high school, all of the English classes that we go through make it evident that teachers at times try and find literature that is aimed and geared towards the readers, or the teachers students. That being said, many of these selection contain various different subjects regarding being accepted and finding a niche that each person belongs to, or some silly young romantic novel. While a select few consistently worry about this, the reality is that these subjects for the most part are not something that the majority of high school students worry about. For myself in particular to really be drawn into a text aiming to relate to me, the text would be better off talking about the best ways to sleep in class, or finding ways to deal with boredom in the classroom.
It would seem that schools today believe they have an accurate idea of what students are looking for in a novel or some other form of literature, but unfortunately this is not the case. In reality there is no real school standard or part of the curriculum that will be able to draw in any majority. To successfully draw in every student the reality is that the school would have to broaden its standards to a uch greater range, and in many cases would probably have to break some of it's own standards or even in some cases aspects of state laws.
Students inherently get bored with school. This is a reality that is not going away, at least in public institutions, any time soon, whatsoever. If the school district wants to change this, it is very evident that a large scale overhaul will be necessary.
Scott C.
Scott, as a witness to your internal and external personal struggle with this dilemma each and every day in English class I can tell that in fact such literature as you described probably wouldn't grab your attention either. I think you just don't like mandatory reading requirements to fufill standards. But your analysis into the psyche of the student was very true and displayed depth of analysis. Well done sir.
ReplyDeleteI think most books chosen to be taught in school aren't chosen to try to appeal to the students. They are chosen so certain things can be taught using the book and we can have in depth discussions. Because of such a lack of interest in the majority of books read in school, students are choosing not to read which limits how much they actually learn. Like you said, this isn't going to change anytime soon but if it did and students read books that actually interested them, they would end up learning more.
ReplyDeleteZach Y
I think that any book that students are told to read will have the majority of people reading it on Sparknotes the class period before a discussion in class. Its supposed to be about getting an idea from the novel that we haven't thought of before- and honestly if the book does involve the ten best tips to staying awake in class, it might be more interesting. Honestly, if someone was going to write a book like that, it probably doesn't have some deeper meaning. I get what you mean though, its hard to finish-or get into- a 300 page book about a topic that you don't care about. It doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon either, so I guess try to make the most out of it, or bookmark Sparknotes.
ReplyDelete-Emily S