The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

122 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 3 resistance. A study published to aid middle school reading teachers, showed that “two thirds of fourth graders use the library at least weekly compared to 24% of the eighth graders,” (Bintz 13). This statistic shows how use of the library manifests middle school perceptions of reading. From personal experience in middle school and high school, I found the library intimidating and full of books which I was confident were uninteresting. In addition, I did not perceive reading as enjoyable because I had trouble comprehending the book if it was not a story. Therefore, I often disliked and avoided reading experiences. Researchers and analysts have spent countless hours investigating the fear and resistance to reading in middle school students but have not completely solved the problem. This fear and aversion to reading in middle school is a significant problem and one that teachers need to continually address and monitor. Middle school exists as a time of transition, yet the love of reading dies because teachers do not instruct the students how to transition from children’s literature to adult literature—this problem manifests itself in the inappropriate reading level of assignments and the lack of interest by students in reading in general. Some teachers seemto believe the transition between children’s literature and adult literature should transpire via immersion, a sink-or-swim approach, and therefore assign material above the students’ reading level. I remember coming home from school with a newly assigned reading, excited to start and accomplish an adult book—Livy’s The History of Rome. I showed my mom the new book and told her when the first progress checkpoint was due. As a team, she and I calculated the number of pages in the book, divided by the number of days I would have to read them and wrote a schedule on an index card. My teacher asked my class to mark any “Timeless Quotes” we found as we read, whatever that meant. I propped the pillows on the couch into the prime reading position with highlighter in hand and hoped to finish by dinner. I checked the schedule we made: fifty-five pages tonight and fifty five pages tomorrow night...I flipped through the book to the page on which I was to end. Feeling daunted, I stared at the width of the section I had to read--my confidence faded. As the time ticked by, I became discouraged as I did not comprehend my reading and knew I had so much left to read, hopeless to understand those pages any more