Choosing a Book
If this post has been assigned to you, you have been asked to choose a book to read as part of our English course. Each time you do this, read the entire post that follows; it is meant to apply even to choices outside of school, so revisiting the specifics may help you develop that habit.
To choose a book to read, you should start with this apt metaphor:
We should learn to treat [literature] as doctors treat their medicine, something we prescribe in response to a range of ailments and classify according to the problems it might be best suited to addressing. Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others: because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
As noted in the reading process post, the key word there is tool, as in a tool for our makerspace. Books are a way to solve problems and treat ailments and create meaning. They aren’t assignment to be endured; they are the most important part of the Humanities. From the video:
You will never run out of excellent books to read, and a lifelong habit will improve everything from your health to your relationships. Finding the right book, one that transports you, is even more important.
We’ll cover how to find a good book on your own in this post. You are in school, however, and that means there is a canon available to you — a collection of tried-and-true books available from the English Department.
This gives us a set of books from the grade-appropriate curriculum that are all known to “help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.” The list will be posted, with summaries and background, to Google Classroom. The books will also be made available in class for perusal around the time you must make a decision.
Any other choice — any book not on the default list — must be approved. You’ll be given a way to submit your suggestion (probably through a Google Form), and then we’ll talk together about literary merit.
There will be a deadline, and when it passes, your choice defaults to the first book on the prescribed list. This is to prevent you from perseverating and encourage you to think critically about what you’d like to read. That default book will be a good one, though, and well worth reading.
Examples of these canonical options, with the default choice bolded and the relevant curriculum indicated:
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 [English 10]
- George Orwell, Animal Farm [English 10]
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye [English 11]
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby [English 11]
Note: If a book is formally assigned to everyone as part of a unit of study, it is removed from the list. Re-reading books has its pros and cons, but in a school setting, the experience of reading a book for the first time is critical to the lesson.
Required Writing
The book titles in the last section link to Goodreads, which is one of the best resources available to you. You will find reviews from thousands of real people who have written not as part of a class assignment but because they were moved to write.
And the writing is key. You might start with the ratings, since it’s fascinating to see what more than 2.4 million people think about The Catcher in the Rye:
The 50,000 reviews are more enlightening, though, if you’re looking at a classic like Catcher. What did the folks who loved it write? What about the one-star reviews — what prompted those?
This isn’t to discount formal criticism. You can (and often should) look for what literary critics have said, and that can help shape your choice. If we stick for a moment with The Catcher in the Rye, you can find through The New York Times a complete page of resources, including reviews, for the novel. For more recent novels, Google will return dozens of newspaper, magazine, and blog reviews.
The benefit of going to the masses of a site like Goodreads is that you are seeing people much like you, not the critics hired for a national publication. Both offer valuable insight; Goodreads just so happens to offer a habit-forming platform, too, and we want to develop in you the habit of reading.
It’s also important to see reader’s respond in writing. That’s the most common kind of assessment of a novel you’ve chosen to read: a reader’s response. It’s not enough just to read, as those 50,000 reviewers of The Catcher in the Rye would tell you. You also have to see where your reading takes you:
Writing makes it possible and convenient to subject thought to a continuous and concentrated scrutiny. Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist — all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.
That’s Neil Postman, arguing in Amusing Ourselves to Death for a greater focus on reading and text in an increasingly technology-impaired society. Fortunately, there are essays that balance the needs of school with the authentic act of writing about what you’ve read. The best is a reader’s response:
That will most likely be the final assessment of your reading. To dodge the warpage of grades, it will also be part of the grade abatement process.
Reading Process Resources
Here is a partial list of other reading-related resources available through this instructional site.
The Reading Process | Covers almost everything. Specific posts from that overview worth highlighting:
As You Read: Works of Literary Merit | One version of the analysis process. An updated version is here: https://tinyurl.com/simplifiedanalysis.
Choosing to Read: Directions | Covers assigned texts versus student-chosen texts. The post you’re currently reading replaces it, though.
Literary Analysis Guide | Another version of the analysis process.