Blog #6 Readicide

Is Readicide a problem in schools? I do think that “readicide” is a problem in schools. Almost all of the books that we have to read for school are books that are considered classics and have not been written recently, most not even in this decade. A lot of them are sad or very serious stories that normal fifteen, sixteen year olds would not voluntarily choose. I think that’s one of the main reasons that kids don’t want to read at school or outside of school. We associate reading with having to do essays and stopping to take notes every couple of pages and topics that we aren’t interested in. If we were able to choose some of the titles or even were able to read more updated books and ones that we as teenagers could relate to, I bet so many more kids would actually read and enjoy the books assigned in English class. Some might even start to read outside of class too because they liked the ones that they read in class so much. It’s really an easy fix someone just needs to step up and show how “readicide” is an actual problem and that it isn’t a hard thing to fix. What should a 21st century English class reading list look like? It doesn’t have to be fashion magazines and sports stories and stories that only teenagers want to read. It should be a mix of everything maybe one or two classics that many people love, a romance or mystery, and maybe even a fantasy. Something like the Hunger Games, which practically everyone loves or the Divergent trilogy. You want kids to want to read. You shouldn’t be bombarding them with notes and essays and tests and putting them to sleep every time that they have to read a chapter. The reading lists for 21st century English classes should be intriguing to the students and recently updated. It shouldn’t be made up of stories where a whole family gets killed and the story is told by the killers and it shouldn’t be about a firefighter who starts fires or a bunch of kids that got stranded on an island and have to learn how to survive. (Which all were old stories.) It should be books that appeal to teenagers.