What are the responsibilities of readers?
Discussion
In a recent article for The Atlantic, professors at elite colleges are expressing concern that students are struggling to read an entire book.1
“There are always students who read insightfully and easily and write beautifully, but they are now more exceptions.”
College students are sharing with their professors that:
middle and high schools have stopped asking students to read entire books.
they were assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles in their secondary school experience, but not a single book cover to cover.
they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.
students arrive on campus with a narrower vocabulary and less understanding of language than they used to have.
Screens and scripted curricula are commonly cited as reasons for this decline.
Thinking more about this issue, Daniel Pennac’s book Better Than Life came to mind.2
Specifically, his “Reader’s Bill of Rights” surfaced to my attention.
I have seen posters of these rights displayed proudly in classrooms (although not as frequently as I have in the past). They serve to protect our students from the mandates and overstandardization of reading instruction, while ensuring that joy and agency are part of becoming a reader.
And yet I worry that this expectation, to alter our students’ relationship with books, will fall solely on teachers and leaders.
So, while I don’t want to swing the pendulum too hard in any conversation around reading, I do wonder:
Should our classrooms also co-create a reader’s bill of responsibilities?
If so, what might be some of these expectations of our students? (and if I could be asking a better question here, let me know that too :-)
Do you have colleagues who might also offer thoughtful insights here?
H/t Regie Routman for gifting me this book.