ABSTRACT
Because of various social factors that are not the subject of this book, getting students to read, and especially to read novels, is difficult, to say the least. Teachers disagree about why this problem exists, and on what to do about it. Essentially, philosophies about what kinds of novels middle school students should read and how they should read them fall into four groups:
Books-of-Choice
Many teachers believe that students should follow their own interests, and not be told what to read. Theoretically, if students read books of their own choosing, they are more likely to become lifelong readers than if we impose our literary tastes on them. Books-of-choice teachers claim that they are differentiating instruction to accommodate students with varying abilities, creating a community of readers who will recommend books to one another, and using prior knowledge to make meaning from what they read.
Among the disadvantages of the books-of-choice model are that some students still don't read, or they choose deliberately unchallenging material or books that they've already read in past years. Further, some people argue that a twelve-year-old should not limit her reading to her current interests. How does she know that she isn't interested in a subject until she's given it a chance? The argument goes that if you never read anything outside your own interests, how will your own interests ever expand? Another argument against books-of-choice is that they aren't rigorous enough to meet high standards or to stretch the reader's literacy level.
We assess whether or not students have read their books-of-choice by asking generic questions on an in-class test, or by assigning a project (performance task) that could apply to any book. With booksof- choice, the teacher hasn't necessarily read (or doesn't remember) a given book, and some teachers are uneasy about this.
Young Adult Novels
The young adult genre has greatly improved in literary quality over the past 20 years. The strongest argument in favor of assigning young adult novels is that students will actually read them. Many such novels deal directly with social themes and personal issues that are of deep interest to middle school students, and the vocabulary is accessible. In theory, young adult, novels, appropriate to the middle school students' development, will be a stepping stone to more sophisticated literature in the later teenage years. The disadvantage to a curriculum consisting of nothing but these novels is obviously that students may not be challenging themselves enough or expanding their cultural literacy.
The Classics
Although we wouldn't expect middle school students to read Faulkner or Chaucer, many middle school teachers feel that students are ready for more rigorous, complex literature with a deeper historical background than that which books-of-choice or young adult fare can provide. A classic is a book that has transcended its time, that exemplifies high literary quality in its' style, and that has a meaning rich enough to sustain multiple readings. In short, a classic is an acquired taste, suitable for the refined literary palette. The trouble is, kids tend to hate them and won't read them. Most experienced teachers have learned this the hard way. Still, to our credit, we persist in the dogged belief that we can triumph in our efforts to have students read sophisticated literature in school.
Modified Classics
Thus, we come to the modified classics philosophy, which holds that students can approach challenging literature step by step, by scaffolding the information and by building on prior knowledge. Abridgments, excerpts, retellings, summaries, study guides, movies, audio tapes, and adaptations form frameworks on which we can build details of the story. Many teachers turn their noses up at the scaffolding approach, discarding it as a dumbing down of literature. Others regard it as a pedagogically sound way to introduce the classics at a developmentally appropriate level.
