LOWER POTTSGROVE PA – Apparently the classic reads just don’t cut it anymore.
Bronte's "Wuthering Heights."
Maybe “Wuthering Heights,” the 1847 Emily Bronte novel of romance, passion, and doses of nasty human behavior – which now seem tame in comparison to the nightly news – isn’t real enough.
Maybe, given recent food contamination scares, readers have lost an appetite for “The Jungle,” Upton Sinclair’s 1906 treatise on corruption in Chicago’s meat-packing business. Less than tasty?
How about Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction best-seller “Dune” … the original, not all those the sequels. It’s got drugs (the spice Melange), sex (a whole lot of infidelity in those interplanetary Houses), and rockets roll. But it’s been covered by two movies and a television series.
Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."
All three books appear on the now-ending 2009 summer reading lists of the 12th, 11th, and 10th grades, respectively, at Pottsgrove High School. And, according to complaints received in recent months by members of the Pottsgrove School District Board of School Directors, those collections weren’t too popular.
Parents and students alike have indicated “there’s no sort of satisfaction with what’s on the lists,” board member Nancy Landes told district administrators Tuesday (Aug. 11, 2009), during the first of two August meetings at their offices on Kauffman Road.
Director Fred Remelius was, well, more direct. “Blech!” is how he’s heard the selections described, he said.
Summer reading usually is assigned to students by teachers at the end of a school year. It’s seen as a means of instilling independent critical thought, expanding vocabulary, and giving kids something entertaining to do when their arms are too sore to play with the Wii.
Of worms and men: Herbert's "Dune."
Pottsgrove High requires its students to read two novels, from lists of 10 choices per grade, during summer vacation, according to school librarians. Students are quizzed about the contents upon their return to classes.
While they may have completed the work, those who complained to board members seem to have finished without enthusiasm. They contend teachers need to make the choices “more interesting and exciting for kids,” Landes reported.
None of the educators at the board table offered a response. District Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis nodded to acknowledge what he’d heard, took several notes, and then another board member changed topics.
Oh, memo to high schoolers who haven’t dispensed with their books yet: only 17 days left. Sorry ’bout that.
Book cover images from Amazon.com
Related (to the Pottsgrove School Board’s Aug. 11 meeting):
- Summer Reading? Some Complainin’: Bo-o-oring!
- Surprise Enrollment Spurs Demographic Interest
- District Assembles Ringing Rocks Planning Team
- School Board OKs Administrative Switch
- Lobbying Pays Off In Band Trailer Purchase
- Superintendent Confirms Plan To Switch Administrators
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let the kids read what they want to read and let them do a report on it. I don’t know anyone who enjoyed those reads.
Reading unfortunately is becoming a lost art, this includes many adults. The falling readership of newspapers and magazines like Time and Newsweek is indicative of a dumbing population.
The choices above are good reads if one takes the time to read them and not cheat with seeing the movie and buying the Cliff Notes instead.
Having raised two daughters and son, our house is chock full of all manner of reading materials. I encourage my children all now out of high school, one graduate cum laude from Wagner, the other a freshmand at Fairleigh Dickinson, and a son who is in Iraq, to read and learn. All manner of reading is good. Vocabulary, concepts, cultures, and all are available to the reader.
Let’s expand the list a bit, but these books mentioned all have merit.
Reading is to be encouraged and expounded upon by parents, teachers, and all who have influence on the young. It will make for an intelligent soul…