Making Summer Reading Less of a Drag

In this School Library Journal article, Carly Okyle criticizes the approach some high schools take to summer reading – requiring students to read classics like The Scarlet Letter and A Farewell to Arms and write weekly journal entries. This approach is seen by some teachers as beneficial to academic achievement – or at the very least helpful test prep, since the vocabulary in classic literature tends to pop up in AP tests and the SAT. But avid readers tend to resent being forced to read, struggling readers find the classics too difficult to understand without help, and any student can fake the required paperwork by using literary cheat-sheets like SparkNotes. “As high schoolers,” says California student Heather Smith, 16, “we like to think we have some freedoms rather than have someone spoon-feed us what we’re supposed to know and what we’re supposed to think.”

Jennifer Frantz, supervisor of language arts in a New Jersey district, joins others in arguing that having a required summer reading list is an unproven strategy and it’s better to give students free choice of what they read. “Reading is best and most effective when you create a positive experience around it,” says Ellen Riordan of the American Library Association. “Reading for pleasure improves stress levels and test scores,” says California librarian Faythe Arredondo. “A lot of teens coming into the library are only there to read what they have to. They take no enjoyment in the offerings, and I feel it kills their love of reading.” 

Kiera Parrott of School Library Journal has ten suggestions for escaping dreary book assignments and “flipping” summer reading. Students choose a book and then do one or more of the following:

• Draw a map of the setting.
• Write a short story about what the character(s) would be doing one year later.
• Imagine you could interview the protagonist. What three questions would you ask?
• Redesign the cover.
• Write a letter to the author or illustrator.
• Write a short book review remembering to include a few sentences describing the book as well as a few sentences about why you liked it – or didn’t.
• Choose two people or characters from two different books who you think would be great friends, explaining why.
• Choose one book location or setting to live in for a week – it can be fiction or nonfiction. Which book would you choose and why?
• Take a photo of the cover of each book you read. Create a photo collage or animated trailer (perhaps using Animoto).
• Recommend a book to a friend or family member. Which title did you choose and why?

“Flip Summer Reading: What to Do About Those Tired, Required Reading Lists” by Carly Okyle in School Library Journal, April 2015 (Vol. 61, #4, p 32-34), no e-link available

From the Marshall Memo #582