What Should be Read in Classrooms

All ninth graders across Michigan read the same selection of books, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and Animal Farm. Every teacher approaches these required readings differently. Assignments vary, time spent on each text vary. But why those books? Why isn't there more variety in the required reading? Jeffrey Wilhelm touches on this in the sixth chapter of You Gotta Be the Book. "I also began to adopt a wider and more inclusive view of what constitutes literature. I began to encourage readers to read young adult novels, picture books, comic books, illustrated books, organic nonfiction pieces, and student writing". By utilizing different forms of writing the monotony of reading the same novels will not prevent students from being engaged.

I think it would beneficial to students to read a picture book, comic book or graphic novel while reading a denser novel. The two could be read together and compared if the themes and main ideas are similar. It would be necessary to find alternative readings that fit the novels being read and through research the monotony could be broken up. Differing assignments could then be assigned to gauge the understanding and comprehension. Choosing other writing forms would help because students tend to dislike Shakespeare so reading something along with the play might help students to focus.

It'll be important to make the curriculum individualized when I actually start teaching. By incorporating short stories, comic books, children books and other variations on written work will be helpful in engaging students. Along with other written work the use of art and music could be used in accordance with the required readings. In  my senior year English class my teacher would often times bringing music along with song lyrics to be apart of a lesson. It was a good change from the constant reading of long and sometimes boring novels.