In an era where books have been supplanted by the use of digital devices, the crucial value of reading books has been deemed obsolete and has been slowly vanquished by the instant trend.   Digital gadgets are taking over with the promise of a more convenient and easy way to acquire knowledge and information than flipping over the pages of books. No one has felt the weight of this burden more than a literature teacher who aimed to build up the literary arsenal of her students through reading a plethora of books.

This sad generation of students learning through the web is one thing that I have been struggling with for one unforgettable day of my life in my English 9 class. I was reading to them the text of The Canterbury Tales through a paraphrastic approach to English literature when one student threw me an honest yet tough question. He asked me about the importance of reading when he can actually watch the movie adaptation of that tale. 

I understand that literary appreciation is something that is really hard to develop in students. I was never blind to this truth, and I was never deaf to the clamor of my students about the tedium they felt in the process. But for a literature teacher who is passionate about the art of literary teaching, I could never describe the flow of my emotions, and my train of thought was not in an orderly manner to arrive at a more precise answer. 

It was true enough that I was unarmed, and the question pierced like an arrow shot intently to destroy what could have been the most artistic way of reading a narrative. While everyone was engulfed in the beauty of 14th-century Middle English literature with its rich language through a stylistic and paraphrastic approach skillfully orchestrated for them, the harsh truth that some students never see the beauty of reading books left me baffled and led me to revisit my approaches to teaching literature.

 I pondered my yester years when I was their age, and my vivid recollections of learning are associated with books and the way my literature teachers artistically read the plot and set the mood so we could feel like we were there among the characters, but gone are the days when reading books was the best experience. Today is the generation of young people who settled on learning in the easiest way possible, even if it meant sacrificing truthfulness and quality. While it is true that technology provides more visually appealing images on the screen, books require readers to delve their imaginations into the unreachable and create characters in their minds.

 As a teacher of literature, I felt like I carried the torch that is forged from the flames of knowledge and literary appreciation, with books as its sharpest weapon. And it is only through inculcating the beauty of reading and loving books that I could lift this torch for my students.

And so I was disrupted by that question while I was at the height of the falling action of the frame narrative. I stopped my discussion for a while and thought of the most qualified truths about reading, intricately woven from the threads of literary passion. I told my students the following: reading is the most important macro skill that needs to be developed. And in all eventualities in life, the least required is the ability to read and write. 

Reading books can help them expand their imagination and their knowledge about the world. The habit of reading books could take you to different avenues in life, develop superior reading comprehension, and foster more advanced critical thinking. I am certain that some of them agreed, for I know that there were still those who believed in the beauty and enchantment of books. I continued with my discussion and stood still in front of them with the book in my hand, almost defeated but not destroyed by technology. I believe that the significance of books can never be replaced, no matter how much technological advancement has swept over us, and that books have always been a cornerstone of knowledge.