Never Too Late to Read Again 1
Running head: NEVER TOO LATE TO READ AGAIN
Never Too Late to Read Again
Mary L. Fahrenbruck, Jenise Porter, Lucinda A. Soltero, Yoo Kyung Sung, and Melissa B. Wilson
University of Arizona
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jenise Porter, Department of Language, Reading and Culture, College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0069. E-mail:
Abstract
Teachers play a central role in students’ learning. Effective teachers are passionate about their subject areas and about the ways to pass along that enthusiasm to students. Their attitudes reflect their excitement for the content they teach. Conversely, their attitudes can also reflect their indifferences. This article presents pre-service teachers’ personal reflections about their transformation from bystanders to active participants in their own learning while becoming readers again. It describes the three main components of an instructional model that a group of university instructors implemented to consciously support this change in pre-service teachers’ reading attitudes. This instructional model makes space for participants to connect deeply with texts, to read critically, and to revalue themselves as readers and as democratic citizens. The article highlights the significance of democratic classrooms and the crucial role teachers play in developing children into lifelong readers.
Never too Late to Read Again
When you read a book you lose the feeling of reading. The whole mechanics of the process of turning the pages and looking at letters vanishes and it’s as if you are in another world where things are being acted out in front of you and you are a participant. Either you are in it yourself or you’re standing somewhere and you can get a good view and you see it all happening in front of you. (Ockert, self-proclaimed, ludic reader, Nell, 1988, p. 290).
Many readers will identify with Ockert’s recollection of what happens when he reads a book. As teachers and librarians we look forward to students proclaiming that they, like Ockert, have “dropped” down into the pages of the books they are reading (Nell, 1988). Although some students value themselves as readers, others do not. This feeling of reading inadequacy can follow even otherwise successful college students throughout their academic careers.
We are a group of university instructors teachingwho have taught pre-service teachers who are successful students, yet indifferent readers, enrolled in our survey ofn children’s literature course. Some pre-service teachers’ The’s lack of confidence of some pre-service teachers first emerges when they complete a personal questionnaire at the beginning of the semester that asks them to describe themselves as readers. Responses vary frominclude, “Slow, and I rarely read for pleasure, usually (if not only) magazines,” to “I hate reading!”
While these and similar comments raise our level of concern, we have found that our students come to revalue themselves as readers by the end of the semester. In this article we will share our students’ personal reflections about their transformation from bystanders to active participants in their own learning while becoming readers again.
The Course Content
As teacher researchers we have considered the significance of the pre-service teachers in our classes revaluing themselves as readers and becoming passionate about children’s literature. We asked ourselves why this iswas important, especially at this time in their lives. The answer is grounded in our beliefs about the significance of democratic classrooms and the crucial role teachers play in developing children into lifelong readers.
We are all doctoral students who have taught Children’s Literature in the Classroom, a course required for pre-service teachers in the college of education. Each of us was responsible for creating a course syllabus and for choosing the required literature. One of our responsibilities was to meet weekly with our faculty supervisor. We used this time to collaborate, to analyze, and to strategize what our students were doing in class and how we could improve our instruction.
Most of our students are admitted to the elementary teaching program and take our course prior to enrolling in their methods courses. The majority of the students are Anglo, female, and in their early 20s. Our courses meet 2 ½ hours per week with a typical enrollment of 18-25 students.
The course structure is based on an inquiry model (Short, Harste, [with Burke] 1996) (See APA manual sec 4.08). Within this model students are invited to explore children’s literature in multiple ways. For example, we may ask students to represent their responses to a common piece of literature, such as Jacqueline Woodson’s (2003) Locomotion(2003)or Linda Sue Park’s (2002) When My Name Was Keoko. ,(2002), through art. These types of engagements permeate the course as students employ multiple ways of representing their responses, such as music, drama, craft, architecture, sculpture, and writing. Responses such as these serve as toolsinstruments for students to convey the meaning they made vis-à-vis their transactions with the texts (Eisner, 1994). It is the power of the literature that invites pre-service teachers to create deeper understandings through these engagements.
