Sunday, February 3, 2013

Why the state's rules hurt students

New York State's rules regarding the amount of fiction and nonfiction that students are required to read hurts students. The regulation tries to implicate more nonfiction as students get older, and takes away not only their freedom of choice, but their interest in reading. The current regulation supporters claim that the lack of nonfiction doesn't allow students to learn how to gain information through literature. However, this is very untrue. Students still gain plenty of tactics and information through nonfiction, both by the reading itself, and the interpretations that students are required to do when they dissect a book. Doing this in the form of fiction helps them to enjoy reading though, which is crucial,especially for kids. Reading is not always the most popular pass-time for children and teenagers, so it's important that when kids read, they enjoy it, and want to do it more. The argument that students will learn more from nonfiction than fiction isn't necessarily true either. Just because the book has facts in it doesn't mean it benefits students more than fiction. Students can still learn a lot from fiction, more than just the "life lessons" that are usually put alongside fiction. Students can learn valuable information, and even learn about true topics such as history, culture, etc. Fiction just presents this information in a way that is more interesting to students, which catches and keeps their attention, benefiting them in the long run because they remember and enjoyed the read.

1 comment:

  1. The rule is a great idea. I have seen students that have completely avoided nonfiction, because they thought it was boring. Once they tried it, they loved it. The rule encourages more people to dive into nonfiction.

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