Sunday, November 16, 2008
Non Required Reading
This book is geared toward high school kids who are bored with reading. I can see why this book would be used as an aid to get these people to read more, the book is light hearted, not too serious and quite entertaining to read. Most books that we are required to read in high school are drawn out and boring. They are to teach us about the history that literature has and the way that our society has progressed it our writings. But most of what we are required to read is nothing short of boring. We, as high school students, do not really care to decipher the meaning behind Romeo and Juliet or even try to understand the nothing short of eccentric language. They seek freedom and the right to figure out things as they see not as someone tells them that they should see it. High school students are force fed so much information that eventually they shut off to the idea that they have an opinion on what they are learning. If they fall behind the norm it is their job to catch up and stay on track with the rest of the students. This book allows students to reach out and develop their own thoughts and minds. I believe that it would make them more well rounded students to formulate their own opinions and have the ability to discuss them with their teachers to gain a better understanding of the book. If I would have been able to sit in class and have the ability to discuss all the interesting readings we had to do it would have helped me find a true meaning to the book and would have helped me understand how to recognize that what is hidden within the book is not necessarly whats just on the surface. I say "Go, Non Required Reading!"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I totally agree with what Bryna is saying. In high school everyone reads the same things over and over. Reading is supposed to provoke thoughts and take you to places that you haven’t or can’t go. If in high school we got to read things like The Best Nonrequired Readings all of us would have been so much more engaged in class. Acting out Romeo and Juliet is only fun if it is your turn and doesn’t really even teach us why Shakespear is so important to literature. If anything this The Best Nonrequired Readings would give the opportunity for more thoughts and discussion, or even just a better project or assignment. Also if the students are interested in what they are doing in class they are going to want to attend and stay excited about what they learned. This book is perfect for high school because it starts off as funny with all of the titles and personal ads in the beginning. It can provoke more thought with the scary ideas and just give something for everyone to like. High school killed reading for me because I never knew what to read and hated everything we studied. If this book can get students to enjoy reading again then it should for sure be used in high schools...then you wouldn’t have to wait until your junior year of college to like reading again like me. If it takes reverse psychology in a title to get high school kids to read then so be it, the point is reading for pleasure has totally gone by the way side and this book might help get it back.
Well, I agree with this to an extent.
I actually never had a problem with the required reading in my English and literature classes (although we were never forced to read Romeo Juliet :P). We read a lot of amazing books: 1984, Invisible Man, Catch-22, and Heart of Darkness being among my favorite.
As much as I enjoyed these books,I kind of wish we could have just read them instead of analyzing every little detail, and figured out the meaning on our own time. I think a book like this would have been great fun to read in high school. Something funny, vibrant, and catchy like this would be perfect book to get students excited for reading. Heck, maybe I'll send my old high school teacher an email later!
Post a Comment