How do we get more people into reading?

We don't.

Mass literacy was a mistake.

...

Very clever...

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incredibly idiotic take. Your standard of living is dependent on mass literacy. Were you born rich? If not, hold your breath for three or four minutes. That should be enough to give back the literacy you find yourself unworthy of.

Dana? Is that YOU?

Even when people were in the majority readers they just read Pulp novels and bad easy shit.

>standard of living
you misspelled existential anxiety

By reworking our social structure to encourage and reward intellectualism, rather than the shallow consumer mindset most western bugmen have today.

Can't make people read, they'll never understand it if they don't enjoy it.

If we didn't have TV and internet, a lot more people would be reading... and they wouldn't let the mob/cia/mossad control their perceptions of reality and their governments.

That’s the whole truth

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I don’t want more people to read I want less people to read

As a high school teacher, I stock my class library with all kinds of real wild shit, everything from Medieval miracle plays, early Viking sagas, etc., to contemporary releases from all over, graphic novels, manga, and indie published books. I also have all students read at least one book of their own choice each quarter (approved by me), giving them time each Friday to read literally whatever they want.

I work in a low income urban district, so most of the kids are already way behind other students the same grade level and never read, but this year I've already had over 30 books checked out from me by students excited to read shit from people like JG Ballard, James Joyce, Toni Morrison, Hunter S Thompson, etc.

The masses can't be trusted with literacy.

How the fuck do you get away with that? What state do you teach in? My mom is a high school English teacher and she was continually reprimanded for letting her students read in class. They have this common core-like textbook the district bought into massively and they read one book a year as a class (10th grade by the way). I think it's Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. There is nothing else. She is tenured but would be harrassed daily and probably fucked with if she tried to eschew the textbook curriculum (which consists of baby shit excerpts and short, one paragraph "essays" on culture garbage).

In my ideal English class, I would do what you do. One book of their choice per quarter is perfect. She's not allowed to do that. No outside reading assignments and of course she can't get class sets except for the single book, Things Fall Apart.

I've heard people rip on common core math, but I didn't know it's fucked up English that bad too. In high school we would usually read 2 or 3 books as a class a year as part of the curriculum. Some teachers would also have book reports as assignments that would require people to read a book of their choosing.

I wonder if they have cut down on required reading for elementary and middle school students as well.

According to my mom, they still read 1 or 2 books a year in middle school from what she heard her students tell her. I know for a fact they eliminated SSR time, sustained silent reading, which was a district wide mandatory reading period at least once a week for every class. I don't think reading is valuable anymore. It's all about test scores, graduation rates, and cultural awareness. There's nothing wrong with reading about people different than you and trying to relate to them. It's healthy but not at the exclusion of fundamental lessons you can learn from common high school lit.

The result of the system is that at most high schools, no one can read at what used to be a high school level. What is considered college ready now is totally different than even 10 or 15 years ago. The writing standards are worse. All of this is because of teaching to the test and letting students graduate that should be held the fuck back or given an alternative to academics, like learning a trade. Some people will never, ever be literate in the way that you need for college yet society is pushing these illiterate kids to go to college and get in debt. When I went to community college, which was because it's cheaper than paying for 4 years of university, we had to do peer review/editing. There were students who were in AP classes in high school, AP! And they couldn't form coherent sentences. It was a surprise they knew how to spell their own names. I am not exaggerating. They had no business in a community college, let alone a university, yet when I asked them their major, it was in journalism or creative writing or teaching history. This level of delusion isn't their own. It comes from the top down. I have no solution other than let teachers teach what they think is right, like what you do. Just have a selection of books, let them pick what they, cover basics each quarter, go over a diverse selection of poetry, short stories, and essays, and that's that. But that's not how it works in my California school district. Very little reading and writing takes place and it's mostly about connecting students culturally and making them feel comfortable learning in general. If they aren't comfortable by age 15, they should have been held back in elementary school.

We live in a post literate society.

That's like asking how to turn turbo slut whores into marriage worthy virtuous women

>How do we get more people into reading?
>implying we want to get more people into reading

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Okay so I’ve noticed that women at my college actually like murakami like even the freshman are at least reading kafka on the shore over like two terms so basically what we have to do is constantly slip people book references that are easy mode but act like they’re actually fucking magnum opuses but as long as we all convince even our retarded normie friends to at least read a bit and constantly jerk them off about it they will probably slowly accumulate brainpower until they finally get to the point of thinking but also keep in mind that a lot of people (women especially) basically have complex social triggers that force them to live decent lives anyways if they aren’t completely inept

sage isnt a dislike you fucking /pol/tard newfag

ironically enough, this is why i didn't go to college and just got into a trade. not trying be the whole "smart but lazy" meme, because i'm really not that smart, but the people who identify modern academics as valuable tend to be pretty dumb. in high school it really did seem like the mid-grade underachievers really were smarter than the people who would study all the time and actually put in effort. none of my friends who were actually intelligent, whom i could have a real conversation with, went to college either because we knew it was just gonna be the same shit. and when you told anyone, they would say "oh its not gonna be like this in college, you're gonna actually have to study, you'll be with the best of the best" and whatnot, but i chose not to believe them and i think i ended up better off because of it.

This

Also, literature is a dying medium that will probably be extinct within the next 30 years.

No. It will continue to be an aristocratic tradition, as it has always been.

We don't. It's not like if everyone read we'd be in some enlightened utopia. It'd just be a bunch of dipshits hitting you over the head with terrible interpretations of the books you like.

Whenever I go to a mainstream book store I'm always reminded that people could read everyday and with this selection it would just make them dumber.

Education reform
I don't know what ought to be done about it but the way books are taught in middle school and HS really turn people off from it

well when you're forced to read shit like Toni Morrison or Harper Lee or the next diversity nonsese about muh struggle you'd also be turned off.

For what it’s worth I went to a public high school in a nice area and was assigned the divine comedy as a freshman. This literally only happened because the teacher was retiring next year though.

>How do we get more people into reading?
Why should we?

A somewhat appreciable number of the children of bronzes and silvers are capable of meaningfully helping society if given support