By Rebecca Fowler
Staff Writer

How many books have you read in your lifetime?  Let’s narrow it down.  How many books have you read in the past four years?

For high school students, the latter is probably just as hard to answer, as schools across the nation are enforcing school-related reading at a large level.  While students are gaining a wonderful knowledge of classic literature, writing styles and life lessons, the amount of reading assigned for school may actually be hurting students rather than helping them.

I love to read, don’t get me wrong.  I get excited when my English teacher tells us to buy Lord of the Flies and Emma.  However, many of my classmates constantly complain about our huge reading load and oftentimes do not even open the books but simply skim Sparknotes instead.

Teachers need to be more aware about the way they approach books.  Rather than beating novels to death with over-analysis, teachers might find it more effective to spend less time on a book while covering the most important aspects of it.  If they present books as captivating, students may be more inclined to not blow them off as stupid.

However, I know that this does not always work.  It’s a fact: some kids just do not want to read.  Therefore, there is no great solution for this problem.  But, if teachers express their passion for books, spend less time and more detail on them, and help students in the process, reading will become a more natural and enjoyable activity as well as one that will hopefully carry on into adulthood.