When I started teaching 11 years ago, I started with the mistaken idea that to teach students about reading and to turn them into readers I had to turn them into lovers of books. More specifically, I had to turn them into lovers of literature. Maybe this is because for years to be an English student meant to be a student of literature, the classics. And this definition has been slow to change. Thousands of middle school and high school teachers use YA literature in their classrooms, but people outside of the field look down on them, making the assumption that the teach YA literature is to dumb down what students read. Instead, the truth is that YA literature gives students character and situations to which they can relate and the very best teachers more often than not pair those YA novels with more complicated classic pieces of literature. A quick Google search of Common Core State Standards would lead any uninformed citizen to hundreds of articles and forums railing against the implementation of Common Core and the increased emphasis on reading non-fiction. Why? Because there are those who believe increasing non-fiction reading means an elimination of the classics. Instead, the truth is that good non-fiction can enhance student understanding of literature, showing them how those pieces relate to the real world.
The reality is that in the 21st century students need to be capable of critically reading everything and anything that is put in front of them and that means a redefinition of what it means to be a reader. I would love to see my students reading The Kite Runner, The Joy Luck Club, or To Kill a Mockingbird (just a few of my favorites) without my prompting, but I would be just as happy if I saw them willingly reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman or The New Yorker. Why? Because it would mean that they were READING and it wouldn't be fluff (and my students read a lot of fluff). They would be reading quality writing that might actually teach them something and expand their horizons.
This point came home today in my American Literature classes when we were reading Sherman Alexie's essay "Superman and Me." I personally love having students read this piece about Alexie's early relationship with books and the influence it had on him as a young Indian boy. For my students it not only highlights the modern struggles of Native American Indians (our current unit being Native American myths) but it also highlights the more global importance of reading. While the short piece has many poignant quotes, the one most fitting to this conversation occurs immediately after he discusses how he both loved books and read books at every waking moment as a child. He goes beyond books stating, "I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation." Reading was his only way off of the Spokane Indian Reservation. He knew that. And he clearly understood that while he loved books, there was more to the world of reading than just books and fiction.
Yesterday I asked what is a reader. Today I answer that with anyone who reads anything and everything put in front of them. Readers read because they want to read. They want to be entertained. They want to be informed. They want to laugh. They want to cry. They want to feel connected to the world around them and they understand the power of words to create that connection. Perhaps if we teachers find a way to expand the definition of what it is to be a reader we will be able to figure out how to get our students to step out of their comfort zone and try something new. We will be able to show them that to read is to be both connected and informed. To be a reader of anything and everything throws open the doors on their world. And isn't that what we want for them?
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