Case Study of Readers

This case study will be taking the format of journal entries about students’ school work and school readings as though they were written by the readers I observed and interviewed.  Their personalities and reading habits will come out through the entries based on how they respond and how thorough their response is.  I’ve taken some liberties with subject matter of the response to reflect what students said and what they really liked and disliked about reading.  The students I interviewed were freshman t Central Crossing High School, a low-achieving urban school in the Southwestern City School District.

Journal One:

I don’t get this stupid story.  I don’t know why we have to write about.  It’s not like I’m ever going to use this again.  I mean, for reals, who reads plays in their free time?  Isn’t that what movies are for.  Movies are great.  Especially when they’re for a book you’re supposed to read for class, but you can just watch the movie instead.  But this play we’re reading, The Miracle Worker, who cares?  Why is the story of Helen Keller even part of this class? Isn’t she dead, so why do we have to read about her?  Or if we have to know this story, and it is a play, then why don’t we just watch the movie?

I hate reading out loud in class.  And I hate listening to other people read out loud in class.  When George stutters his way through a sentence, how am I supposed to understand anything?  I wish we’d just watch the movie for this story.  Or if Mrs. B is going to make us read it, she should just read it to us.  At least then we wouldn’t have to listen to everyone else mess up every other word when they read.

Journal Two:

This story is kind of interesting.  I don’t think I’d read it out of class though.  It’s too hard to understand.  Miss B explains it too us though when we read.  But she makes us read out loud.  I don’t like that.  But the story is okay when she tells us what is going on.

Journal Three:

I’ve been reading the Percy Jackson series lately, and it’s so good.  I still want to go see the movie, but it won’t be as good as the book.  Movies are never as good as the book.  They get the characters all wrong, and always mess up the story line and the way it’s supposed to go.  I like seeing how other people see the book, but sometimes I wish they’d never make books into movies because of how much they ruin it.  I hope some of my friends will go with me to see it so we can talk about it and talk about how the book was better.  I like seeing how they change the story to fit in a movie format and always wonder why they leave some stuff in, but cut huge chunks of the story out.

I don’t know what I’m going to read next after I finish this last book in the series.  Maybe Mrs. B will be able to give me some ideas.  She normally has pretty good ones, but sometimes she wants me to read these dry, boring, classic books.  I normally give up on those after a few hours trying and just falling asleep.  I need action, and adventure, and maybe a little bit of magic in my books.  I want to be a hero like those characters, not some kid with a whole bunch of problems like some of the books Mrs. B recommends.  When I go to the library sometimes the librarians there have some good suggestions.  I like their better a lot of times because they’re not wanting me to read a book for school, but wanting me to read a book that they think is good.  Maybe I’ll join one of the book clubs there this summer.

Journal Four:

I’ve been having a hard time in my science class with all the reading Mr. H has got us doing.  I feel like I’m highlighting everything.  How am I supposed to know what’s important.  I wish he’d give us an outline or guided notes or something.  Then at least I’d know what was going to be on the test.  The worksheets he gives us to do in class are nothing but busy work because he’s too lazy to actually teach us anything.  Just wants us to read from the book and find the answers in there.

Journal Five:

We’ve been reading Animal Farm in class and at first I thought it was real boring and weird.  I was like, why are all these animals talking? And how do the humans even understand them?  Something like this book could never happen.  But then Mrs. F started teaching us about the Russian Revolution and I was like, whoa!  They’re telling like the same story.  And then Mrs. B started telling us about illusions or something like that.  It means when a story talks about another story in the story.  Anyways, she told us about that and I was like so Animal Farm is an illusion to the Russian Revolution and Communism and stuff.

And then, after we read the book we got to do this really cool project.  We each were part of an animal group and got use propaganda and bribes and stuff to get the other animal groups to vote for us.  We made posters and came up with slogans and stuff and we got to work for two whole days convincing all the other groups that we were the best.  I was in the pig group and we brought in bacon to give to people if they promised to vote for us.  Everybody loves bacon, so I think we’ll do good.  We find out who wins tomorrow.  I love it when Mrs. B and Mrs. F let us do hands-on projects like this.  I understand and like it so much better when we don’t just have to sit in our desks and listen, or fall asleep, while they talk at us.

Journal Six:

All this analytical stuff we have to do when we read in class is ridiculous.  No one does that when they read.  I don’t.  I just read.  I like reading sci-fi and fantasy series because I get sucked in and it’s like I’m there with the characters.  I like that.  My sister reads a lot of romancey books, like Twilight, and she doesn’t analyze them.  I mean, not that you could with girly books like that, since they’re so dumb, but even if you could, who would do that? If I’m going to read, I just want to read.

