The Wayfarer - News & Thoughts

There was an incredible article published this month in The Atlantic about Elite Colleges discovering that students are no longer reading books - and have not been assigned books in high school and earlier.  I've included that article in a link at below my comments here.  A link to the article was published on a High School English Teacher Facebook Group that I belong to, and I wrote a response.  This phenomena of students not reading is not new - it is still developing (getting worse) and it is one of the reasons that I created this site.  In any case, here was my response on the FB Group: 

To me, the reasons for students not reading are very complex and nuanced. I believe the best reading is done on one’s own. Not in class but as homework. That kind of reading has been dying for a long time. Giving homework has become harder and harder. How many books can be read in a year during class time - when everyone is reading at a different level?

There is such a joy to reading books as a class and discussing them. Everyone seeing something different; everyone finding something that touches their lives.

All great literature is high interest reading - all great literature is relevant because it makes us realize that we’re not alone - from Beowulf to Milkman to Esperanza - we can learn about ourselves and others by reading great texts.

There are so many different ways to teach - to teach reading - to teach literature and to teach writing. Students don’t need one approach. They need the approaches that give teachers the freedom to teach the books they believe will impact their students in the best way that they know how.