Christine Brunkhorst: Why I assigned reading over the holiday break

In these final days of Christmas break, my mind turns to my students. I imagine them arising from the stupor of Facebook, "Halo" and bowl games to complete in these few days what I have assigned for them over the two-week break: to read and discuss a novel of their choice with an adult member of their household. I imagine them -- and perhaps their busy parents -- cursing me. Why do I impose such punishment on these over-booked students who need only to rest and enjoy their Christmas gifts, and for god's sake, can't I give their brains a rest? They're on vacation!

I do it because I am concerned for their imaginations, which in some cases are sorely in need of exercise.

I tell them: Close your eyes and imagine this: Your mom drives you to school. All your classes are in the same room. After school, the basketball coach comes to the room and shows films of players running drills. Your mom picks you up and you go home to eat dinner and watch more games on ESPN. The next day you do it all over again -- and the next day and the next, all season long. Will you become a better basketball player?

"No way," they laugh.

"You'd get fat," they say.

"Your muscles would atrophy."

"That's what happens to your imaginations," I say, "when you don't read literature."

Fifteen years ago I took a couple of writing classes from Carol Bly at the University of Minnesota. Carol, writer, teacher, champion of the imagination, died Dec. 21. She loved big ideas and spoke compellingly about the moral nature of literature -- not morality as in self-righteous indignation, but in the inherent goodness of things. She detested bad government, silly literature and bullies who rule the world. She implored us to "give children an environment friendly to reflective thinking," and I take that to mean we must nurture the imaginations of young people.

Much has been written about the lack of reading in our culture, particularly for boys. The National Endowment for the Arts reports that fewer than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, that American 15-year-olds rank 15th in average reading scores for 31 industrialized nations, and that reading scores for every educational level of American adults have deteriorated. We also know that boys read less than girls do, take longer to read than girls do, value reading less than girls do, and have more difficulty comprehending narrative texts than girls do.

Every English teacher who has been to a workshop has been told that in order to engage boys in reading, we must offer more informational texts, magazines, newspaper articles, nonfiction, sports biographies; we must realize it is harder for boys to sit still long enough to read; we must recognize that "alternate literacies" like text messaging and blogging are valuable, too. And we do. But still, I refuse to make excuses for my students. I know the boys have imaginations, and I am going to pester them into using them.

I tell my basketball players -- particularly the small ones for whom I have an empathetic affection -- to "play big." I believe if you make your base wide and you go after the ball as if you're 6-foot-5, you'll come down with some rebounds. But you have to envision yourself doing that. If you can't see yourself rebounding, you'll be a puny little no-count under the boards. If we don't exercise our imaginations, how do we accomplish anything?

It is a travesty that a person can live and be successful without having to think an original thought or to envision anything outside of his or her limited world. And when life is as busy, as crammed full of choices as ours are, why bother decoding words on a page? Why read Harry Potter when you can just go to the movie? Why read all 300-some pages of Huck Finn when Spark Notes is only 64 pages?

I think of my students, all boys, ranging in age from 14 to 16, and I know it's not too late for them. I know the most powerful thing about them is not that they can write a compound-complex sentence or support a thesis with examples from the text. The biggest thing they have going for them is their ability to dream, to imagine things beyond themselves. As Ursula LeGuin puts it: "As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope."

Carol Bly knew that. She had a big heart and a grand vision and amazing hope.

So, finish your reading, boys. And talk with your parents about the big ideas of literature; tackle abstract concepts; play big! See you Monday.

Christine Brunkhorst teaches English at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights.