Encouraging Students to Read as a Lifetime Venture
In mid-December, just before the winter break, Grants High School concluded the first semester with exam week. I was pleased as most of my English/ journalism students, for the most part, approached exams well and mostly prepared.
I did something different by assigning book reports for my English finals. One of my greatest goals for my students is to encourage them to read. A lot of students read only because they have to for studies. I emphasize how wonderful the old classics are – like novels by western writer Louis Lamour, suspense horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and poetry by Emily Dickinson.
We study a lot of multicultural writers because our school is diverse. Most of my students love to read more modern, contemporary novels of teenage romance, vampires, and the like. That works for me.
A lot of youngsters never learned to read for pleasure like I did. My dad got me hooked on Sherlock Holmes mysteries; suspense thrillers like `In Cold Blood,’ by Truman Capote; and sports books. I became a Boston Redsox fan because my dad, on a business trip to Boston, brought me home a biography on Redsox slugger Carl Yastrzemksi.
But a lot of kids don’t fall in love with reading like I did. I compare it to golf. I never played as a kid and still don’t. My loss! Reading and golf are activities many people can do well into their older years.
I read the Hardy Boys mystery series as a kid when I was 10 or so and loved them. Years later, when I was in the library at Messiah College (Grantham, Pa.) studying one night, I saw one of my friends curled up, hovering over in a cubicle reading. I approached to say hi. He acted nervous and out of sorts. He didn’t want me to know he was reading a Hardy Boys mystery – a set of books intended for probably 15-under boys at the time. He was really embarrassed but shouldn’t have been. He was simply enjoying some youthful nostalgia reading.
My students, this past semester, really came through with some good book reports and I’m proud of them. I impressed to them that whatever they read – to somehow relate it to their lives.
I’m also proud of my journalism students who put together two outstanding issues of our school newspaper – The Angry Jack – during the fall semester, including our holiday/ Christmas issue. Most all of my students, both in language arts and journalism, worked hard this past semester and deserved a nice holiday break. And maybe, just maybe, over the holiday season, they opened up a book a few times and enjoyed a good read.
Richard Sanders