In his essay, “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading,” John Holt explains his approach to reading as follows:
I don’t want you to feel that just because you start a book, you have to finish it. Give an author thirty or forty pages or so to get his story going. Then if you don’t like the characters and don’t care what happens to them, close the book, put it away, and get another. I don’t care whether the books are easy or hard, short or long, as long as you enjoy them.
Your teachers agree with Holt — to a certain extent, at least — and we want to help you discuss the first 30-40 pages of each novel we read with that quotation in mind. That discussion can be insightful and actionable. It cannot be a simple dismissal of the idea of reading — you have to try — but you will also not be forced past a reasonable point.
In Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, the first five chapters make up the 30-40 pages suggested by Holt. You must read those first five chapters. We will listen to at least one of those chapters together, letting Beah read his story to us. You will read the rest on your own.
Assignment: Guided Responses
Your assignment is to respond to the first five chapters by answering seven questions. First, answer these two-part questions, being specific about the plot and characters of the novel:
- What does it mean “to get [a] story going,” and how has that happened here?
- What does it mean to care about what happens to a character, and which character(s) do you care about so far?
- What does it mean to enjoy a story, and to what extent are you enjoying this one?
Second, answer the following questions, which are taken from our guide to the reading process:
- What “range of emotions and events that would take countless lifetimes to encounter” are you experiencing through this reading?
- How is what you’re reading developing your empathy through “the chance to see things from someone else’s point of view”?
- How is it helping you reflect on who you are — and the idea that “everyone is a strange and interesting person”?
- To what extent is it helping you to “see that failure is a part of life”?
In the end, you should have the answer to seven questions. Type those answers in a new document, and then attach a copy of them to the assignment in Google Classroom. Then copy your answers into this Google Form.
This class set of answers will be used to inform discussion and drive our next steps. We aren’t just looking at Ishmael Beah’s story; we are figuring out how you read, what that means for your learning, and where the threshold lies between forcing and inviting you to read.
Ask questions about this process in the comment section below. Treat these comments as a chance to engage your teachers in direct instruction, clarification, redirection, etc., while you look for chances to help your peers, too.