Reading

[jabuford]

How do you get your highschool student to read books that are required for Literature class and when they detest reading? I am stumped on how to accomplish this.

[rwjx2khsmj]

Read it with them.

[KarenAnne]

Does your child hate ALL reading, or just the kind that typically shows up in literature courses (i.e. heavy on socially realistic fiction and classics)?

If the answer is just the particular type of books that are usually assigned, take a step back and realize that people's ideas of what books are classics change over time, and there is nothing sacred or set in stone about a particular course list. Lots of kids vastly prefer other types of literature to what usually gets assigned, for various reasons. My daughter, who has Asperger's syndrome, is a voracious reader far above her age level; BUT she has a real weakness when it comes to traditional socially realistic fiction (When I Was Puerto Rican, Of Mice and Men, etc.) because she cannot understand the fine nuances of character motivation and any sort of natural world description leaves her bored to tears. This is a valid reason for allowing her to read what interests her: science fiction and mysteries. I just try to make sure she is exposed to books of high quality in these fields: Sherlock Holmes stories, Father Brown, Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, LeGuin, etc. You can do exactly the same kinds of literary analysis with nearly any genres of books in that you can use all for looking closely at rhetorical techniques, sentence structure, imagery, symbolism, talking about historical context, etc.

Perhaps your student might find the magical realism of South American writers more appealing; or may enjoy reading drama instead of prose; or really find literary non-fiction right down his alley. I'd recommend taking a bit of time and experimenting with some of these other genres, then basing a course on what he or she is drawn towards. There are lots of adults who can't stand fiction but who live highly literate lives. Perhaps the Great Books or a more traditional course in American lit just doesn't work for your particular child.

If on the other hand your child hates ALL reading (but is perfectly capable of reading and understands what he or she reads), what about watching movie versions of some of the books on your list instead? Or look into manga or comic versions, some of which are incredibly good these days. If your student is interested enough, you could require reading of a short piece of classic lit next to an adaptation: screenplay, comic version, continuation, spoof.

It's great to have a background in classic literature, but if your child hates every word on the page, there isn't going to be any learning going on and the end result will be loathing of some really good books they may encounter later in life and really love if they are coming to them without a history of struggle and loathing. It's not worth the price, in my opinion, to mentally force-feed something the child truly and sincerely hates, when there is so much to discover and take pleasure in learning from. There is more than one path to literary knowledge and understanding.

[EKS]

Does your child hate ALL reading, or just the kind that typically shows up in literature courses (i.e. heavy on socially realistic fiction and classics)?

If the answer is just the particular type of books that are usually assigned, take a step back and realize that people's ideas of what books are classics change over time, and there is nothing sacred or set in stone about a particular course list. Lots of kids vastly prefer other types of literature to what usually gets assigned, for various reasons. My daughter, who has Asperger's syndrome, is a voracious reader far above her age level; BUT she has a real weakness when it comes to traditional socially realistic fiction (When I Was Puerto Rican, Of Mice and Men, etc.) because she cannot understand the fine nuances of character motivation and any sort of natural world description leaves her bored to tears. This is a valid reason for allowing her to read what interests her: science fiction and mysteries. I just try to make sure she is exposed to books of high quality in these fields: Sherlock Holmes stories, Father Brown, Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, LeGuin, etc. You can do exactly the same kinds of literary analysis with nearly any genres of books in that you can use all for looking closely at rhetorical techniques, sentence structure, imagery, symbolism, talking about historical context, etc.

Perhaps your student might find the magical realism of South American writers more appealing; or may enjoy reading drama instead of prose; or really find literary non-fiction right down his alley. I'd recommend taking a bit of time and experimenting with some of these other genres, then basing a course on what he or she is drawn towards. There are lots of adults who can't stand fiction but who live highly literate lives. Perhaps the Great Books or a more traditional course in American lit just doesn't work for your particular child.

If on the other hand your child hates ALL reading (but is perfectly capable of reading and understands what he or she reads), what about watching movie versions of some of the books on your list instead? Or look into manga or comic versions, some of which are incredibly good these days. If your student is interested enough, you could require reading of a short piece of classic lit next to an adaptation: screenplay, comic version, continuation, spoof.

It's great to have a background in classic literature, but if your child hates every word on the page, there isn't going to be any learning going on and the end result will be loathing of some really good books they may encounter later in life and really love if they are coming to them without a history of struggle and loathing. It's not worth the price, in my opinion, to mentally force-feed something the child truly and sincerely hates, when there is so much to discover and take pleasure in learning from. There is more than one path to literary knowledge and understanding.

This is an amazing post. Thank you for this reminder.