Reading for a Better World: Teaching for Social Responsibility with Young Adult Literature

By: Eleanore

There are four words in Reading Don't Fix No Chevys (Smith & Wilhelm, 2003) that particularly resonated with me. The authors interviewed middle and high school boys to better understand their lives of literacy. One boy, a junior in high school, told them, "English is about nothing" (p. 188). Yes! Exactly. English is about nothing. That is exactly how I felt when I was an adolescent. Math, science, social studies, they were about something: geometry, sedimentary rocks, the American Civil War. I may have been bored silly because of how they were taught (textbooks and lectures and worksheets ad infinitum), but at least they were about Cartier Replica something. Reading and writing—-well, in my young adult mind—I already knew how to read and write. School just kept having me read and write year after year to torture me in the name of...nothing.

Authors do not write books for readers to answer comprehension questions or to do "exercises" to learn "reading skills." They write books because they want the reader to enjoy a good story and—not always but true for the books I'll be writing about here—they have some important ideas they want readers to think about. And what amazing thematic ideas young adult literature has. Put a good book into the hands of a skilled and passionate teacher and those ideas come alive in the classroom; no longer is reading simply a laborious and necessary evil to help students pass their science test. Suddenly, reading has purpose.

Tovani (2000) wrote that when it comes to reading "purpose is everything" (p. 24). I have my graduate students interview young adults about their reading. They ask them why they read in school. Not one student interviewed could articulate a purpose for reading in school other than to "get the assignment done," "read the textbook," or learn a skill. There is no mention of reading for pleasure, reading to stay informed of current events, or reading to shape political, moral, or cultural identities. In other words, they do not see any thematic content in books as a purpose for reading in school. As Tovani wrote, "When I ask students why they read in school, they say Cartier Replica Watches their teacher makes them: 'Read chapter 10. There will be a test on Monday'" (p. 24).

Yet, reading has vital purposes beyond improving reading skills, learning content knowledge across the curriculum, and preparing children for their future employment. Living in a democracy poses specific obligations for reading. While a nation of workers requires a country that can read, a democracy requires people that do read, read widely, and think and act in response to their reading. However, if you ask adolescents why they go to school you will more than likely hear a response having to do with one purpose: to get a job.

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