6-17-09
Secrets My English Teacher Never Told Me

Secret Number 5
I’ll bet you thought that since it’s officially summer vacation, your English teacher had deserted you to recuperate on sunny beaches while sipping fruity drinks with colorful umbrellas perched on the side of a frosty glass. Oh not so, mes enfants, not so! I am here, diligently considering the ways in which you will become an even better student; besides, I knew you were waiting for the next secret before you slipped off with the family to sunny and relaxing climes. So without further ado here is the next secret:

If you don’t read during the summer, your brain will begin to turn to mush. It’s a sad but true fact that students lose a significant portion of the learning completed during the school year when their brains are idle in the summer. But fear not! There is an easy fix to spare you this dreaded fate: READ A BOOK. Oh no! I can hear your groaning from here. We both know you were planning to save that required summer reading until much, much later – quite understandable considering how hard you worked during the school year. You feel as if your brain needs a break, a rest, down time, and so it does – for a minute. Come on now, you know how lazy you’ll be feeling in another few days. Once that first week of vacation is over, you’ve slept in, watched mindless cable television movies, played video games, lounged in the sun, hung out with friends, you know you’re ready to dip your toe back into academic preparation. But there is good news.

The good news – you can put off the summer reading for a little while – please note I did type “little while.” In the meantime, there are hundreds of thousands of millions of wonderful books to read. Mysteries, horror, fantasy, science fiction, graphic novels, comic books, magazines… The list is endless. When you’re reading this summer – and we both know you’re going to continue to follow my sage advice – find something fun to read, something you like, something entertaining. The point is not what you read, the point is that you read. Take a trip to the local bookstore and see what’s available. My suggestion: go in the morning, peruse the isles, pick up every book that looks interesting, sit in one of the comfy chairs, and see what’s what. Don’t like it – no big deal, put the not so good ones to the side; like it, excellent! Put those to the side too, in a different pile. Now, run to the local coffee shop or smoothie store and grab a drink (I always do this before I go into the bookstore) and return to the good pile. Grab a book and start reading. What about the other books you like – no worries – buy a few of them to read at home, at the beach, at your grandmother’s house, in the back yard, on a plane, in a train, with a fox, in a box…

Posted by Angela Cobb at 7:18 pm.