Let the student choose what to read????

"'Classic': A book which people praise and don't read." --Mark Twain

In a former life, I was a high school English teacher. I chose English because I loved to read. Yeah, I liked to write, and writing came easy to me, but I was a book nerd. When I was in elementary, jr. high, and sr. high school, I was the kid that always carried a book with her to read. I read on the bus. I read at night rather than watch TV. When I finished homework, I read my book. On the two hour ride down and back to the lake, I read. Babysitting? When the kids were in bed, I read.

I read classics, such as To Kill a Mockingbird or All Quiet on the Western Front. I read short stories by Poe, Hawthorne, and Twain. I enjoyed historical fiction, historical non-fiction, biographies, autobiographies, and pop culture, such as the VC Andrews Flowers in the Attic series or Steven King books.

In college I became introduced to the wonders of American and British lit. Yes, in high school we read Shakespeare, but in college, we READ Shakespeare. I loved it! I got it! It spoke to me, as dd Cotton Mather, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, Chaucer, e.e. cummings, George Elliot, the Bronte sisters, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and many more. Oh, the wonder of these writers and the stories they wove! the symbolism! the allegories! the drama!

So when I became a high school teacher, I vowed to introduce the students to the classics. I crafted book lists that the students could choose from to read a book a month. On this list were a combination of classics and Newberry winners.

One parent asked me why I didn't let the student choose the book. Well, what did they know??? I went to college! I saw (or was taught) the marvels of The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, The Scarlet Letter, Hamlet (though secretly, I HATED The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath).

Unfortunately, the students didn't. And rather than encouraging students to become avid readers, I think I turned them off.

But these were classics and the students needed to read them. Why? Because they were classics... And the students needed to read them.

Today schools are beginning to move away from this trend. Teachers recognize that there are too many distractoins to keep students from reading. Students game. They IM and Facebook each other. They surf the web, tweet, download music, and watch tv shows and movies. The bookworm nerd is a think of the past.

So a shift in education is happening. Harry Potter is replacing the Little House books as favorites. The Twilight series replaces Romeo and Juliet's tale of star-crossed lovers. Manga and Anime, or comic books in book form, such as those by Neil Gaimon hold the interest of both male and female teens.

So is letting students choose their own books valuable? The question is what is the purpose for the students reading? Are we trying to create a situation of life-long learning? Expose the students to broader themes of humanity and culture?

I'm not sure. The thought that now one will ever read Atticus Finch telling Scout "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view" saddens me. That students will never see the humor in biting one's thumb, or the double meaning as Young Goodman Brown laments his Faith is gone saddens me.

But I also have a 20 year old son and 20 year old niece who both hate to read. Perhaps if they had more leverage to choose what to read, the may not be "anti-reading."

Besides, at one time, Macbeth, Moby Dick, and Silas Marner were popular texts.