We believe that literature is powerful. It is one way we make sense of our lives and the lives of others (Bettelheim, 1976; Huck, 1971; (No citation listed in bib) Rosenblatt, 19781995 ( from Literature as Exploration). It is also a way in which we offer possibilities for the future (Patterson, 1989), and for a richer and more diverse life. Because of this, we deliberately select a collection of literature that our students will read as a class. We are avid readers of children’s literature and are constantly challenging ourselves to read outside our comfort zone based on our diverse backgrounds and tastes. Therefore, the texts change each semester based on what is happening in the world. For example, Melissa recently used Daniel, Half Human and the Good Nazi (Chotjewitz, 2004) to help students think about make sense of the Iraqi war. Yoo Kyung used Red Scarf Girl (Jiang, 1998) as a way to understand the genre of historical fiction and to broaden students’ worldviews. Jenise used Joey Pigza Swallowed The Key (Gantos, 2000) and Sahara Special (Codell, 2004) as a way to contrast teaching practices. Mary used Tomás and the Library Lady (Mora, 2000) to help students connect with the significance of reading and of the impact of a caring adult. Lucinda used My Diary from Here to There (Perez, 2002) to stimulate conversations about different cultures and the lives of immigrant families.
The purposeful selection of this literature is not lost on our students. Responding to an end of the semester self-evaluation, our students comment on the influence these and other stories have had on their lives. Additionally, students comment on how transacting with the literaturestories has changed their perspectives of themselves as readers. It is this change that piqued our interest and brought us together to look at the responses our students gave to ourthe final reflective self-evaluation.
What Our Students Think
Our final exam serves as a summative self-evaluation. The exam consists of five questions which we designed not only for students to have a chance to examine their own learning but also to assist us in making our own teaching responsive to the needs of our students. For this articlestudy we looked at responses to the exam question, “How have your perspectives changed as a reader as a result of taking this course?” We analyzed responses from more than 250 students over two semesters with each of the five instructors.
WTo study our student comments, we first looked for categories related to students’ perceptions of themselves as readers that emerged from the students’ responses to this exam question. These responses ranged from simple phrases to more deliberate answers as the following quotations illustrate:, “If I didn’t have this class I wouldn’t have anything fun to read” to “Reading for reading is how I used to approach books but now I read for deeper understanding and self-reflection.” We then coded the responses based on our emerging categories. The results yielded multiple categories with three shifts in perspectives emerging as significant across all course sections: (a) From surface connections to deep connections, (b) From reading for answers to reading critically, and (c) From required reader to joyful reader.
Our analysis of student responses indicated an evolution from passive to active in the students’ thinkinghe thinking of our students from passive to active. In the first category we noted that students talked about how they learned to relate to the literature through living with the characters. In the second category students reported discovering a multiplicity of possible interpretations. In the third category students expressed a new found habit of reading for pleasure. Underpinning all of these statements was a discovery or rediscovery of valuing oneself as a reader, as exemplified by these two responses:
- I was told and believed that I was a bad reader. I am proud to say I have found my voice and I’m a great reader. I like it!
- [My perspectives] have made a 360-degree turn. I feel so much better about myself as a reader whether it is aloud or silent. I am tons more confident and have rediscovered a love for books and reading. I know, now, that reading a little bit slow is no big deal.
From surface connections to deeper connections.
We encouraged our students to move past a limited factualtopical-levelsimilarity response like , “I had a dog, too” -after reading Because of Winn-Dixie-, to reading themselves into a wider global community. Their responses indicated that students recognized theirWe characterized this spectrum as a growth from surface connections to deeper connections. This movement is shown by the following student quotation,, “I understand more what connects me to a book; why it does or does not fulfill me. I usually take a book more to heart if I connect with it personally. Oftentimes that connection is not something I have experienced, but something I wish(isn’t the underline part of the student’s quote? If so, it should remain. I had. Reading…has opened up new realities to me about myself and others of different cultures.”
Our students began to empathize with the new people characters they met in the pages of a books. “The different books I have read in this class have brought new perspectives to living here in the U.S. as an immigrant.” They also began to relate the characters in the books to people they knew both inside and outside of booksin their own lives. “…”I related to [the book] more than any other book I read this semester. In the book she talked a lot about not being able to speak Spanish because her parents used it as a secret language. This makes me think about my own parents and how angry it makes me that I don’t know Spanish.”
From reading for answers to reading critically.
This category portrays responses that show us how students perceived themselves as goingwent from reading for answers to reading critically. Our students started the semester adept at pulling statements out of the text that would answer informational questions. As the semester progressed they become confident in their ability to makeing meaning out of the text. “Before this class I tended to choose light almost airy reading but now I look for books that will encourage me to think instead of books that will just amuse or entertain me.”
