It's So Easy to Kill Good Books

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing." This is one of my favorite quotes of all time from my favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Now let me give you some context. Scout, the main character, had just been reprimanded by her teacher Miss Caroline for knowing how to read -- on her first day of school -- in front of her peers.  She had been punished because her father spent time reading to her; it is the one thing that they do together. She later refers to reading as a "crime" she committed.  This, my friends, cuts me to the core every time I read it.  Have I been a Miss Caroline to a student before?  Have I reacted out of fear and not embraced the differences in my class? Have I unknowingly killed reading for my students? Ouch. It hurts to think about this. I love this book; to me this book is like going home to visit my grandparents.  It is familiar. It is safe. It makes me laugh. It makes me angry. It makes me proud. This same feeling is what I hope my students will get out of this book, too; however, many view it as a ton of work or a book they would never pick out to read by themselves.

Two events this year have caused to me really dive into this idea of life-long reading. First, this fall, a mother shared with me that her son quit reading long books because he missed the due date for his book report because his book was over 300 pages.  From that point on he checked out books in the 120-150 page range. These lowered expectations in hopes of meeting a due date do not build up reading stamina - not when he will be going to college in a few short years and will most likely be assigned HUNDREDS of pages of reading PER WEEK. Second, this spring I had a younger student say to me, "I have to go home and finish my book report.  I haven't read the book yet, but to do what I need I think I know enough about the story to finish this assignment.  But don't worry, I'll read the book later." The odds of that happening once the assignment is over are slim.  These scenarios are exactly what we need to address - lowered reading expecations and fake reading.  How do we foster life-long reading? How do we get students to fall in love with books?  I have no doubt that assignments like this, or 10-questions per chapter, or lists upon lists of vocabulary words, and crossword puzzles kill good books. I also know that I am guilty of doing just that. I was doing the best I knew how to do, and I was teaching reading the way I had been taught because it was all I knew to do - but that isn't good enough. My students deserve more.  They deserve better.

This summer I have been reading a book called Book Love by Penny Kittle. I really think that she is in my brain, listening to all the questions that I have and then simultaneously putting the answers there on the pages of this extraordinary resource to guide me in my classroom.  (Ok, ok, so maybe she is just a dang good teacher who isn't afraid to share her knowledge with others in the hopes of creating readers.) Regardless, a quote from that book has stood out to me.  Kittle states: "I tried to listen to my department chair, but she told me students were lazy and I should give them a reading quiz each day to make them read. Quizzes don't make people read, and besides, teaching isn't police work.  I knew this. I wanted to become a master sorcerer and entice all students into deep reading; she wanted to set traps to catch criminals."

This is when my jaw hit the floor.  She captured my exact thoughts in a book.  This spring I assigned book reports to my students, and because they are good students, they did what I asked with really very little complaining. But we DIDN'T talk about their books. And we DIDN'T  share their themes. And we DIDN'T talk about how characters change and develop. And we DIDN'T  discuss writing styles and what we did or didn't like about them.  It was a one-way, written conversation and I hated it.  Yes, I HATED IT.  Mark my words, I will never assign another book report like that in my classroom. Why you ask?  For three reasons: One, because book reports have never made a student say, "Hey, I love all of this extra work that goes along with any independent reading I do in school, I think I'll check out another book!" Two, because book reports require me to try to catch cheaters - I see a word like "mundane" in a response, and I automatically have to copy and paste the sentence into Google to see if it pulls up an online summary; freshmen and sophomores don't typically use the word mundane.  Three, because I was able to "fake read" through most of my book reports and make an A on them in school, and it was a very hard habit to break in college. I was them; they are me.

There has to be a balance between creating this love of reading and holding students accountable for what and how much they are actually reading. However, I know one thing, we have to work to get to the root of the fake reading problem, and then work to fix it.  Each student's reading story is as unique as they are.  Many can't hear internal voices and picture what they see when they are reading.  Many get so lost in decoding words that they lose meaning.  Many are so over-booked with other activities that they give up reading. Many are paralyzed when we ask them to popcorn read in front of a class. There is always a root to the problem, and it is something that requires time, trust, conversations, and the willingness to try.

There are better ways to teach reading, and it will make many veteran teachers, myself included, uncomfortable.  It will, however, get those students' cute little noses in a book, or two, or twenty five. I want to try new things, even if I fail, because they old way of doing things is not creating new readers. I think this feeling of being uncomfortable has got to be better than the feeling of knowing that the majority of my students won't or can't read what I am assigning at a level they can understand.  As an adult, I do not create posters or write essays over the books I read for fun - I want to talk about them with others who are just as excited about the books they are reading as I am.  But how do you grade that?  In a world driven by GPAs. Could this be why so many teachers are clinging to the book reports and plot summaries? I know I always struggle with how to grade work like this, but does reading for fun really need a grade?  Shouldn't it be, I don't know, FUN? And fun doesn't have to mean fluff.  Fun means engaged.  Fun means diving into stories we can comprehend and lessons that change us as humans. Who knows, if I step out of my comfort zone a little, students might just fall in love with a character or a book.  It only takes one good book to break a fake reader, and it only takes one teacher who will allow it to happen on his/her watch.  I have no idea what reading will look like in my classroom this year, but I know it will look different. It's too easy to kill a good book; we must give students the time to fall in love with reading -- to snuggle up with a book and let the story take hold of their minds.  And then, we must listen.

Now back to reading about reading...