The October 2024 Atlantic article “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books,” likely caught the attention of anyone who cares about education today; the subhead in particular probably felt like a gut punch to educators everywhere: “To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.”
It certainly did to me—though I wasn’t prepared to disagree with the premise. Last year, I taught an AP European History course that required students to read, on average, 40 pages a week of dry textbook prose. I could tell they were skimming, especially when we got past the juicy bits about absolutist monarchs misbehaving and were left with page after page on mercantilism. But as a lover of literature, I wasn’t ready to give in to the idea that students weren’t prepared to read novels. And as a high school principal, I was responsible for ensuring that the students who graduated from my school were reading whole books, cover-to-cover. If that idea was overwhelming, we were doing something very wrong.
That Atlantic article gnawed at the edges of my thoughts for days. At my school, Villa Duchesne (MO), teachers—even outside of our English classes—assign books of many genres and levels. I was a few months into my first year as principal when the article came out, and I had already begun to feel a little too far removed from the daily lives of the students. The article was the nudge I needed to launch a new weekly class for high school students.
My plan was simple: choose a novel I loved, open the class to a small group of students, and meet weekly to discuss the chapters with a strong emphasis on historical context. After all, I was a history teacher by trade. I felt a strong motivation to demonstrate the capacity of high school students to read long, dense texts. That spirit drove me to select Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. I chose it not just for its literary merit—its depth, style, and literary techniques—but for its philosophical insights and exploration of complex themes that would challenge my students to grow their critical-thinking skills.
Seventeen students enrolled for the weekly class. As we conclude the course this April, I’m heartened to see how they’ve met the challenge with curiosity, persistence, and determination. It’s a reminder that contrary to the Atlantic article, high schoolers—at Villa and beyond—are capable and ready to tackle texts that are more relevant than we sometimes think.
Reading as Ritual
At the start of the semester, I encouraged the students to cherish their time reading and not see it as a chore—after all, we’d be reading a masterpiece that might be their longest read yet. I thought about how to convey this to high schoolers and tried to make it relatable through food and a mindset I picked up when I lived in Mainz, Germany. The culture’s afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen, or “coffee and cake,” is a way of setting aside time to relax, savor something sweet, and catch up on a good book or with a friend. So, with that idea in mind, I encouraged students to make time for reading, with perhaps a slice of cake and a cup of strong coffee.
The students quickly found themselves drawn into the world of the novel, an expansive window into the wondrous, waning decades of the Romanov dynasty and imperial Russian society. I don’t mean to romanticize that semi-feudal world of peasants and ballets or long afternoons by the samovar (a metal container to heat water) in aristocratic tea rooms. However, reading a novel like Anna Karenina, with its complex portrayals of personal choices, societal pressures, and the moral quandaries that the characters face, offers a glimpse of the past and the capacity to hold a mirror to each of us.
Imagining themselves in the world of the novel, my students imagine what they would do in those circumstances. As they enter the classroom, chattering away about the latest chapters, I often overhear them speaking of the characters as if they were real people: “If I’d been at the ball…” or even once, “If my lover fell off his horse at a race, I’d surely…” This practice of imagining themselves inhabiting the world of the novel is not only fun, but it’s helping to craft their system of values.
The students in my class are practicing a profoundly important habit of the mind that we might think of as simply cultivating their world of imagination. As they inhabit the lives of different characters and immerse themselves in the world of the novel, they create a moral system for ordering their world. A good novel presents us with a new world of possibilities, paths, and life choices, and imagining how we might respond to the choices faced by the characters prepares us for our life choices.
Structuring the Class
In my first time teaching this book, I knew there were a few things I had to confront. First and foremost, at 800+ pages, I needed to give the students a very clear and manageable pacing guide. We read about 50 pages per week, and each class begins with a short reading quiz to assess content knowledge. I’ve emphasized to the students my desire that they truly read and not rely on online study guides or AI to get through the chapters. “If you ever feel like this is a chore,” I told them at the beginning of the semester, “take a break. Go on a walk.” Settle into some Kaffee und Kuchen!
I also structured the course in such a way that we weren’t focused only on the content of the novel but would also spend time each week going over various aspects of Russian history that would supplement their understanding of Tolstoy’s world of the 1870s. I typically deliver a 20-30-minute lecture on some aspect of history related to the chapters they’re reading. The biggest hits so far have been an overview of notorious Russian tsars and highlights of the Russian ballet.
Finally, every week we end the class with a 30-minute entirely student-led Harkness-style discussion. Two student leaders are required to submit five discussion questions in advance each week. Every student is required to participate in the discussion; we spent a fair amount of time at the beginning of the semester going over examples of meaningful discussion contributions, the benefits of citing specific passages from the novel, and ways to respectfully disagree with a classmate.
At this point in the year, the students have gotten comfortable with each other and settled into their patterns of dialogue and perspectives. I have a corner of designated Kitty-haters, a senior student who’s Levin’s biggest fan, and a corner of juniors who can’t decide if Anna or Vronsky is to blame for everyone’s misery.
Learning Through Reading
What Anna Karenina does so well is present deeply human––which is to say, deeply flawed––characters. No character is a flat archetype i.e. “the villain,” “the heroine”; rather, as we work through the chapters together, week by week, the students find themselves constantly confronting an aspect of a character’s personality they suddenly detest or, more commonly, they uncover a reason to have sympathy for someone new.
There’s a part of this class that feels countercultural in a society that doesn’t expect its young people to read. What I’ve found, and maybe knew all along, is that Villa students—and all students for that matter—can handle Tolstoy. They discuss the intricacies of the plot and the way Tolstoy gets inside the minds of his characters; they debate with each other about which character is the worst (it’s always Stiva) and which character they like best (right now, it’s a toss-up between Dolly and Levin).
Reading this book together, week by week, we allow ourselves to get lost in the beauty of the story, reveling in the satisfaction of doing something a little hard, a little against the grain of contemporary education. When I see the students carrying their Tolstoy tomes like a badge of honor around campus, I beam with pride.
As we near the end of the semester, I have watched these students develop a more profound understanding of life and society across time. They’re thinking analytically and critically. By examining the choices made by these complex and flawed characters, they’re making connections to their world today and building empathy. Put that way, it sounds like a 21st-century skills class masquerading as a 19th-century book club. And that might be the best part of all.