Best Sellers post #6: Readicide

               I completely agree with Jodi Picoult when she says, “I don’t think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction…” Students should not be told what they have to read.  When you force someone to do something, they automatically don’t like it, this is a rule in life.

                Classics should not be totally thrown out of school curriculum; however, we should not have to take so many tests and worksheets about them. I think that if teachers just let kids read the book and did not stop them every chapter to take notes and quizzes, then students would enjoy them more. Classics are called classics for a reason. Reason being that people liked them and they taught you something important. But back when they were written, do you think students had someone breathing down the back of their neck making sure that they understood every single aspect that the school thinks they should know. Schools should let us figure it out on our own, compare how we interpreted the book to how others did. Not tell us how the school thinks it should be interpreted. I think that the school is bossy when it comes to reading. They tell us “you are going to read this and like it” and “my way or no way”.

                Schools want kids to read books to gain a better intelligence, but also to learn an important fact about life. Who says that books like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter do not contain valuable information about life? Adding things like that to a class might strike up more interest in reading. It might make kids excited about going to class instead of dragging their feet down the hallway. Classes should be more like book clubs. A place where you can openly discuss what you are reading with others who are reading the same thing.