Students Should Choose Their Own Summer Reading
Ben Seklir / Riverdale Review
Pictured above are the required reading books for Upper School English and history classes during the summer of 2020. However, with a general lack of student engagement with the material, should we rethink summer reading at Riverdale?
Students at Riverdale are no stranger to required summer reading. Every summer we are assigned two or three books to read in preparation for the classes we will be taking in the upcoming year. But most of the time, students wait to read these books until the end of the summer and do not read them with much attention. Because summer reading does not seem to be taken seriously by many students, it begs the question, should summer reading become a thing of the past?
Summer reading does serve a purpose: it is a jumping off point on the first day of class and gets students to think about what they will be learning in the coming year. With that being said, looking at the way most students go about doing their summer reading reveals that the current system has room for improvement. Students will often put off their required reading until the week before—or even the day before!—school starts, leaving little time to engage with the material. On top of this, students do not actively read the required books because they know that their teachers will review these books during class. The lack of engagement with the readings makes it difficult for students to talk and write about the book in writing assignments and class discussions.
To encourage students to read more in the summer, it might be more effective to send a list of recommended books, from both students and teachers, and provide optional meetings to discuss them at the start of the year. By doing this, students who were not inclined to read for fun might begin to see reading as something more enjoyable.
As for the required summer reading, I believe the Upper School should use the Middle School's current required reading system as a model. In the Middle School, students are required to read two books for their English class, but are given a list of books to choose from. During my time in the Middle School, I found it easier to do the summer reading assignments because I knew that I chose the books that I was reading. In class discussions, I found myself more engaged about the summer reading.
The list doesn’t have to be extensive; it just has to exist in order to allow for some semblance of choice. The books could all be about the same topic, or have similar themes. In order to ensure all students understand the curriculum for the year, even with the choice in reading material, teachers could have students do presentations on what they took away from the books they read. Then, teachers could create groups of students who all read the same book, and have them discuss it. With students reading a variety of books over the summer, they would all have different perspectives to offer. Simply put, if teachers want students to engage with their required summer reading, give them the freedom to choose their text.
