To read or not to read?

By: Josh Leach

           

            Everyone remembers reading literary classics in school.  In fact, required reading is becoming a larger portion of the language arts curriculum than ever before despite persistent complaints by students, parents, and even some teachers.  The question many students ask is whether the required reading is truly as educational as their teachers claim.  Why is reading classic novels so important?

            As soon as the notion of eliminating or reducing famous works from the curriculum is brought up, people rush to defend their favorite novels and poems.  They claim the influence of these masterpieces is beyond comprehension.  Stories seem to have the power to transform people and make them better.  Of course, the most popular argument is based around making students into good readers.  According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an outline of recent changes to the national standards for education, “The standards also outline a progressive development of reading comprehension so that students advancing through the grades are able to gain more from what they read.”  Jennie Dodson, a language arts teacher at Seckman High School says, “Reading assignments provide students with the opportunity and responsibility to engage in reading.”  The idea is that if reading was not required, then students simply would never try to improve their literary abilities. 

            In contrast, many students read in their free time, and being forced to read books they dislike seems pointless.  In a recent column, John Jarzemsky noted: “What a terrible term it was…Teachers and administrators and whoever else had all conspired against me to keep the books I wanted to consume out of my hands.”  Students wonder why some books are valued so much more than others.  Natalie Rose, a senior at Seckman, says, “I enjoy reading a wide variety of books, and I don’t want to be confined to one genre.”  An editor for the Early Word Publisher argues, “Reading is personal. My interests are not the same as my husband’s or my neighbor’s or the librarian at the school down the street.”  People all have their own preferences and interests.  What a person reads reflects his or her unique personality.  If students’ minds shut down when they read assigned books, then they are unlikely to receive any benefit from it.

            Some students go so far as to question whether reading is really better than watching a movie.  Often, after a book has been read in class the students spend another few days watching the movie form of the work.  If the book is so great, why watch the movie?  Readers take the stance that cinema constricts imagination by plainly laying out the events and descriptions; therefore, people are denied the opportunity to establish a personal interpretation of the text.  Barnes and Noble, a well-known book store, advocates for the unique advantages possessed by written works, “Sure, every person who picks up a copy of the same book is going to read the same plot, but thanks to the powers of our respective imaginations, while I might picture purple trees, you might picture gray. While I might picture Michael Keaton as the leading man, you might picture Gerard Butler. When you read, you engage with your inner life in a way you can’t with television.”  However, everyone can imagine on their own.  Art is designed to guide, educate, and inspire.  Movie lovers understand the enormous power which resides in the visual medium.   In Books vs. Movies Adaptations: The Never-ending Debate, Araz Havan  wrote, “Emotions on screen have an intimacy to the sentiments of the audience that are critical to connecting the characters to viewers. Body language, expressions and delivery of lines affect the audience…For all the literary devices and art of the author, some works are better on the silver screen than in the library.”  People become engrossed in movies.  Watching a movie is like dreaming while awake.  The visual and audio presentation of a literary work intensifies the emotions and themes of the story.  Words may simply lack the ability to evoke such passion.

            The curriculum is reevaluated every year.  The same debates over reading requirements are discussed by teachers, administrators, and parents.  Future student should not be required to read books simply because their parents did.  Every generation creates a unique style of writing and interpreting text.  Today, movies and television are a substantially larger media than books.  Some people may wonder why classes centered around understanding language are holding onto the past and neglecting modern communication. How much value will the students of the digital age put in books?