AIBU to think they might actually read a book in English? (Secondary)

[runningoutofnewnames]

DS's English class start reading books, then the teacher uses them to demonstrate some kind of grammar exercise or other construction of the English language - then they never actually finish it.

He's in Year 8, and they've only read one book from beginning to end in class since he started at secondary last year.

They're told they're not allowed to read ahead and often they're not even given the book, they're given photocopied sheets each lesson.

So, they read half of Animal Farm. The point of that was to teach them how to write a paragraph with a persuasive argument, apparently. Once they'd done that exercise, the module was finished and they stopped reading the book. DS loves reading and wants to discuss the content of the book in class. This isn't allowed.

This half term, they've done dystopian fiction but they've only read passages from books, not whole books (e.g. photo copied pages from the Hunger Games). The point of that was to demonstrate the elements needed to do a "creative" short story exercise - they were marked on the inclusion of these specific elements, not encouraged to be creative.

He's only read one whole book at school since he started nearly 18 months ago.

Do your DC read whole books in school?

We used to read loads when I was young! We did English Language AND literature when I went to school - it wasn't all about the mechanics of language, it was about appreciating books too and exploring ideas. I loved doing Animal Farm. We certainly read it to the end!

There's a similar focus on the mechanics and lack of creativity in his art lessons too, but that's another story.

Is this is the curriculum (fucking Gove's influence, still?) or his school, I wonder?

I agree it's unreasonable but as a workaround, could you borrow the books from the library (or borrow as e-books) so he can finish them?

He mightn't be allowed to read ahead in class but they can't stop him reading what he wants at home.

Personally I would buy a copy of Animal Farm if you don't have one, as it's the sort of book you want to re-read.

I think DS, also y8 has similar, but we did read ahead, watched the film and talked about the story a lot, the Russian Revolution etc. Same with Lord of the Flies. I think there is a funding issue with multiple copies of books and they get handed out and not returned and time constraints are such that if they do read the whole book in class they won't cover anything else. Maybe if schools weren't told to teach every bloody social skill and life skill they'd have time to reach academic subjects properly (I'm a teacher btw )

We teach all of:
Roll of thunder (7)
Anita and Me (play in 8)
Of mice and men (yr9’s as it’s not gcse any more)

Aaannnd…that’s probably it.

We don’t read an entire shakespeare play at ks3. We often use extracts of novels in order to teach creative writing (that’s pretty standard really). We use extracts from novels for other things too.

There just isn’t the time. We have assessments every 5-6 weeks. You can’t read a full text and teach the skills necessary for the assessment in that space of time. Teachers would love to just read and talk and enjoy teaching a love of literature. The reality of the English classroom is very different. It’s all about progress and data entry points and the assessment flight plan. 😴😴

That sounds fairly standard to me and I did my GCSE's over 15 years ago now.

We rarely read full books until AS level. It was mainly symbolism and grammar and syntax - focusing on specific chapters or paragraphs from the books rather than the entire books themselves.

Yes, I'm buying him the books so he can read them at home. He reads lots.

But what I'm worried about is the whole approach. I got loads out of directed reading at school. I was lucky to have some great English teachers in some years and they bought the books alive for me.

There's no way I would have understood Shakespeare without the teacher, for example.

And I remember doing Pride and Prejudice at 6th form. They expected you to read it ahead of time, and I'd read about half of it at home and got bored. I didn't get it at all. Then reading it in class with the teacher was a totally different experience - she helped us access Jane Austin's wit and subtlety - I'd totally missed it, reading on my own.

Life is a bit full on right now though. I don't really have time to be his English teacher at home but perhaps I need to try sort something out. I had assumed they were at least reading books in English!

I don't think it's a new thing - I'm 40 my English teachers often did this - though we did read a few cover to cover - Treasure island being one of the few.

I remember some parent thing where they were selling books - and we'd read the first page of Pride and Prejudicein class I saw picked it up mention to DParents I was interested in reading more - so they bought it - odd thing was my English teacher being very disapporving. I went on to read all the rest of Jane Austen output from there. My parents found the attitude odd as well.

My children have sometimes asked us to buy books so they can read them all.

I'm pretty sure that's what my year 9 ds does in English. He always has photocopied sections from the book in his bag

@ChiselandBits

I think DS, also y8 has similar, but we did read ahead, watched the film and talked about the story a lot, the Russian Revolution etc. Same with Lord of the Flies. I think there is a funding issue with multiple copies of books and they get handed out and not returned and time constraints are such that if they do read the whole book in class they won't cover anything else. Maybe if schools weren't told to teach every bloody social skill and life skill they'd have time to reach academic subjects properly (I'm a teacher btw )

Yes, I do understand get the funding issue. My own school had terrible funding issues and we often shared one book between 3. And we did have photocopies sometimes.

@Faffandahalf

We teach all of: Roll of thunder (7) Anita and Me (play in 8) Of mice and men (yr9’s as it’s not gcse any more)

Aaannnd…that’s probably it.

We don’t read an entire shakespeare play at ks3. We often use extracts of novels in order to teach creative writing (that’s pretty standard really). We use extracts from novels for other things too.

There just isn’t the time. We have assessments every 5-6 weeks. You can’t read a full text and teach the skills necessary for the assessment in that space of time. Teachers would love to just read and talk and enjoy teaching a love of literature. The reality of the English classroom is very different. It’s all about progress and data entry points and the assessment flight plan. 😴😴

So, it's the curriculum rather than the school?

If this is being forced on teachers it must be soul destroying

We've just started this year reading the whole book non stop, it's so much better than bits of the book. The department has also introduced a lot of short stories.

I don't think we read full books in class til A Level.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts

That sounds fairly standard to me and I did my GCSE's over 15 years ago now.

