There’s lots of stuff I wish kids WOULD read, but I’d never push it the way English teachers do, because the first thing they do is suck all the joy out of a book by making you pay attention to the wrong stuff.
I make them study the list of characters and how they relate to the main character. We don’t go ahead until everyone can at least pretend to get this.
Then we read every day and fast, move it along. And we focus on behaviors and decisions and they all get to opine and they’re not allowed to (they try) make fun of each others’ ideas in class.
Then we see the film if there is one.
There’s nothing worse in school than making people focus on minutae in a book just to prove they’ve read it.
A mystery of mine is why, when we take parts and read a play like the glass Menagerie or Romeo and Juliet, why the boys jump up and take on the female roles.
They crack me up.