The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

Analysis & Response 121 The Importance of Middle School Reading Laurel Anne Ward While at Cedarville, I majored in Chemistry and took Composition my Junior year. Since that time, I have graduated and am currently working at a crime lab as a Forensic Chemist. Ponytail. This one hairstyle summarized my junior high experience. Now that I had graduated from elementary school, I was responsible for styling my own hair. No more of my mom’s perfect braids, buns, or inside-out-anything, but I wasn’t going to just leave my hair style-less. I knew how to do a ponytail—so that’s what I did. Junior high functioned as a transition time for me, as well as many other American teens and tweens, between grammar school and high school. We all were in the midst of transition. Braces, growing- out bangs, big feet, awkward social interactions—but middle school functioned as a time of educational transition as well. In middle schools across the country, students often transition from loving reading to hating it and I was no different. I began middle school enjoying the adventure of a book yet by the end of middle school, I begrudgingly read an assignment with only the hope of coming to the end. A 1995 survey performed regarding middle school students and their attitudes toward reading found the shocking conclusion that “middle school students are known for negative attitudes and resistance toward reading” (McKenna, Kear, & Ellsworth, 1995). This resistance to reading dominates among this age bracket. In a personal interview, I asked a college student to compare his enjoyment of reading in middle school to that of elementary school. To this he replied that he enjoyed reading in elementary school because it was fun and he found it interesting. Yet in middle school he felt inadequate in his reading skills and hated reading (Morris, Personal interview). Middle school was a distinct change in his perception of reading, changing from enjoyment to