Fuel to the Fire

I was sitting at the dinner table last night and my brother was doing his homework at the other end.  I asked him what he was working on and it was his English homework.  It was a project for his summer reading book; he had to find 5 songs and relate them to the book.  One paragraph for each song.  Simple I thought.  I asked him to read me what he had so far.  To say it sucked would be an understatement.  I would fail you if you were my student i told him.  He just shrugged.  Ten minutes later i found myself on google trying to find more relatable songs to the novel Feed.  Twenty minutes later I was writing out five paragraphs explaining why they relate to the novel.  Why?? Why did I just do his homework? Hes not stupid and hes definitely not lazy.  He just didn't think reading the novel would benefit him so he simply decided not to.  Even when i told him  that it was awesome and he'd really like it he didn't even bother to open it.  He used spark notes and thought that would give him a clear understanding of all the themes in the novel.  I sit here complaining that students don't read and that they can sometimes be lazy or absorbed in other things and i just added fuel to the fire. At least i know he'll get a good grade now....

Its clear that the more years past the less students read.  I cant imagine the reading rate of an average high school English class.  There is obviously many reasons a student might not read the book you have given them but, I am a firm believer that the number one reason is because that students are not interested in the texts we have choosen for them.  Why read Of Mice and Men when you can stalk your friends on facebook or watch reality television? Which is all way more entertaining.  I'm not sure what solution there is to this because as teachers we are constantly competing with technology.  I feel that maybe giving students a choice on what to read may help dwindle the number of students not reading but, there will always be students your selection will not please.  There will always be that student who would rather watch Jersey Shore then a book, simply because it requires much less effort and they beileve it to be way more entertaining.  I'm not saying students today are lazy they just need to be sold.  As teachers we are the sales people and books are our products.  Some students will buy it, others will not.

Burning Question

As a student becoming a teacher I obviously am burdened with a lot of questions. However, the one that I cant seem to get out of my head or find an answer to is: how do we get our students to read? When I was in high school I can honestly say spark notes was my best friend. I'm not sure I ever read a book from front to back, not because I didn’t know how but because I simply did not like to read. To make matters even worse, the books we were told to read just did not interest me. So now as one of those students becoming a teacher myself I'm going into the classroom knowing that many of my students will not be reading the next I will be assigning each night. So what do I do? Do I give them choices of books each time so they can chose something they're interested in? Or should I just hope for the best and assign what I had planned? Should I tell them they should all love to read and pretend I didn’t use to be just like them? Or should I let them know that it’s okay if reading isn’t their thing right now because one day it might be? If someone would have told me that 7 years ago I would have laughed in their face yet here I am spending my SUMMER days reading book after book after book, and enjoying every minute of it.  But it wasn't a teacher that got my reading, it was my own desire to pick up a book so how do I give my students the same desire?  How do I get them to forget about spark notes and cuddle up with a real book?  How do I get my students to want to read???