"But why write all these...plays anyway?" - Jeremy Irons*
I enjoy Shakespeare, but I'm middle aged, and I can understand everything they're saying all the time now. But when I was a kid in middle school, and they made us read Shakespeare, I can tell you that even the nerdiest of us were very frustrated by the complicated Olde-English style of the writing. And if you thought that Shakespeare might not have been relatable to kids in my day, when we were saying: "cool" and "gnarly" and "awesome", and maybe saying something was "bad" when we meant it was good (or cool, gnarly, or awesome), then just imagine what it's like for kids today with their hyper-stylized truncated text-speak.
In fact, I think kids would get into reading a lot more than they do if they were given fun, age-appropriate material to read in school. When I was in middle school and high school, everyone seemed to agree with one of my classmate's assertion that: "Classic means boring, man!" I like these stories now, mostly, but I really didn't like them when I was in school, and I'd be willing to bet I would have read a lot more if we'd had fun stuff to read instead. These stuffy, dull books just turn kids off to reading, I think, and so I would propose a different reading list, including science fiction and horror novels and short stories, playful stuff like P.G. Wodehouse, beat stuff like Jack Kerouac, fun stuff like Harry Potter, etc. But it seems like schools don't think reading really counts unless students hate trudging through it, and that it's not really educational unless it's dull and no fun. That's the opposite of the truth, though, in my opinion.
I mean, for God's sake, where I went to high school, we read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, and then went on to Paradise Lost and Moby Dick. Yes, great classic fiction; but for 16-year-olds? We were all bored silly! Parents and teachers generally claim, whenever I have brought this issue up, that kids can read the fun stuff on their own; but I would contend that by making them read stuff they will not enjoy, they will turn off to reading and never even want to go for the fun stuff, thinking there's no such thing. The least we could do, I think, is give it a try and see how much difference it makes to assign more fun and enjoyable material to show students the joy of reading, rather than just the work of it. See what I mean? And then give them the work part in college so they won't drink as much. That way, we adults get all the booze for ourselves!
* BTW: I am taking this quote way out of context from Mr. Irons's narration of the Shakespeare Uncovered episode on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I & II, and Henry V.
