The Ultimate Genre Quest

The Ultimate Genre Quest is a for-fun reading challenge designed to encourage students to read widely, explore new genres, and build strong, flexible reading habits. Rather than focusing on the number of books, the quest is based on pages read, so students aren’t discouraged from choosing longer, more complex texts. As students read, they track their pages and aim to sample across many genres (fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, science fiction, etc.) Along the way, they write short, low-pressure book reviews to reflect on what they read and to share recommendations with classmates.

As we studied the history and brain science of reading, students learned that decoding text is not something that comes naturally to the human brain, which is why people spend so many years practicing this complex skill. We connected this idea to the importance of including traditional prose books in a balanced reading diet, rather than reading mostly (or, for some students, exclusively) graphic novels. After all, the vast majority of the reading students will encounter in high school, college, and beyond is written in prose! To that end, a maximum of two books for the quest may be graphic novels, to encourage students to spend more of their reading time engaging with traditional prose texts. 

This challenge is not graded and is intentionally designed to be playful and motivating, not competitive or stressful. The goal is simply for students to read more, read more widely, and see reading as something they want to do, not something they are being evaluated on. Students are encouraged to go at their own pace and get as far as they can by the end of the year — there is no expectation that everyone reaches the same endpoint.