Students Are Reading Fewer Books in English Class
In many English classrooms across America, assignments to read full-length novels are becoming less common. Some teachers focus instead on selected passages — a concession to perceptions of shorter attention spans, pressure to prepare for standardized tests and a sense that short-form content will prepare students for the modern, digital world.
The National Council of Teachers of English acknowledged the shift in a 2022 statement on media education, saying: “The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.”
The idea is not to remove books but to teach media literacy and add other texts that feel relevant to students, said Seth French, one of the statement’s co-authors. In the English class he taught before becoming a dean last year at Bentonville High School in Arkansas, students engaged with plays, poetry and articles but read just one book together as a class.
“At the end of the day, a lot of our students are not interested in some of these texts that they didn’t have a choice in,” he said.
The emphasis on shorter, digital texts does not sit well with everyone.
