Reading Aloud to Teenagers

"Will you read to us?"

Chloe was looking at me expectantly from across the room. Somehow, her pointed question had shoved its way through the rumbling chatter and turned my head. We were supposed to be having 15 minutes of SSR - silent, sustained reading - but the class was boiling over with conversation anyway. I kept trying to get them to quiet down, to shove a lid on the bubbling pots, but to no avail. And then Chloe (name has been changed) asked me to read to them.

I tilted my head, suspicious that I was being had. "You really want me to read to you?" I'd read aloud to all my classes yesterday, and had the distinct impression they found it ridiculous. That's why I'd decided to let them read on their own.

"Yeah," Chloe said. "I just can't focus right now. I can't read it by myself, I won't understand anything. Will you read to us?" A couple of other kids chimed in their agreement.

"Raise your hand if you'd honestly rather have me read to you than read it yourselves," I called over the rumble. Nearly half of the class had their hands in the air.

Well then!

"Alright!" I shouted. "Everyone who doesn't want to read silently, go out in the hall!"

They were surprised. Once they realized I was serious, they grabbed their books and shuffled out into the hallway. I leaned into the office, where the substitute teacher was sitting around looking bored. (I'll discuss the ineffectiveness of hiring substitutes for a cooperating teacher another day.) He looked up when I came in. "Can you come sit with these students? They're supposed to be reading silently, I just want you to watch them."

He blinked, then stood up. "Sure."

One of my students had already grabbed my director's chair and taken it into the hallway. I grabbed my own copy of the book - Fahrenheit 451 - and headed out there.

They were sitting on the tile floor, their backs against the lockers. The hallway was mostly empty, with just a teacher or two wandering by, looking amused when they passed. I ignored them. "What page are you guys on?" I asked the group. They broke out into an argument, so I decided to just start at the beginning. There were a couple of chuckles as I started, but they died down quickly, and soon all of these rambunctious teenagers were sitting quietly, listening to Ray Bradbury's famous novel.

"'It was a pleasure to burn . . . .'"

The air in the hallway seemed to change as I read. A strange calm came over the group - though they were by no means hypnotized by my performance. I saw them nudge each other and whisper a couple of times, but compared to their behavior earlier this was miraculous. Two of the girls were so delighted by our little reading session that they pulled out their phones and took pictures of it. I just kept reading, the words taking possession of the hallway, no doubt threading their way into the neighboring classrooms.

"'I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly. . . . If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur! that's a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty mile an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't that funny, and sad, too?'"

When time was up, I slapped my book closed and hopped off my stool. "Back to class," I said.

The students shook themselves back to reality. Standing slowly, they shuffled back into the classroom. Many of them said, "Thank you," as they walked past me. And I think they meant it, too.

Our students all need different things. Those who stayed in the classroom were able to get a lot of reading done, with most of the noise out of the room. The ones who followed me got to feel like their own needs were being addressed, they got to be indulged for a little while. (When "indulging" my students involves reading the required text, I'll support it every time.) I made a lot of friends today - and when you teach high school English, you need all the friends you can get!

Today was a good day.

Parents, read to your kids. Even the teenagers.