This is where it gets me a bit angry. The idea that they have to be able to relate EVERY damn thing they read back to THEMSELVES is absurd. I read loads of stuff in middle school and high school that had nothing to do with me. I loved Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and everything I could get my hands on from O. Henry (I remember loving "The Ransom of Red Chief" and "The Cop and the Anthem" when I was in 7th grade). I hated King Lear (though now it's one of my favorites) but LOVED Richard III. When I came across a piece that did relate to me in some way (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is the first example that I remember- I was a poor kid) it was an added bonus that made that book all the more enjoyable. Kids today don't get that benefit, and I honestly think it comes back to 4 reasons: 1- New Media- They don't read. They "game" and Facebook and Twitter and Youtube. Parents give them all the little gadgets they want, but too many refuse to encourage reading (growing up, I rarely got what I asked for. We just didn't have the money. That said, whenever we passed a bookstore, I was allowed to get whatever I wanted. Books were placed higher on the importance scale in my family). 2- Grade inflation and the negative side of "No Child Left Behind" (which was unfortunately misinterpreted to mean "No Child is allowed to be failed, even if they didn't master the material for the class"). Kids are kids. If they know they will be passed whether they read or not, they'll usually opt for "Not." It eats into their CoD time. 3- An absurd educational philosophy that treats the student like a "customer." We've become obsessed with only giving them things that we think they'll like. They are teenagers. Even they don't know what they like in some cases. On top of that, even when you give them texts that they would normally like (graphic novels, young adult literature)...they still don't read. Because they know they don't have to. You could assign porno and they would probably ignore it just because it was "assigned by the teacher." 4- Rigidly controlled, paint by numbers curriculum. Creativity is slowly being sucked from the classroom. School districts are continually moving towards unified syllabi, cookie-cutter midterms and tests, district-issued lesson plans and pacing guides, etc etc. That's no way to teach something like English (Students will respond if the teacher is passionate about their subject. The vast majority of my students listed the Renaissance poetry and Shakespeare units as their favorites at the end of the year. There's a reason for that, and it isn't that they all walked into the classroom inherently loving Iambic Pentameter and Blank Verse). Sorry about the length (again). I just bristle at the notion that literature should be cast aside because "they don't like it" or "they can't relate to it." One of the greatest things about my high school education was that it helped to show me that the world didn't revolve around me. Today's kids don't get that idea shattered. They get it confirmed.
Heh. I can't relate ANYTHING I read to myself - I'm a white man doing Asian history - and I love it. (Well, except for when I can get some leisure reading done. I stayed up much later than I should have to finish Bonfire of the Vanities last night, and I AM a New Yorker...)