Literature should spark curiosity about the world’s doors to new viewpoints and let us live lives that are not our own. A novel can carry a reader into an era while a poem can convey feelings that plain language cannot hold. Yet between the classroom and the exam room, this wonder fades. For students, literature becomes a task of memorising meanings, spotting literary tricks, and drafting exam answers rather than a chance to discover stories.
The irony is hard to miss. Courses meant to grow imagination and independent thinking are often taught with methods that leave little space for either. School anthologies, meant to show readers the best of global writing, can turn into mandatory collections where students analyse texts without ever learning to enjoy them.
The issue is not literature itself, nor the fact that classic works are in school programmes. The real problem is the exam-focused way these works are taught, explained, and graded. When every metaphor is given a fixed meaning and every poem is boiled down to a list of points, students start to see reading as a source of stress, not a journey of discovery.
The Transformation of Reading into an Examination Exercise
In schools, learning about books follows a usual pattern. Students are shown a poem or a short piece of writing, taught about what it means and how it is written, and then asked to repeat those things in tests.
There is, of course, good knowledge about symbols, how a story is put together, how characters are shown, and how the story is told. Learning to analyse books helps students think better and see the hidden meanings in a story. The issue happens when analysis is the only way to connect with books.
A student reading a poem for the first time might see the pictures in a different way than their teacher or other students. That view might be unique, creative, or even different from what’s usual. In a classroom that focuses on tests, students may quickly learn that having their own idea is not as important as saying what will get the most points.
Because of this, the classroom turns into a place where students look for the “right” answer instead of thinking about all the possible meanings. Books, which should make people think, become another subject where students are taught to remember answers.
When Classic Literature Becomes a Compulsory Chore
Classic literature holds a vital position in education. Books by Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, and other important writers provide lessons about how people act, how society is built, what happened in the past, and how writing has changed over time.
Getting students to learn about these writers is not just about putting their books on a list of required readings.
A Shakespeare play, for example, can help students understand characters, the desire for power, issues of right and wrong, and what happens because of the choices people make. When students meet it mostly through long explanations of quotes and set test questions, the experience can feel scary instead of exciting.
The same thing happens with poetry. A poem that was written to share a feeling or a moment can turn into a page of notes. Students might learn to find metaphors, repeated sounds, personification, and pictures in words without really thinking about why the poet used them.
The difference matters: knowing how a writing style works should make the reading better, not take its place.
When students finish studying a book and know every part that will be tested but don’t want to read anything by the same writer, teachers should think about what the learning process actually did.
The Missing Element: The Student as a Reader
One of the significant weaknesses of rigid literature syllabuses is the limited attention given to students’ individual reading experiences.
Students do not approach literature with identical interests, backgrounds, or levels of familiarity. Some may enjoy fiction while others are drawn towards contemporary novels, poetry, fantasy, satire, or short stories. Their interpretations are shaped by their experiences and the perspectives they bring into the classroom.
A curriculum that relies heavily on prescribed texts and standardised interpretations risks overlooking this diversity.
Student reading attitudes deserve consideration when schools review their literature programmes. Surveys exploring students’ reading habits, classroom discussions, and feedback from teachers can help identify whether prescribed texts are generating interest or simply fulfilling examination requirements.
Such feedback is particularly important because academic performance alone cannot measure a student’s relationship with literature. A student might achieve top examination results while developing little interest in reading independently.
Similarly, teachers are often aware of the difference between a student who engages enthusiastically with a story and one who studies it exclusively to complete an assessment. Their classroom observations can provide insight into how teaching methods influence reading attitudes.
These perspectives should inform curriculum development rather than remain secondary to examination results.
The Pakistani Classroom: Between Curriculum and Curiosity
The problem becomes especially important in Pakistan’s education system that focuses a lot on exams, where the set syllabuses and test requirements often decide how subjects are taught.
For students, reading is only experienced through textbooks that say which stories must be studied, which ideas should be focused on, and which thinking skills are probably going to be tested. Teachers, who have limited time in class and strict exam schedules, might naturally focus on finishing the syllabus and getting ready for tests.
This leads to a difficult situation. Even teachers who know how important it is for students to read on their own might find it hard to make time for it when class time is taken up by test goals.
The outcome is that literary learning becomes narrower. Students learn about a specific group of stories but might not get a chance to look at writing that is outside of that group.
This is especially worrying in a country that has a rich tradition of writing. Pakistani writing, including books in Urdu, English, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, and other local languages, gives students a chance to see a range of cultural experiences and views.
Exposing students to different kinds of writers could help them care more about reading. Books should not just be the ones that show up on test papers; they should also help students learn about the stories, identities, past, and thoughts that shape the world around them.
What Literature Education Should Actually Achieve
Reconsidering the way literature is taught does not mean abandoning standards or removing analytical assessment. Rather, it means establishing a healthy relationship between literary appreciation and academic achievement.
Schools can begin by introducing variety into their reading lists. Alongside established classics, students should encounter contemporary writing, short fiction, translated literature, and works that reflect different cultural and social experiences.
Classroom discussions should also allow students to develop interpretations of their own. Instead of immediately presenting a definitive explanation of a poem or novel, teachers could encourage students to consider what a text communicates to them and why different readers might understand it differently.
Independent reading opportunities are equally important. Book discussions, student-led circles, creative responses, and opportunities to recommend books can make reading a more active and personal experience.
Assessment methods also deserve reconsideration. While examinations can evaluate a student’s understanding of techniques and themes, they should not become the sole measure of literary engagement. Students should be encouraged to demonstrate interpretation, curiosity, and critical thought rather than simply reproduce memorised explanations.
Importantly, teachers need the freedom and resources to teach literature as a living subject rather than a checklist of examinable requirements.
Beyond the Textbook
The purpose of literature education should extend beyond preparing students to answer questions about a prescribed poem or novel.
A successful literature curriculum should leave students wanting to read beyond the classroom. It should encourage them to question characters, challenge perspectives, recognise themselves in experiences, and discover writers whose work speaks to them.
There is nothing wrong with studying a poem line by line or examining a novel’s symbolism. These activities become valuable when they deepen a student’s understanding and appreciation of the text. They become counterproductive when they replace the experience of reading itself.
Perhaps the most important question schools should ask is not simply whether students understand the literature on their syllabus, but whether studying it has encouraged them to seek out more.
A textbook can introduce a student to a writer. It cannot manufacture genuine curiosity through compulsory analysis. That curiosity develops when students are given the opportunity to explore questions, disagree, and read without anticipating an examination question.
Literature should open doors, not build walls around a collection of texts. If the ultimate outcome of education is a generation of students who can analyse a poem but have no desire to read another, then the problem is not with the student’s ability to appreciate literature. It is with the way they have been taught to encounter it.
The purpose of teaching literature should never be to produce students who remember every line of a textbook. It should be to inspire readers who continue turning pages long after the examination is over.