Revised Reading Conceptualization Paper

Growing up, I was just as likely to be found curled up with a favorite book as I was to be found outside playing with my friends.  I have always adored reading, as it provides an opportunity for me to escape my life and into a world of fantasy and magic, or to a place where people can change the world.  The genres of fantasy and science fiction are my first and deepest loves when it comes to reading.  To me reading is a way to enter a world where you can imagine yourself as the hero in a story, where you have special powers and abilities that allow you to fight evil and make the world a better place.  When the Harry Potter series swept the world, one of the biggest draws for me as a reader was that I could imagine myself in that world.  I waited and waited for my Hogwarts letter, and even when it didn’t come, I still had my imagination to take me places.  It engaged me in the story, and allowed me to create my own stories in the process.

While this model is easy to apply to fantasy, where the world has a magic system in place, it can also be applied to just about any genre.  The idea behind reading holds true: the reader can put herself into the story in order to experience something she either never has before or never would have the chance to experience.  It is an exercise in changing perspectives in order to have new and different experiences.  There are exercises that teachers can use to scaffold students into perspective changing.  I used a debate format this quarter during my multi-day teaching where I had students come up with ideas on how the same situation would make two different characters feel.  I think for many students, fantasy, or whatever their genre of choice is, playing with perspectives is the gateway that teachers should follow to get their students interested in reading.  Students can learn to empathize with a character whose experiences are different from their own.  This empathy for characters makes reading more enjoyable and once they recognize that reading is not always a bad thing, then they will have more motivation to work through a text.

Getting students to put themselves into a story begins first with the selection of the text.  Even young students recognize that there seems to be a difference in what they want to read and what their teachers want them to read.  This dichotomy of pleasure reading and school reading is what I feel is the most important obstacle to overcome when we want students to engage with a text.  If teachers can find texts that will appeal to their students, then they’ve taken a huge step in helping their students to come to enjoy reading and perhaps not find it such an arduous task.  I worry that finding these texts that appeal to young adult readers will be difficult for me to do as an adult, but also that when I do find them, that teaching them will be met with resistance by the administration and parents.

Because the presence of the canon in the classroom is something that I suspect will important to the administration the challenge will then becomes how to make the canon more appealing to students.  I think the key here remains the same as it does for other texts: make the text relatable and relevant to students.  Shakespeare is an important part of the canon, but most students shut down and tune out when they discover they’ll be reading a Shakespeare play out loud.  It’s not an exciting way to read a text, especially a play, and makes it difficult to get into the text and relate to it.  There are so many other options out there to teach something like Shakespeare.

I’ve observed a teacher who uses the Manga Shakespeare version to teach Romeo and Juliet.  It contains word for word the text from the play, but puts it in a more visual, and often more familiar, format for students.  The use of dramatic inquiry is also a strategy that can be employed to help students understand themes in a text.  Experiencing this technique with MacBeth, I could also see using dramatic inquiry in the situations where you didn’t want to have students read the whole text, for whatever reason.  The instruction can be focused down to certain moments in the play, with the intent being to bring out themes by accessing students prior knowledge and curiosity.

Shakespeare is part of the canon that even if I were given choice I don’t plan on removing.  I love it too much, and see the value in it partly because so many others texts that students are exposed to allude or reference Shakespeare.  As a teacher, I want my students to develop the same passion that I have for reading, and as a first step in this direction, I want to show them that I have that passion.  I think it’s important for students to know that their teachers read for fun too, and in a lot of cases, what their teachers are reading for fun, and what their teachers read for fun as kids.  I plan on having some book shelves devoted to pleasure reading books, so that my students can check out books from there.  Part of my plan for these shelves is to allow students to suggest of request certain books to be made available there.  These shelves will also play a role in the classroom because I plan on trying to set aside time for sustained silent reading.  I found that the biggest reason I wouldn’t read in high school or college was because I couldn’t set aside the time for it, so by providing my students with that time in class, I will be removing that obstacle at least to some extent.

The environment that students are expected to read in also contributes to their feelings about reading.  For me, in kindergarten and first grade there was the giant carpet where the teacher read to the class, and then in later grades as I began to learn to read there were comfy, poufy chairs that I could read in placed around the classroom.  And then when I reached middle and high school, suddenly reading was serious business, and you had to sit in your uncomfortable, too-small desk and analyze a text that you had no interest in.  When I have my own classroom, I want to have a special space a dedicated reading space to help communicate to students that reading doesn’t have to be an uncomfortable experience that they want to avoid like the plague.   Whether or not my students’ experiences are similar to my own or not, I think a great deal of good can come from having a comfortable classroom environment.

