Response: Readicide

I loved this book. From the start I couldn't put it down. Kelly Gallagher is obviously passionate about reading and I immediately connected with that. Gallagher has much to say and reasonable possible solutions to problems which are hurting students.
There are many things in this book that I want to talk about, but I can only reasonably choose one or two, so here goes. Firstly, I love when Gallagher addresses what he calls the curriculum tsunami. His example was a written curriculum on teaching To Kill A Mockingbird, where the curriculum was about half the length of the novel. Gallagher discusses how harmful this can be to the reading of a novel. Longer, more complex curricula like the example shown slices up the novel and makes comprehension and reading flow almost impossible. When novels are divided into a dozen sections, students are unable to get a complete feel for the book, and instead are more concerned with the endless amounts of activities, breaks, exercises, writing prompts, etc, that they are bombarded with in the curriculum. Teachers need to minimize this amount of busy work, and allow students to actually read the novel. Also spending more than a week reading something is not effective. Quickly students begin to forget what they read last week, and then the week before, and by the time they get to the end of the novel they can't remember half of the plot points because they were too busy worrying about character development, and language, and cultural influence; the list goes on.
We need to find a balance for our students. A balance of short and long, simple and complex, critical and recreational.
In addition, Gallagher points out that in all honesty, any type of literature can be taught, but what matters is how and when and for what purpose. Sometimes students need a break from Homer and Shakespeare- give them something they can relate to and enjoy, and help them along with the process so we are building strong readers, instead of strong test takers who hate reading by the time they graduate high school and enter the adult world.