Reading

I can tell right now that the real jobs will be in reading and writing in the future. Television and movies have made most students today lazy.

I am a ninth grade English teacher. Last week, we were trying to read "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. Less than 15 pages of the textbook, it might as well have been four hundred. These students complained about it being way too long. A 15 page short story? In English class? I even gave time to read it IN class. When I was a kid, it would have been homework. Several students asked if we could just "watch it" and I don't even know if there is a movie of it out there (There is, I found out later; a 1932 version starring King Kong's Fay Wray--horrible).

Students are getting lazy without any of these reading skills. They are doing themselves a disservice. What do I do? "The Most Dangerous Game" is actually a well-crafted, fast-paced story. How do I teach reading skills when they refuse to read, even in class? Some would actually rather have stared at the walls than read the story...

And then there's the lack of vocabulary...but we'll discuss that another time...