Literature Study

Worksheets and book reports. Ah, you remember them well. In fact, they may be the reason your love of reading burned out as a child. How do we as teachers cultivate a love of reading while also tracking our students’ progress?

We all know that literature and writing belong together like peanut butter and jelly, but what exactly should that relationship look like? What is a literary analysis paper, and why do we write them? Do they harm our experience of a book, or can it be a helpful tool for enhancing our understanding?

We’re talking about those paperbacks your kids like to read that didn’t quite make the cut for the Great Books collection. And by “didn’t quite make the cut,” we mean they didn’t even come close and never will. The stories may be interesting, but the language and imagery probably aren’t feeding our souls…or are they? What is the place of pulp fiction on our own and on our students’ reading lists? How often are we “allowed” to read them instead of a classic?

There are millions upon millions of books in the world, and we could put any of them on our students’ booklists this year. How are we supposed to choose? And what if we make the wrong choice? How do we know which books are the right ones for our students? 

Let’s say you’re on board with teaching literature using the Socratic Method. You might even be pretty good at it if your students would just give you a chance! But no matter what you do, Johnny and Mary just won’t sit down and finish a book. What’s to be done?

Say you have two high-schoolers, one student in junior high, and another in elementary. The high-schoolers each have 10 books that you absolutely must teach them this year so that they can be prepared to get into college. The junior-higher has another 8, and somehow you still need to read aloud to the little. How on earth are you supposed to survive?