Overall, I think reading is very important to the future of our students.  It is an important skill for them to have in the “real world.”  This skill doesn’t just mean reading books or magazines, but also reading street signs, directions, text messages, movies, emotions, and much more.  A person who is a skilled reader can take stock of a situation and make informed decisions about what choices to make.  They can use their skill with reading to read the world around them and shape their lives in accordance with what they discover.

Being literate gives students opportunities to read texts to continue on their path of learning as they progress into adulthood.  It provides them with an escape from their daily lives.  It gives them things to think about that they never would have considered before.  They can learn new things, and also learn what other’s actions have led to in the past.  They can internalize ideas, make connections to their lives, and reshape their thinking.  It gives them a way to build their vocabulary and provides them with topics and ideas to speak about.  Reading, in its various forms, is so embedded in our culture that to even consider a life without it seems ridiculous.

Students who are unfortunately labeled as remedial or struggling readers often just need to try a different approach to reading.  If a student doesn’t understand the written word, then maybe teach with a graphic novel in order to combine visual aids.  It the writing on the whole is a problem, then maybe they’ll benefit from seeing a theatrical version of the text.  Maybe they can’t understand a text unless they’re part of it, so use dramatic inquiry or one of the variations of it to help the student become a part of the text.  There are so many different types of students, and so many ways of reading, it is a matter of continued experimentation until the teacher finds the method that matches with the student.  And all these different ways of readings aren’t only beneficial to the remedial or struggling readers, they can help readers of all kinds and levels.  I want all of my students to see all the possibilities that are contained within the concept of reading.

Reading Conceptualization Paper

Growing up, I was just as likely to be found curled up with a favorite book as I was to be found outside playing with my friends.  I have always adored reading, as it provides an opportunity for me to escape my life and into a world of fantasy and magic, or to a place where people can change the world.  The genres of fantasy and science fiction are my first and deepest loves when it comes to reading.  To me reading is a way to enter a world where you can imagine yourself as the hero in a story, where you have special powers and abilities that allow you to fight evil and make the world a better place.  When the Harry Potter series swept the world, one of the biggest draws for me as a reader was that I could imagine myself in that world.  I waited and waited for my Hogwarts letter, and even when it didn’t come, I still had my imagination to take me places.  It engaged me in the story, and allowed me to create my own stories in the process.

While this model is easy to apply to fantasy, where the world has a magic system in place, but it can also be applied to just about any genre.  The idea behind reading holds true: the reader can put herself into the story in order to experience something she either never has before or never would have the chance to experience.  It is an exercise in changing perspectives in order to have new and different experiences.  I think for many students, fantasy, or whatever their genre of choice is, is the gateway that teachers should follow to get their students interested in reading.  Once they recognize that reading is not always a bad thing, then they will have more motivation to work through a text.

Even young students recognize that there seems to be a difference in what they want to read and what their teachers want them to read.  This dichotomy of pleasure reading and school reading is what I feel is the most important obstacle to overcome when we want them to engage with a text.  If teachers can find texts that will appeal to their students, then they’ve taken a huge step in helping their students to come to enjoy reading and perhaps not find it such an arduous task.  I worry that finding these texts that appeal to young adult readers will be difficult for me to do as an adult, but also that when I do find them, that teaching them will be met with resistance by the administration and parents.

As a teacher, I want my students to develop the same passion that I have reading, and as a first step in this direction, I want to show them that I have that passion.  I think it’s important for students to know that their teachers read for fun too, and in a lot of cases, what their teachers are reading for fun, and what their teachers read for fun as kids.  I plan on having some book shelves devoted to pleasure reading books, so that my students can check out books from there.  This will also help because I plan on trying to set aside time for sustained silent reading.  I found that the biggest reason I wouldn’t read was because I couldn’t set aside the time for it, so by providing my students with that time in class, I will be removing that obstacle at least to some extent.

The environment that students are expected to read in also contributes to their feelings about reading.  In kindergarten and first grade there was the giant carpet where your teacher read to you, and then in later grades as you began to learn to read there were comfy, poufy chairs that you could read in placed around the classroom.  And then when students reach middle and high school, suddenly reading is serious business, and you must sit in your uncomfortable, too small desk and analyze a text that you have no interest in.  When I have my own classroom, I want to have a special space a dedicated reading space to help communicate to students that reading doesn’t have to be an uncomfortable experience that they want to avoid like the plague.

Overall, I think reading is very important to the future of our students.  It is an important skill for them to have in the “real world.”  It provides them with an escape from their daily lives.  It gives them things to think about that they never would have considered before.  They can learn new things, and also learn what others actions have led to in the past.  They can internalize ideas, make connections to their lives, and reshape their thinking.  It gives them a way to build their vocabulary and provides them with topics and ideas to speak about.  Reading is so embedded in our culture that to even consider a life without it seems ridiculous.  I want my students to see all the possibilities that are contained within the concept of reading.