Some of this ability to read critically came from class discussions and the respectful exchange of points of view. “I am now able to have more developed opinions by sharing my thoughts with my peers and hearing others opinions. These discussions helped me to think about the books in a more critical way.” Other students developed their own critical lenses by constructing their own evaluative criteria for quality texts. “Now I understand a good book and good illustrations. At the same time I have been able to really look at a book and try to see if it perpetuates my negative stereotypes.”
From required reader to joyful reader.
We believed that Mmany of our pre-service teachers seemed to moved from reading their assigned texts as if they were just things tasks to be checked off as a to-do list to becoming, as Nell (1988) characterized, ludic readers, that is readers, that is, avid readers who read playfully and for plesurefun (Nell, 1988). This observation led us to name this category “from required reader to joyful reader” and encompassed a range of responses.
For example, one of the pre-service teachers commented, “Since I have taken this course my interest in reading has changed. I had so much fun reading the chapter books that were assigned in class that I let my friends and family read them.” And another student wrote, “I read in my spare time, waiting in line, and before I go to bed each night. If I do not have a book I’m working on I feel almost uncomfortable.” These responses speak to reading with gusto. Sharing assigned texts with loved ones and reading children’s books in public illustrate that these students had “fallen in to another world.” (Nell, 1988, p. 290). They had become joyful readers.(Nell, 1988, p. 290).
The pre-service teachers recognized that this change was important as exemplified by the statement, “My major achievement [in this course] was that I started to read through my own will.” This epitomizes the continuum from reading because you have to andto reading because you want to. A pre-service teacher put it eloquently, ““…The capacity of my literary knowledge was quite superficial and easily forgotten but after this class it was though I had seen everything in color after living a black and white life.”
What We Think
Like other instructors of undergraduate children’s literature courses in teacher education programs, we required our students to take a reflective essay examination at the end of the course (McClure & Tomlinson, 2000). Students responded to questions related to their knowledge of the course content and their personal growth as readers. The students indicated that they were willing to try on the perspectives of story characters regardless of whether they had something directly in common with them characters. They were willing to imagine themselves in situations in which they might not or will never find themselves involved. By the end of the course, the students stated that they could connect with most of the literature they read.
There are several positive implications for this transformation. Students who are able to try on the perspectives of others to expand their own personal experiences, not only do they acquire more knowledge about the world through reading, but they also live through the experiences of the characters in the stories (Rosenblatt, 1971995). (This source is Literature as Exploration) They feel the emotions evoked by the story and they expand their understandings about the lives of others. As a result, students are better suited to participate in a democratic society.
A second change our students experienced was that of evolving into critical readers. We surmised that past educational experiences had required them to read for a correct answer. As a result, the our students were leery of open-ended course assignments and often asked for detailed clarifications, especially at the beginning of the course. By the end of the semester, however, they confidently shared their personal responses to the literature in various ways (e.g., discussion, art, drama, etc.). Furthermore, the our students supported their responses with references to the literature, which set the stage for thoughtful dialogue about the multiple interpretations of their peers.
At a time when our students are inundated with print media on the internet, in magazines, etcand so forth., it is imperative that they are able to read critically. Our students indicated that they developed the skills and the confidence to analyze from different perspectives what they were reading from multiple perspectives. Students felt comfortable sharing their thoughts, opinions, and reactions, and they were willing to listen to others’ responses.
The third change we noted was that students grew into joyful readers. Instead of reading literature to complete an assignment, our students indicated that they read for pleasure and to find meaning within the pages of the text. Purposeful reading that emphasized a commitment to finding connections helped our students realize they are active participants in the reading process. As a result, they began to revalue themselves as readers.
Our students realized that there were multiple interpretations of a single text and they began to enjoy engaging in dialogue about those interpretations. They also developed a love of literature and of reading. Often times our students came to class early or stayed late so that they could browse the children’s literature library or talk to each other about what they had read. Many of the students read more children’s books than the required readings number on the syllabus simply because they had come to enjoy reading.
Implications
Our pre-service teacher responses illustrate that through participating in our classes, participants students engage in revaluingcaome to revalue themselves as readers (or students engage in experiences that help them revalue themselves as readers). As instructors we consciously support this change in reading attitudes through our instructional model (see figure 1), which is based on the ideaonof the reader’s transactionsng with the text to create a poem (Rosenblatt 781994). (This source is “The Reader, the Text and The Poem) Our three point model allows the key components of our courses to transact with each other in ways that invite our students to connect deeply, to read critically, and to read joyfully.