Is Required Reading Necessary?
Required books are incredibly important in the case of literary analysis. Being able to analyze old texts and readings are useful skills to have in any kind of career, especially since not everyone writes the same way. It is also important to understand the historical context of books in general.
But is the way it is structured in schools today considered effective?
That’s subjective to each reader. I would have originally stated: No, because it’s not fit for all kinds of readers. Now, reflecting on this when I originally wrote it in 2022, I would say no way of required reading will fit every kind of reader or non reader to be “effective”.
I am a reader for both literary analysis and enjoyment. I did not enjoy many reads in high school. However, ones I liked better than others had some sort of literary context that made the reading valuable. Some of the required books involved hot topics set back in times of major historical events, like Stalin’s reign, the Holocaust, and Martin Luther King Jr’s era.
I think it is important for all of us to look at required books and realize the deeper context and learning aspect of books. Not everything is just for entertainment, test taking, or book reports.
Should Students Be Allowed to Pick Their Own Books
I don’t think everyone should be able to pick their own book all the time. This puts a lot on teachers, professors, and schools to monitor the books that may be appropriate for High Schoolers. This also allows us as a society to walk around a lot of these books with historical context like I was saying.
Think about a high school student who decided to do a literary analysis and historical context paper on 50 Shades of Grey… No thanks.
Required reading for a lot of us readers would ruin reading experiences. While I do not think we should be avoiding historically relevant books or banned books for required reading in schools, I do think it would be beneficial to allow students to pick books for themselves from time to time. Another solution for this could be having a list of required reading books and voting for which ones to read at that time.
This allows students to be able to still read books they might enjoy, and still require some reads to be educational and relevant.
Benefits of Required Reading
I mentioned the use of historical context a few times, but there are other benefits such as learning literary devices and improving writing skills and vocabulary.
In a lot of these older reads and banned books, we can learn a lot about metaphors, irony, imagery, personification, etc. Understanding these devices not only help up with our reading comprehension, but also allow us to become better writers.
What if I don’t want to be a writer or an author?
Writing is used throughout high school and college. It is also used in documentation with different fields like medicine and law. One day it will be important to understand the importance of writing and literary skills in your life.
Required reading can also teach us important lessons in speech and vocabulary. We are able to articulate our words better with more reading because reading is practice. Being literate is important in life, and reading can allow us to communicate with others with speech patterns and word annunciation.
It is becoming a hot topic to start teaching our children to read from a very young age to be able to get ahead in schooling because it develops their communication skills and reading comprehension. There are studies done on early childhood readers to have better success rates in schooling because they learned how to comprehend, spell, and annunciate more words from a young age. This is why it’s so important to continue that into schooling and into adulthood.
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