Inquiry Blog Post #1
It has become more of a challenge to get some students at high school to read and to value reading. At my school, the grade 9’s are our most
active readers. Coming from middle school, they are used to book exchange and
to an expectation that they will always have a book on the go. As well, in
their middle schools they had much reduced access to their cell phones and much
less “free” time. This changes at high school. The students come to the library
learning commons to hangout, sleep, connect with friends, do homework and sometimes
take out a book. We still have many die-hard readers, but it isn’t unusual for
a student to tell me for me that they don’t read!
I recently spoke to a number of students in grades 11 and 12
and asked them what they were reading in English, and what books they had read
and enjoyed. Almost all of them confessed that they didn’t really read the
books assigned to them in class. Some of these students were in the highest-level
English courses.
Video: Penny Kittle: Why Students Don't Read What is Assigned in Class
Sometimes I wonder if this is what assigned books look like
to them--an array of bits of information, the organization of which is confusing, and requiring significant effort to make meaningful.
https://www.dreamstime.com/creativecommonsstockphotos_info
Public domain image Scrabble Tiles with Letters.
So, what to do? What to do? How to create a culture of
reading in the school?
The video illustrates how each of the students improved in
the number of books and the number of pages they read when one change was made
and they were given choice. Teachers often teach a whole class novel. There are
many benefits to this method. According to Kate Roberts, “Having the support of
a teacher and a class of peers when reading a book can lift the level of our thinking and can hold our attention in ways
that sometimes reading on our own does not “(Roberts p. 11).
However, if
students don’t read the book any potential benefit is lost. This semester I will be
working with a class of grade 11 English. We are beginning with a whole class
novel, but then the students will be moving to individual choice novels with
similar themes. I hope that students
will want to continue to explore the themes and ideas from the novel with
additional books, articles, short stories and poetry.
Sometimes students don’t choose a book because they have difficulties
making choices. I think book talks might be a way to focus on books they
would be interested in. In high school, students choose option courses. Working
from the premise that they are interested in these courses and might, by
extension, be interested in reading more about the ideas presented in these
courses, I am compiling reading lists of books, fiction and non-fiction. I hope
to have at least a couple of these lists ready for second semester—next week. I’ll
pull the books and take them to the classes for book talks. This is an idea
adapted from Penny Kittle’s book Book
Love. In chapter five, “The Power of the Book Talk” she advocates talking
about three to five books at the beginning of class to introduce students to
many different books. For example, if you like psychology, you might want to
read The Silver Linings Playbook, School of Fear, or Freaking Out: Real Life Stories about Anxiety. Since I am not a classroom teacher I will go in only once or twice a asemester and ste the list of books that way.
Bibliography
Kittle, Penny. Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and
Passion in Adolescent Readers. Heinemann, 2013.
Penny Kittle. YouTube, 15 Mar. 2010, youtu.be/gokm9RUr4ME.
Penny Kittle. YouTube, 15 Mar. 2010, youtu.be/gokm9RUr4ME.
Roberts, Kate. A Novel Approach: Whole-Class Novels,
Student-Centered Teaching, and Choice. Heinemann, 2018.
