Students pick their own books

A few weeks ago our freshman English sub-department discussed which texts to read for next year. A first-timer in such a discussion, I was dumbstruck to discover that such a small group of adults could so radically impact the lives of 425 fourteen year-olds.

This year all freshman had to read:
The Odyssey (Fagles translation)
The Woman Warrior
The Catcher in the Rye
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Together, seven teachers chucked The Woman Warrior for being "difficult to identify with" and had a quiet moment for the passing of The Odyssey and then cut it. In a way, we catered to the market. Students began to "misplace" their books about 200 pages into The Odyssey; The Woman Warrior led to more heads slumped on desks than is prudent to admit.

Should students only read books they like from the first page? Isn't it the teacher's job to help them through books that push their reading comprehension level? What if they love it by the end? If they don't read The Odyssey at school, then where? Does it really matter that they read that book over another?

Last week a colleague suggested to me that it doesn't matter what they read as much as how they read it. In other words, you can teach reading skills with any five books you want. If practicing reading skills is the paramount goal, small wars should not be waged over which texts to assign. And assigned texts seem to invariably lead to the uncomfortable "did you do the reading?" / "No, because I hate this book" struggles.

As a student I had to chug coffee to choke down many assigned readings--and I love to read! Something about being told what to read takes some of the fun out of it and turns a pleasure into a chore.

So why not let the students choose? (Radical I know). Let the freshman sub-department make a list of fifteen recommend books and students read a new book every three weeks. A few students will read the same book to create discussion groups and they can report their findings to the class. They will practice speaking articulately about what they read and presenting themes to a larger audience. Placing the choice in student's hands mitigates their sense of being forced to read and opens up more interesting conversations about connections between books.