Post 6: Readicide

 I think that “readicide” is a problem in schools due to personal experience. When I was younger I loved to read but come high school I found that I no longer enjoyed reading. The time that I would take to read was now taken up by books that were required reads and the study guides you would have to fill out along the way.  So when the time came that I would have time to read at home I no longer wanted too.  I don’t enjoy reading confusing plays that seem like they were written in a different language or books that the curriculum decides are important. I want to read books that interest me, because if I’m reading something that I like I’m going to be much more engaged in the reading and not mind having to do projects on the book in school. I also think that some books are under taught. I will be the first to admit that I didn’t read my required summer reading book. I had a day left and choose a book I knew was popular and on spark notes. Walking into second bell English 3A, we were told what we had to do for the summer reading project and I could easily accomplish the task without reading a single page of the book. Now if we were told to pick a book of our choice with a few requirements; possibly page length, genre, or difficulty, I would have read the book and done a more difficult project. The last summer reading project that I actually remember enjoying was going into freshman year, we were told to pick a memoir, and that’s it. I choose The Burn Journals, a book that actually seemed interesting to me. After reading every page of the book (unlike my other summer reading projects) I completed the project without a single complaint. I think that if the school updated their curriculum to fit the student’s interests, kids would be more eager to read and teachers would end up grading higher quality work. Although I do see that reading some classics goes to teach students lessons that can't be taught through student-picked books, which is why I believe that the curriculum should be adjusted not to just encompass student chosen books but also to include the more interesting and important books that are already placed in the curriculum.