Hello! This post is a few days late, but I’m very excited for this topic. I’ve had to read a lot of books for school, and while I’ve enjoyed some, I’ve definitely disliked others. So, here are my thoughts on required reading in schools, and the varying results of the most common ways required reading is used in classes.

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and has been hosted by me since April 2022! Each Friday, there is a discussion topic for bloggers to write about. This week’s topic is required reading, which was an LTB topic a few years ago that I pulled from the archives!

Prompts: This week, we’re bringing back an old LTB topic from a few years ago: Required reading. How do you feel about required reading? Do you think it is unfair and boring? Or do you think it helps students become better readers? What kinds of books do you think should be required reading, and what should classes avoid? Is it a good way of getting students to read old classics?

I’ve definitely had to read a lot of books for school, for various english classes in elementary, middle, and high school. Some have been really good, and some I’ve hated.

Required reading

I think that required reading can be a really useful tool in schools, both to encourage students to read more, and also to get a deeper understanding of literature and writing.

It had it’s pros and cons, but done the right way, I believe it can be very beneficial.

Unfair?

A lot of old classics that are read in schools have little diversity, were written by old white Christian men, and students aren’t given a chance to explore different kinds of literature, and to really critique it.

In many places in the US where books are being banned, books that are included in school curriculums are being picked apart. Books about race, LGBTQ+ topics, a lot of history are being pulled from classrooms.

There are many people who would like to limit required and assigned reading to a very narrow kind of book, and that’s damaging.

beneficial?

But, done the right way, books assigned in classes can be very beneficial. They can give students different perspectives on history, give them something fun to look forwards to reading in classes.

Books with good representation give kids chances to see themselves in literature, and that’s important. So, when teachers pick books with different kinds of characters and stories, that’s very beneficial. There might be students who have turned away from books who are drawn back in when they see characters they can relate to more.

required reading books that i’ve really liked

There have definitely been books I’ve read for school that I’ve ended up really liking, and these are a few:

I read A Wrinkle in Time in 5th grade, and loved it! It was very unique, and unlike any books I’d read before. Getting to talk about such a fun story with my friends was great. However, there was one painful thing about the experience of reading it in class: how slowly we went through the book. We weren’t allowed to read ahead, a rule which I tried to follow but ended up completely ignoring when I just couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

I read Frankenstein this fall, the beginning of 10th grade, and I loved it! Part of what made me like the book so much was that we learned a lot about Mary Shelley, and also the historical context of the book. That made a lot of what happened in the book make a lot of sense when thinking about common scientific and general beliefs of the time, and added a level of understanding I wouldn’t necessarily have gotten if I’d tried to read it on my own.

Born a Crime, Trevor Noah’s memoir is an example of a more current book that was a lot more successful as required reading. Of the three required books I read in 9th grade, that was definitely the most well liked. I think that a big part of that was that Trevor Noah is much more well known, which made the book feel a lot more relevant and interesting to my class!

This definitely isn’t all of them, and I’ve had a lot of experiences with books that I found boring, and less relevant. The more diversity and representation in the books students are required to read, the more enthusiastic they will be! I know that’s definitely my experience.

This week’s posts:

Jillian @ Jillian the Bookish Butterfly | Raji @ Worlds Unlike Our Own | Jacq @ History Will Say This Was Just a Book Blog | Laurie @ Laurie is Reading

And that’s it for this week’s LTB!

How do you feel about required reading? What are the best books you were required to read in school? The worst ones? How do you think required reading can be most beneficial? Chat with me in the comments below!