An Introduction

Hello,

The topic for my blog is literature in schools with a focus on required reading lists.  I chose this topic based on my previous experience as a student and my future goals of being an English teacher.  As a student, I was always annoyed by the idea of required reading (e.g. Of Mice and Men, The Scarlet Letter, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn).  I always thought that it greatly limited the students exposure to the vast world of literature just because someone decided that these novels were more important than all of the others.  Not only does this topic relate to the literature portion of “language arts,” it also relates to the writing portion.  Because required reading lists never change, it is difficult to develop new and meaningful writing topics based around the required texts (How much can a student write about what the green light symbolizes in The Great Gatsby?).  Through the research involved with this blog I hope to explore ways to either incorporate other works of literature into the curriculum or to create meaningful reading and writing assignments based on required literature.

 I have subscribed to the following RSS feeds to help me in my blogging…

•  New York Times – Education section
• LA Times – Education section
• A Google search for “school reading list”
• The Kids Lit blog (http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/)

I chose the New York Times and LA Times because they were the only major news sites where I could find an RSS feed specifically for education, but I intend to add to this list as I find more publications that didn’t come to mind as readily.  The blog feed is from a librarian and discusses the books kids could/should be reading and had a few posts on banned books (another point of interest in my topic).
       

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