We rarely read full books until AS level. It was mainly symbolism and grammar and syntax - focusing on specific chapters or paragraphs from the books rather than the entire books themselves.

I did mine over 30 years ago!

(Had to think about that!)

I'm 22 now and it was the same when I was in secondary school. By year 10 we had separate language and literature lessons, in literature we were to read the whole books, (but I believe it was only 2 a year). I did A level English lit which you were then expected to independently read the books. However things may have changed in the past 10 years since I was year 8 too!

It's awful. I am not in the UK now but this kind of thing is really common where I am, although they don't even use the books for grammar and mechanics here. They will give kids audiobooks here in middle school years (about age 12 to 15.) They don't expect them to read.

Up until recently I was working as a reading tutor in primary schools and I will tell you, the reading abilities of the kids are in bad shape. Even the ones that are good students don't usually read much and the books are low level. Harry Potter seems to be about top of the heap. A lot of the kids don't follow narrative all that well.

It's a bad way to teach, too. They'd be much better off to read fewer things in their entirety, or even choose more short stories. where there is less commitment.

Actually, thinking about it... I went to a private school for what's now years 7 and 8. Then a pretty crap state school 13 - 16, and then an outstanding state 6th form.

It was the private school and the excellent 6th form we read whole books in.

I can't remember if we did in the state secondary. Definitely not in Year 9, we did fuck all work most of the time IIRC. I chose English Lang & Lit for GSCE, I'm pretty sure we must have read books but tbh I can't remember which ones, so maybe not?

Is that a difference between private and state, then? (I can't afford to send my DC private, just curious).

It was the same for my DD and DS when they did GCSEs about 10 years ago. I think it’s really sad and while it may be enough to learn elements of English and literature, it’s not the full experience.

I think back to when I did mine and read all the set books cover to cover which sparked a lifelong love of reading.

They will give kids audiobooks here in middle school years (about age 12 to 15.) They don't expect them to read.

WTF?!!

No idea whether this is curriculum or not but I agree with you that it sounds a bit shit. Yes your son will probably get the book to finish it himself, but that's not the same as discussing the book with others and getting other views on it. Also maybe lots of others in the class will never read a whole book unless it is in class.

We used to have books we read as a class. And of course I read ahead. How can you resist when you are waiting while one of your semi literate class mates are stumbling along misreading in a monotone.

It reminds me a bit of when DD was taking her options at school. This would have been at least 12 years ago. The school then had a policy of choosing GCSE subjects at the end of Y8 so they had 3 years to take them in. Anyway, for English they had to choose 2 GCSE subjects, either English Language and English Literature or English Language and Media. DD chose language and literature (of course) We were therefore put out to find she had Media homework. When I questioned this at parents evening the English teacher said "We don't know yet what the set books for literature will be in the year DD takes the exam so there is no point reading a book that won't be in the exam. But media is dead easy so they can do it in a year, so that's an extra GCSE. "

When I expressed the opinion that a year spent reading good books, examinable or not, would be better use of her time than a media GCSE the teacher regarded me like I had two heads.

I leant a book to a lovely 20-something colleague of mine as it was relevant to something we'd been talking about. She read it and said she really enjoyed it. After she gave it back to me, she admitted it was the first book she'd actually read in book form (not audio book) form cover to cover.

This is a really smart young women who got a first at uni. But she's only ever read bits of books, or listened to audio books, never read books for pleasure. I though she was unusual (and I was secretly pleased with myself for giving her her first whole book!) but maybe she's not that unusual these days?

DD always either bought the book or got the book from school before a half term/end of term holiday and they were expected to read the book in full before they started working on it.

They often didn't read it fully in class but were expected to know the text enough to draw comparisons between chapters/scenes/character developments etc when they worked on individual parts of the book.

I think she did always 2 books per school year, one could also be a play until Y10. In a case of the play they were provided with free links to performances to watch in advance.

They just have so much to learn re structure, format, language, pace etc that 3 hours a week (or however much is set aside for English) just is not long enough to get through full novels.

The teacher should know this though and signpost the students to the library for those that want to read the full novel in their spare time.

I hate the idea of children who might have a natural love of reading fiction being unsupported like this.

Even at a selective private school I felt my son in particular was palmed off with easy reads. He wasn’t a super intellectual boy but he was bright and quite up to being challenged.

This has been my experience with my DC (one now doing A Levels, and 1 doing GCSEs). I found it so sad, plus the literature that they studied for GCSE was pretty boring (I guess unchallenging and accessible for more students).

I was concerned when DD wanted to do A Level English Lit, as she hadn't really read any classics, and she's definitely found it pretty challenging trying to catch up (plus she's reading LOTS in her spare time to try and read some classics that she really should have read at an earlier age).

I had a teacher explain to me that they would target excerpts that would most likely come up in exam questions, and not bother teaching the rest of the text. It seems to totally negate the whole point of Eng Lit if you don't have any real idea on how the scene fits in with the overall story arc.

I went to a very academic private school, and we were doing at least 1 Shakespeare text a year, plus we did Dickins, Bronte, Goldsmith, Chaucer, Falkner, Lee etc etc. We ALWAYS read the whole book in class, and my wonderful English teachers were excellent at bringing the subtext to life. I adored English Lit, and still appreciate good literature (classic and modern) now, I think down to this excellent grounding.

I did my GCSE and A level in the mid 90s at an outstanding state school. I had fabulous old school English teachers who read along with us, bringing the books alive. But our exercises were based on bits of the book, or the introduction, or writing an extra chapter. But we were we encouraged to read the full thing and often did.

At A Level, we did the full thing in huge depth but it took a term per book. At Uni, ut was a book a week.

Loved English. But I must admit that I have yet to finish Z for Zachariah, The Day of the Triffids, Kes and Beowolf.