This is another essay written by for my grade 10 summer school essay writing course. This one is about the silent reading period my secondary school has. All my fellow students know what I am talking about. This essay argues against silent reading. I don’t really hate silent reading, but I rarely read during this period. Usually I do my homework so I don’t have to do them at home.
This essay is also written in a five by five format, which means five paragraphs and about five sentences in a paragraph. Needless to say, I got an A for this effort. Read it and see if you agree or disagree with my view point.
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I am not sure if any other schools have this, but in my secondary school, there is a time in every school day when students have to sit in class and read; it’s called “silent reading period,” and I think it should be discontinued. If we, the students, wanted to read, we would read somewhere else at some other time. Also many teachers don’t enforce the rules of silent reading. The last reason is that most students aren’t reading, so silent reading period has not achieved its intended goal. The time used for silent reading is better spent doing something else.
Most classrooms in the school are acceptable reading environment, but they are not by any means good. Most of the students, or at least me, would rather read at home, in a comfortable chair and under good lighting. Some of the desks in the school are a bit small for my 6 foot 2 frame. Also at silent reading time, most people are not in a mental state to read. They are usually a bit tired from classes. Of course, we, the students, would read if the reading period were strictly enforced. This brings me to my next point.
The majority of teachers in my school either don’t care about silent reading or are not very vigilant at enforcing the rules. For example, some teachers let us do anything we want as long as we are quiet, enforcing the “silent” but not the “reading.” I wrote this essay based on my years at this school. I know there are very responsible teachers in the school who care a lot about silent reading, but they are a minority. Reason number one and number two together cause reason number three to happen.
Because most people would rather read somewhere else at some other time and most teachers don’t really care, most students don’t read during silent reading. This means that the silent reading period has failed. It did not make the students read more. Why would anyone keep using a plan that fails to do its job? It is not a logical thing to do.
Although the silent reading period was conceived for a good purpose, it is obviously ineffective. It is time to end silent reading and think of some other ways to promote reading. For those people out there who actually read during silent reading, I am sure these people can find some spare time to read. Hopefully the time used for silent reading can be used to shorten the school day or made into a break. Most students could use some more free time.