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I agree with you–the reason I brought up that particular book is that I have a (probably inaccurate) nostalgic memory of liking it. Heck, I may have read an abridged version in elementary school. The point is that some of the “classics” we remember or that we think are supposed to be great may be very difficult for kids to like today.</p>
<p>Both of my kids went to a school that put a great emphasis on writing. The school started teaching kids on how to write a research paper as early as 5th grade. For almost every class they had writing assignments. It was not unusual for them to have a writing assignment every week. Once the paper were turned in, they would often get it back within days with many corrections. </p>
<p>D1 writes well enough to get As in college, but she is not a great writer because she doesn’t like to read. D2’s favorite hobby is reading, her greatest guilty pleasure (according to her) is reading, and she is a very good writer. </p>
<p>I think what’s lacking at many schools is emphasis on writing, and I believe it is because it is time consuming for teachers to read all the papers. Most of those teachers have very heavy course load and they don’t have enough time to grade all the papers. I think to improve your kid’s writing, it maybe helpful to enroll him(her) at a writing enrichment course after school. When it comes to writing it is practice and practice. Good writing skill could be a great asset in college and in the business world.</p>
<p>I agree that writing is important, but if you have to do one more than the other, reading or writing, err on the side of reading. Of course do both! But… I know a lot of people who write a lot but do so very poorly because they do it more often than they read. On the other hand, I’ve seen serious readers who’ve written little then go on to pick up writing well fairly quickly because they’ve internalized how other people do it. My point is just that a student in high school might not have time to do a lot of reading and a lot of writing outside of class, so reading should be 3/4 of what is squeezed into that time imho.</p>
<p>I’m only a college student, but I’ve tutored a lot of high school and even other college students in English (writing, not learning the language) and literature. It’s always hard because the main thing they should be doing is reading more. When I manage to convince them to do that, their work improves quite a bit faster than those who just want to be taught about the bare bones of structure and such.</p>
<p>If you can’t or won’t read novels from another time period then you lose out on the richness of who we all are as a people. I believe that reading allows you to carry on a personal conversation with the author.</p>
<p>I read stuff from other time periods all the time…from the 1800 to the 1960’s (after that, we are in <em>my</em> time period). I’ve written a good few historically-set books as well. But Fenimore Cooper wasn’t much of a writer and his style is so turgid that he’s almost unreadable. The character of Hawkeye/Natty Bumpo lives because he’s a great character, not because he was well-written. </p>
<p>A ninth-grade boy who is struggling with reading enjoyment might like Hornblower or a good translation of the 3 Musketeers or Lord of the Rings…but not something that he has to struggle through so much that he loses heart and the thread of the story. If you can make him care about the people in the book, he’ll want to read it. That’s what Rowling did so brilliantly in her story of the Boy Who Lived. </p>