Readicide 72-85

In this section Gallagher talks a lot about something that I already know.  Teachers take the fun out of reading!  I can speak first hand to this true epidemic in our schools.  I never once enjoyed a book that I had to read in school except for maybe Forrest Gump which I read in the ninth grade.  The teacher in that class was way ahead of his time.  He took all the pressure off and allowed us to actually enjoy the book.  Instead of a test over trivial details that were in the book such as "What color was Jenny's shirt when she and Forrest blah blah blah"  you get the point.  Instead we had active discussions over the book and were allowed to talk freely about the book which made it a lot more enjoyable.  This book also was not a "school book".  The teacher went out of his way to find a book that we would enjoy and it worked wonders.  I wish I could say the same for the rest of my English teachers.  Reading became a chore as I was forced to battle through Ivanhoe, Macbeth, and the Great Odyssey.  The tests over the books were equally brutal and unpleasing.  There was such a pressure to try to remember  every little insignificant detail of the book that instead of reading the book we instead studied the book and I remember taking notes as I read.  Honestly, the entire experience has ruined my desire to read to this day.  The sight of a book brings back memories of those books I was forced to read in high school and it is very hard for me to enjoy it.  McQuillans study is interesting and goes along with my point from my experience.  His study suggests that students will develop a love for reading only if they are not forced to read.  By simply giving them access to good books and time to do nothing else will a student develop a desire to read.  If we remove the pressures and the grading a student will discover that reading is actually enjoyable activity and not a tedious task.  Gallagher also talks about academic texts and how to approach teaching them as teacher.  He suggests that it is important to show value in reading things such as Hamlet.  I think I would have benefitted greatly from this approach.  I hated Shakespeare and I remember thinking as I still do what is the point of this!  We don't speak this way anymore and we certainly don't write this way.  Why do we have to read this.  The reason as Gallagher shows is there is a lot of wisdom in Shakespeares work and while it is tedious to translate it the messages are what is valuable in these texts.  The teachers I had never took the time to "sell" these books to us and instead told us that we had to read it because there would be a test on it.  I assume you would see why I hated reading.  Gallagher talks a lot about how we as teachers should present a book to get the students interested and excited.  I think teachers get lazy and just assume the students will read the book for the simple reason that it is assigned.  We as teachers need to sell these books to our students and get them excited about it and Gallagher talks about a number of different ways we can do this.  I think there should always be a choice in reading.  A program I would implement would have the students pick from a number of books and present each book before the students picked.  I would not have tests over the book but instead have the students divide into groups or book clubs and have them present the book to the class.  I think this would create an atmospher fun surrounding reading and I would translate shakespeare before giving it to the students.  I mean seriously "where art thou romeo"!  Who talks like that anymore.  We might as well be reading latin.