I hate this book! It's boring! It's too hard! Why do we have to read this?

Last time we talked about how to help students generate their own learning. We left off with a question about getting away from the expected in book selection. I deeply believe that a student who is interested in and engaged with the subject matter at hand will be motivated to learn. My primary function as a teacher is to make that learning happen. So, why wouldn't I want the students to take some control over what they read?

This is my copy from high school. Yes, I'm old, but this copy was old even then.

My cooperating teacher offered several (about three) alternate book selections for his students. Five of them chose to read 1984 by George Orwell instead of Animal Farm. By limiting the options, he has insured that the books chosen will fit in with the theme of inquiry the class as a whole is undertaking this semester, but has also respected the students' needs as learners. Student self-selection of reading matter fulfills several student needs.

First, they will be reading something they like. How motivated are you to read something you aren't interested in? Maybe you like biographies of sports figures and a friend tells you to read a romance novel. Are you likely to do so? If you agree against your wishes, how likely are you to really get into it and take something from it, if you finish it at all? High school students are no different than adults in this area. If you let them read something they like, they'll get more out of it.

Second, students of different levels of English reading competency can select something that won't completely overwhelm them. Have you ever tried to read something incredibly technical in a subject area you didn't have a lot of experience with, perhaps a medical text or a computer programming book? How did you cope with the gibberish on the page? Maybe you were incredibly interested in the subject, so you slogged through as best you could, looking up unfamiliar terms and taking it slow. Or maybe you decided to read something a little less technical on the same subject to build up your foundational knowledge. Or perhaps you decided to skip it and read something different for now. Any of these options seems valid to me. In a high school class, unless the student is incredibly determined and has a lot of time, the first choice may not be the best option, simply because the amount of time and effort required is not available in the midst of all his or her other classes. Selecting another text to build knowledge or to wait for the right time for the other book is a good choice, not a failure. We want students to be challenged, not defeated. Likewise, we don't want students sitting there bored because the book the class is reading is too basic. Your class is full of individuals with a variety of interests and competencies. Let their book selections have variety, too.

When my oldest daughter was 8 years old, one of her grandparents gave her a “Learn to Knit” kit for Christmas. When she was ready to try it out, she said, “Mom, help me! I don't know how to do this.” Well, I didn't know how to do it either, but we were certainly going to figure it out! We started with the instructions in the kit. They looked like complete gibberish to me. The diagrams weren't particularly helpful, either, being about the size of a quarter and poorly hand-drawn. I wasn't going to give up so easily, so I went to the craft store and bought a learn to knit book with clear pictures. I took it home and tried to decipher how this mysterious craft was done. Nope. Still no clue. Ever more determined, I bought another learn to knit book with a different style of presentation. By sitting on the floor with both books in front of me and needles and yarn in my hands, I finally figured it out, flipping from book to book and page to page. 

Like so.

By this time months had passed and my daughter no longer cared to learn how to knit, but I was hooked. (She did eventually learn.) A good teacher could have cut out so much of the angst by helping me find an appropriate text and guiding me through the steps. I was highly motivated to learn, so it happened, but it took a while to come around to the method that worked. Years later, after I myself had started teaching knitting classes, I went back and looked at those original instructions. Nope, they were still terrible. I can't believe that anyone ever successfully learned to knit from them.

So it is with our English language arts students. They need good instruction, they need guidance, and they need appropriate texts. We as teachers are there to help them find all of these.

You mean Animal Farm isn't a book for kids?

In our English I class, we're reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. This is one of those books that has come to be seen as a classic. It's the kind of book people expect high school students to read in English class. In fact, the copy I'm reading was used by my younger brother in one of his high school English classes. It comes complete with his notes, seen here. 

He has an equivalent amount on the next page and then not another mark in the whole remainder of the book. Now, I don't know if he took notes elsewhere or if this is the extent of his notes on Animal Farm, but I can tell you that what he has here aren't his own thoughts. These are the ideas his English teacher fed him before they even began to read. The next page lists the four main themes. Does this seem like the best way for students to learn? I will concede that the students do need some background and context in order to understand what they're reading. If they want to be able to infer what the author was trying to say, it helps to know where he was coming from. But if they want to really engage with the text and figure out what it means to them in their own lives, I think we as teachers need to allow the students a little more room for their own ideas.

The teacher I'm working with provides his students with study guides for the books they read. The study guide for Animal Farm poses 5-14 questions per chapter, mostly about character and plot. It also includes a list of literary terms like “foreshadowing” and “foil” and a plot diagram. I agree with the concept of giving students something to guide their reading, and for freshmen in high school, it may be appropriate to start with these basics. However, I'm wondering if we couldn't make sure they get these basics covered while doing something a little more exciting, a little more challenging, and a little more engaging. After all, don't we all learn better when we have to do the thinking? It's even better when we get to have some fun in the process.

One great idea I've found is to make the reading of the book almost like a scavenger hunt. If we're focusing on the idea of propaganda, the students can note every instance of propaganda they find. Their final project with the book can be to write their own propaganda or an advertising campaign using the concepts of propaganda. If we want to focus on character analysis, the students can keep lists of the characters and favorite quotes from or about each one, using their notes to write an essay after the finish reading. These ideas and more can be found at http://www.lessonplanet.com/article/language-arts/animal-farm-lesson-plans .

The teaching of classics doesn't have to be boring. We can inject the unexpected into our studies, even if the book list is exactly what we expected. Another issue for another time: how do we get away from teaching only the standard book list and break out into something new while still teaching the skills we want all students to learn? Oh, we're going to have a lot of fun!