Teaching English 3 English Curriculum 3 Adolescent Reading and Teaching Literature

1
Teaching English 3English Curriculum
3Adolescent Reading and Teaching Literature
2
KEY QUESTIONS

• Why read literature and other kinds of texts?
• What are the contexts we are working in and from
  as English teachers?
• What do we know about adolescents and reading?
• How do we come to be good readers?
• What kinds of pedagogy offer the most effective
  and productive ways of engaging teenagers in
  reading?

3
Some Key Research Findings Relevant to Teaching
English

• Many studies reporting on factors associated with
  success at school
• Power of socio-economic factors well documented,
  including the complimentary role of home and
  school.
• Many of the factors connected with success at
  school are linked to home background
• parental interest
• access to books
• regular routines
• TV watching limitations
• homework supervision.

4

• Research emphasises the power of parental
  interest, the important role of extra-curricula
  activities such as sport, music and clubs
• ACER, 2003. SES and success at school. Correlates
• success with literacy and numeracy.

5

• Success in careers after school
• Stay on to the final year of secondary school
• Enter higher education
• Obtain tertiary education entrance scores
• Make more successful transitions to full-time
  education, higher level occupations and higher
  levels of earnings
• Higher levels of health
• Communicate better and have better participation
  in adult life

6
Positive factors in school success which are from
outside school

• Hours per week spent in preparing for class
• Hours per week spent in co-curricular activities
• Time spent discussing ideas from reading
• Out of school participation in sport, music
• Use of time at home reading, regular meal times
  etc.

7

• Social capital, the level of social trust,
  personal connectedness, is the single most
  powerful predictor of educational performance
  race, poverty, parental education are only
  indirect. (Putnam, 2000)

8
Research on Teenagers and Reading

• UP TO 25 OF ADOLESCENTS EXPERIENCE DIFFICULTIES
  WITH THE LITERACY DEMANDS OF THE FORMAL SCHOOL
  CURRICULUM
• UNDERPERFORMING AND/OR INEXPERIENCED READERS
• SCHOOLS AND THEIR PRACTICES VIS-À-VIS READING CAN
  POSITION SOME STUDENTS AS FAILURES AND THEREBY
  INSTITUTIONALISE DEFICIT MODELS OF ADOLESCENT
  LITERACY ACHIEVEMENT

9

• Disproportionately high numbers from
  disadvantaged socio-economic and NESB
  backgrounds.
• No simple causal relationship between contextual
  factors and underachievement in reading.
• Contextual factors can be surmounted with skilled
  intervention.

10

• Adolescents experiencing difficulties with
  reading are not beginning readers in need of
  remedial instruction they are often
  inexperienced, disaffected, resistant,
  underperforming or disengaged readers.

11

• Privileging of certain kinds of literacies over
  others.
• Are we creating struggling readers by the
  structures and processes of schooling?
• Do certain practices and hidden curricula
  position some students as failures?

12

• Compulsory school reading is perceived as
  boring despite an overwhelming majority of
  adolescents who rate their reading ability as
  average or better.
• Reading becomes closely associated with
  school-based learning which is often seen as
  low-level retrieval of information, dry-writing
  or comprehension exercises, fill-in-the-blanks
  busywork, or a means to an end of completing
  unimaginative and uninspiring written exercises
  (Thomson, 1987).

13

• I pick the one I hate the least.
• Significant link between reading difficulties and
  falling motivation and inappropriate and
  ineffectively managed assigned reading. (Cope,
  1997 Bushman, 1997 Ivey, 1999 Williams, 2001)

14

• Decline in reading a direct consequence of the
  KINDS of reading required of adolescents and the
  WAYS such reading is managed.
• Critical need for balance between
  teacher-selected and student-selected materials.
• Value what students bring to school learning
  contexts.
• Variety and diversity of accessible material.

15
Connecting School and Life

• All readers are good readers when they have the
  right book. (Henry, 2002)
• Readers use reading for their own purposes
  (Rosenblatt).
• PURPOSE and its impact on motivation and
  achievement in reading is fundamental.
• Tap into and build upon each students cultural
  and literacy capital to avoid incrementally
  disempowering them.

16

• Reading excellence is not secret knowledge or a
  mysterious prize for an elected, privileged few.
• Most adolescents experience difficulties because
  of factors other than their own inherent
  inability to learn.
• Get to know the students background and
  experience of reading and literacy.

17
What we know about teenagers and reading

• http//www.booktopia.com.au/InstockBooks.asp?CatMa
  inJUV
• http//www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/subst/lists/be
  st/childrens.html/202-1682116-6375032
• http//www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/book
  lists/hot-25/-/52//202-1682116-6375032

18
Research with Australian Teens

• 94 at least one hour/day spent reading
• 43 reading for pleasure
• 60 watch up to 3 hours of television
• Of these 30 watch no more than 1 hr
• No television 7.2
• No reading 5.7

19

• No significant change in TV viewing habits since
  1970s surveys
• Computer usage is now overtaking TV viewing as
  the most popular leisure activity

20
Reading Preferences

• Fiction 43
• Magazines 36
• Non-fiction 4
• Poetry 4
• Internet/Multi-media 4
• Newspapers 2.9
• Implications for English teachers?

21
Types of Books

• Preference shaped by gender,ethnicity,
  socio-economic status, geographic location
• Diversity
• Benton (1995)
• 1/3 of books read by adolescents had a horror
  element
• Comic science fiction and books adapted to films
  also popular

22
Favourite Books

• 55 boys had read favourite book more than once
• 32 boys read favourite more than 4 times
• 60 girls had read favourite only once
• 40 had read favourite 2 or more times
• 26 read favourite more than 4 times

23

• 73.5 boys had favourite book recommended by
  family, friend, movie
• 31 girls had found favourite through teacher or
  compulsory school reading
• Ways to read this data?

24
Worst Reading Experiences

• 24.6 of sample the worst book was compulsory
  reading
• Compulsory reading in English
• Boys- 32
• Girls 17
• Implications for choices?
• What do the syllabuses stress in relation to
  reading?

25
Most Preferred Reading in English

• Self selected and read 34
• Silent Reading 24
• Reading Magazines 24
• Plays acted 18

26
Least Preferred reading in English

• Reading out aloud
• Newspapers
• Poetry read by the teacher
• Stories chosen by the teacher

27
Conclusions

• Reading holding its own in lives of adolescents
  despite pervasiveness of media and technology
• Need to consider how choice can operate as a
  motivator
• Teachers have a powerful effect on students
  reading experiences

28
Your thoughts

• To choose or not to choose.?
• When to choose literature for your students?
• Support team or fitness trainer?
• What do we want our student to read? What types
  of reading to we value?

29
To consider

• Allow for range diversity of literature
• Recognise students capacity to make informed
  choices about what to read and how to read it
• Good text- meets student needs, engages their
  interests, challenges their capacities
• Remember boys when selecting texts
• Practice what you preach - powerful model

30
To reflect on Why read literature in English?

• Reading practice?
• Platform for lit crit discussion?
• Treasure hunt for techniques?
• Tool for moral development?
• Means to aesthetic appreciation/experience?