Ew, Shakespeare

 

source: https://www.google.com

“My wife’s a hobby horse!” 

“Thou art as fat as butter.” 

“Thou lump of foul deformity.”

If the picture or the title of this post is any indication of who could've said those phrases, you guessed it: William Shakespeare. The bane of any student's English education and one of the most underrated rebels in literary history. 

He was certainly not one to skimp on insults. (In fact, here is the site to see just how colorful his vocabulary was...)

Maybe next time you're in an argument and somebody comes at you with a harsh slur, you can whip out one of these lines and put it to good use. It's what Bill would've wanted, after all.

Just kidding. Let's leave Old English name-calling aside and focus on the real reason for bringing up my favorite irrelevant white dude.

William Shakespeare, among many, many, many other authors have been put on the chopping block in recent years on the grounds that their works are challenging for younger generations to read, let alone interpret and analyze. Not only do they justify their banishment from classrooms on that basis but on the grounds that the ideas contained within them are dangerous and potentially insensitive to how society functions today. 

This, unfortunately, isn't speculation on my part. I've witnessed this time and again. And if I were a younger reader at this point of history, I'd be frustrated beyond belief. It's like, you're not allowed to read modern books because they have a tendency to be controversial and then again you shouldn't read older classics because they're irrelevant and obsolete. 

source: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a9/20/3e/a9203ef804708abb9162ab27d03ab0be.jpg

It is interesting to see which types of books kids these days are interested in. As Sell states, “Teenagers are more likely to read and engage with books with protagonists and characters that they can identify with” (5). Characters like Hermoine Grainger, Percy Jackson, and even Edmund Pevensie are all relatable in some way. Hermoine has to learn how to listen to others and not rely on her own knowledge for everything. Edmund needed to obtain selflessness, which he discovered after being enslaved by the White Witch. And Percy? Ok he doesn't really have that many issues...except if you've read House of Hades you may recall that his fatal flaw is that he cares too much about those he loves. (Tell me again why he isn't the most popular YA hero???)

Anyways, before I make turn this into a Percy Jackson Appreciation Post, I do want to point out that not only is it a teacher's job to make reading fun (especially more challenging novels) but students have a responsibility to be open-minded about what they read. This is a two-fold task. By reading a variety of books and authors, they will inevitably gain a preference for a certain writing style. That could lead them to reading more from that person and even branching off to explore other works done by similar authors in that genre. Then again, by reading anything and everything, a young reader know what doesn't work for them, and can opt out of those books that don't engage them as much as others.

The key factor here is to read in general. 

Someone anonymously stated, "Everyone is a reader...Some just haven't found their favorite book yet."

source: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/b5/86/2a/b5862a6d6a8cd2b8c899c5a339c9bee2.jpg

Yes, I'm going into English and yes, I read books like how some people drink water. I get where my biases lay. But I won't stop advocating the importance of reading in a young child's life. The books we read today carry us forth into tomorrow, as cliche as it sounds. Numerous studies have found this to be true: the books you read subconsciously affect your decision making and comprehension skills. They aid you in seeing the world from a variety of perspectives. Most importantly, it gives you something productive to do with your time instead of thoughtlessly scrolling on a phone for hours on end (not to say I'm not guilty of that too...).

In the classroom, you, as a student, have the capacity to pursue a love of reading. It will start small, maybe like a short chapter book. Then a book on your favorite celebrity. Then a classic adventure story by Roald Dahl or Robert Louis Stevenson. And you will keep reading until you feel ready to take on the greats, like Fyodor Dostoevsky or Victor Hugo.

To close it out, I want to leave you with a quote by one study that found the three main practices that students found favorable to them for reading during class: time to read, time to listen to teachers read, and access to personally interesting materials. The authors go on to explain their findings: 

However, students’ perspectives on why these practices work for them opened our eyes to some different ways to think about motivation to read, raised some important questions about teaching, and extended our own research questions. While we were interested in what would inspire students to read in school, students seemed more concerned about the conditions that would help them learn and grow from their reading rather than about motivation to read in general. Rather than asking, “What makes students want to read?” We now wonder if a better question is, “How can we use reading and reading instruction to attend to students’ motivation to learn?” (Ivey and Broaddus 370)

I answered this partly in the last post. So now, all young aspiring readers coming across my humble blog, I place the ball into your court. How are you going to grow your love of reading? Which books interest you and make you stay up until past a normal bedtime, just to get in one more chapter?

The answer to that, I'm afraid, comes from self-discovery and an open mind. And I cannot do that for you, but I can encourage you to seek after it, because it may be the most important thing you will do for yourself.