The Missouri Reader Vol. 37, Issue 1 | Page 16

thankfully I read in college; Mark Twain‘s The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which my mom read to
be as a child; and Suzanne Collins‘s The Hunger Games,
which I had never even heard of at that time. My
eighth graders were scheduled to read S.E. Hinton‘s
The Outsiders; which, again, I read in college, J.R.R.
Tolkien‘s The Hobbit, which I had heard of, but never
read; along with Jeanne DuPrau‘s City of Ember and
Pat Frank‘s Alas, Babylon, both of which were brand
new to me. I also found out I would be teaching
Harper Lee‘s To Kill a Mockingbird, another classic that
I never read because it was not on my reading level.
It is really a weird situation to be teaching books
that I was never even allowed to read. The only
novels I remember reading as a class in my seventh
through twelfth grade school career were Where the
Red Fern Grows, L. Frank Baum‘s The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz, and F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby, the
latter of which was not until my senior year, so I
honestly do not have a strong model from my own
experiences. Sure, my college course work had
taught me how to be a teacher, but I never got to
experience these books at the age my students are, so
it is somewhat difficult to put myself in their shoes
and teach it in a way that they will find beneficial. The
biggest help I found in solving my dilemma was to put
myself in the place of my students and read various
Young Adult texts, both classical and modern.
Reading a text for the first time, no matter what the
age of the reader, brings up questions and interests
relevant to life in general. The things that intrigued
me and made me want to know more were generally
the same things, I found, that my students were
interested in learning about as well.
While I would have loved to have been able to
read more young adult books as a pre-teen and teen, I
am thankful for the opportunity to read them now. It
is my job as an English and reading teacher to keep
up-to-date with books that are popular with my
students, as well as relative to their lives. This can
include newly published books or classics that have
influenced young readers for decades. It is also my
responsibility to find ways to make the teaching of it
interesting and engaging.
By finding ways to get my students to connect the
reading to their own lives, they are able to see the
story in a more meaningful way. By giving students
opportunities to write about what they read, they are
able to think through their emotions and questions
and respond to the literature in a open and honest

way. By having students do hands-on activities, move
around, talk to one another, create projects, or even
simply spend a few minutes reflecting on their own,
teachers are able to break their students free from the
mundane routines that are so easy to fall in to.
Gallagher (2009) wrote in his book, Readicide, a recipe
for killing a reader‘s joy of reading: dicing a novel
into pieces, it dousing with sticky notes, and inserting
worksheets until it is overdone and unrecognizable.
Though I do fear this is the reality of many
classrooms, according to Gallagher, this is not what
reading should be. Reading should be something kids
love to do, not something they are forced to do to
reach a point goal by the end of the year or regurgitate
specific details for a test.
The idea of higher-level readers reading lowerlevel books seems to be a hot topic in some areas of
the literary world. The New York Times published an
article under the Room for Debate section titled ―The
Power of Young Adult Fiction.‖ Some people shared
in my enthusiasm for everyone enjoying YA
literature, such as Lev Grossman, book critic for Time
magazine. Grossman (2012) stated, ―…most adults
were young adults at some point in their lives, and
some of us are still processing that experience. Young
adult novels can be as powerful as anything out there‖
(para. 5). Other critics may not share in this opinion,
such as Joel Stein (2012), a columnist for Time
magazine who wrote under that same debate forum:
―The only thing more embarrassing than catching a
man on the plane looking at pornography on his
computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading The
Hunger Games‖ (para. 1). While these authors are
most likely thinking about adults in the chronological
sense, the same stigma seems to be true for younger
readers who are on the reading level of adults. Should
eighth-grade students with a post-high school reading
level be reading books that are written for their age or
their reading level? Or maybe should they be reading
for their interest? Or maybe they should be reading
books that are complex and will increase their higher
level thinking skills?
With an emphasis on range, quality, and
complexity, all of these issues arise when thinking
about the Common Core State Standards and how to
engage students in reading worthwhile texts. As
educators, we are all aware that the ultimate goal of
education is to strive to make all students perform at
or above their grade level. And as educators, we are
probably all aware that that goal is nearly impossible.
©The Missouri Reader, 37 (1) p.16