Which Books Should Every School Teach?
Every school has books that students are expected to read.
Some become lifelong favourites.
Some are remembered mainly because there was a test afterwards.
This week, The Guardian asked a group of leading authors a deceptively simple question:
Which novel should every school teach?
Their answers were varied, personal and sometimes unexpected.
That makes the question more interesting than it first appears.
Read the original Guardian feature
There probably isn't one perfect school reading list
A traditional school reading list often tries to balance several things at once:
- literary importance
- historical significance
- language and style
- cultural knowledge
- age appropriateness
- what students might actually enjoy reading
Those goals do not always point to the same books.
A novel can be hugely important historically and still feel remote to a 14-year-old.
Another book may be immediately engaging but offer less obvious connection to the traditional curriculum.
That tension is part of what makes the Guardian list interesting.
The writers were not simply choosing the books they considered “most important.”
They were choosing books they thought young people should encounter.
A good school book has to do more than survive analysis
Students are often asked to approach fiction through themes, techniques, quotations and essay questions.
Those things matter.
But before any of that can happen, the book has to create some reason to continue turning the pages.
A useful school novel might:
- introduce students to a world they have never experienced
- make a historical period feel human
- create a difficult moral question
- show an unfamiliar perspective
- make students argue about a character's choices
- or simply remind them that reading can be enjoyable
That last one is easy to underestimate.
Maybe the discussion matters as much as the choice
There may be no universally correct answer to:
“Which book should every student read?”
But asking the question itself could make a very good classroom activity.
Students could each nominate one book.
Then they would have to defend it.
Why this book?
What could another student learn from it?
Would it still matter in 20 years?
Does a school reading list need classics?
Should students have more choice?
A reading list suddenly becomes something students can examine rather than simply receive.
What would your students choose?
Adults usually decide which books belong in school.
It might be interesting to ask students the same question.
Not:
“What is your favourite book?”
but:
“What is one book you think every student your age should encounter, and why?”
The answers might tell us something useful about both reading and the students doing it.
Source
The Guardian: Leading authors on the novels every school should teach
