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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What district are you in that doesn't have mandatory books?  You must not teach AP or maybe even not honors if you don't have to do some standards.  I think you are focusing on the wrong thing.  You should intermingle some classics, not just YA novels that don't require any skill in reading.  The Hate U Give, for instance, is a phenomenal book, and a great topic - but in terms of difficulty or challenge it is severely lacking.  They should have to learn how to conquer a challenging text, written in a different time period.  Only being interested in today and today's specific type of dialogue / writing / vocabulary will not offer any growth.[/quote]

I’m not going point by point but: no. You don’t understand literacy and education. Please don’t tell me how to do my job... [b]just answer the question I asked. [/b][/quote]

DP.  This is an incredibly rude response.  The pp's point about kids needing to be able to handle challenging texts seems valid.  It's fine that you choose not to have any mandatory books.  As a parent of a teen who will pick easy books every time, I see validity in pp's point.  Also, if you come on a forum like this to ask questions, you're going to get opinions about how to do your job if you given details on how you plan to do your job.  I've never seen a thread that only stuck to answering the OP's question.  I'd love to know why you think pp's point isn't valid, based on your understanding of literacy and education.  [/quote]

It’s just an old fashioned way to approach reading. Do we want kids to just read “challenging” texts or so we want them to connect with a story, ENJOY reading, learn more about the human experience, realize that they too have stories worth sharing? Some kids will gravitate toward texts that are written in challenging language but are emotionally empty for them. Some kids will gravitate to books that are written more  simplistically but grapple with some really big ideas. The amount of big words in a book doesn’t determine its value for learning. Books are about stories, about helping kids refine their own writing style, about making them ask questions and realize truths about life and humanity. Books don’t have to be a “challenging text” for that to happen and very often the challenging texts directly hinder those things. The beauty of choice reading is if your kid DOES want or like the challenging text or classics- they can pick those. For the kids for whom those will shut off a joy of reading, they have other options.

I get why people who were in high school 20-30 years ago think school should still look like that, but education research particularly related to literacy shows that this is the better approach for kids. Look up Kylene Beers and Penny Kittle- they are some of the big name pioneers of this newer approach to reading and literacy. [/quote]

Since when did HS English become about getting kids to enjoy reading? That is the goal of elementary and middle school language arts programs and of course home/parenting. And, btw, some kids just don’t like reading books and that’s fine. It’s not a character flaw, people. Some very smart, brilliant people don’t like reading for pleasure.

Regarding reading selections:  I think a teacher ought to have select books planned for the year w/ engaging, thoughtful group discussions. Kids challenging each other’s ideas and debating and all that fun stuff. In our elementary school, kids pick their own books and analyze, write about character development, setting, theme, etc etc.  In high school, a more lively engaging shared experience over one text is more appealing and memorable. And if your concern centers around white or patriarchal characters, pick some pieces from black authors. So many good onces to choose from. Don’t ignore history. These kids don’t get much of it, as is.   [/quote]

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