Modern-Day Novels or Timeless Classics

By Corey Rott

Classics have been the bane of students everywhere. English teachers hand out these insufferable copies of old books that everyone in the classroom dreads. But if students hate them so much why do teachers insist on demanding their classes read them? The answer is perspective.

English teachers and adults sympathize with the characters of older books better than the new age manuscripts. However what adults sympathize with from their perspective on life is not what they should be making students read. Kids are dropping their interest in reading drastically because they feel that if all books are this boring, why read? Making “classics” a mandatory requirement is hurting kids’ love of books.

More and more schools are realizing this and switching over to book clubs that hold many new age options so students get more of a choice. Instead of reading guides, mind numbing tests, or reading checks, students get to discuss a more relevant book with their peers.

English classes moving away from the canon and more towards book clubs

This has brought new light to students ideas of what literature can be and will lead to a better read society.

In addition when students read books similar to their own situations instead of the issues of someone from the eighteenth century, they feel less alone in their own problems and have added fire to face them like the characters do. English Teacher Daniel Kennard writes “the fear is that the students who don’t come from said culture won’t be able to relate as well or can’t “see” themselves in the classics.”

Sophomore English teacher Marc Gibbens believes that “in the ideal English class there would be a blend of both of those things, of whole class reads and small group reads.” Even English teachers believe that there should be more small group reads of students choosing their own stories they want to pursue, even if the way it’s carried out differs the consensus is unanimous; there should be more voice in teenagers required reading.

But the English teachers themselves believe we should add more personalized reading groups to the agenda in place of group reading classics then what is causing this not to happen? Like most things the delay of choice reading most likely stems from the unwillingness to change either by administration or by some English teachers themselves.

Just because teachers, the principal, or administration are stuck in the past does not mean students need to choose our own reading material any less. Depression amongst students is at an all time high and one of the contributing factors is unengaging, unfulfilling, and boring work being assigned. If a student finds no reason to do something except for the fact that someone told them to do it even if they get nothing out of it, it drags hard working teens into their heads to try and find what they’re missing in the boring literature of the classics. When the cycle continues, students are left stuck in their head about everything and notice more of what is going on

around them with no reprieve of a fantasy world inside of a good book leading to more depressed students.

Daniel Kennard added the quote by Ralph Emerson that states “Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.” Like in the quote society might lose old instincts that might never have been productive in the first place and acquires new art.