This week the English III students began Fahrenheit 451, while the Advanced English III students began The Ox-Bow Incident. While social media and the internet has offered many technological advancements as resources for educators, included in that mix are "cheats" for students. A quick search on the internet reveals an abundance of summaries, research papers, and analyses that offer students shortcuts to actually reading the novel. "So Mr. Bizarri wants me to read this 200+ page novel for English class," a student might ask himself or herself. "Ya right."
So as high school English teachers, how can we motivate students to avoid "the cheats"? I know from my own personal survey of students, after we completed a novel read two years ago, less than 50% of the students reported that they actually had read all of the novel, and that number included advanced level students. And in many cases, students have overloaded their academic, extra-curricular, and part-time work experiences so far that they honestly have very little time outside of class to dig in to a novel.
Here are some strategies I use that hopefully increases the number of students that read the entire book.
1) Divide the exploration of the book into manageable segments. For example, for the advanced students, the assigned reading is going to be about 20-25 pages per set of comprehension and analysis questions. I find this segmented reading is doable for even the busiest student, or the reluctant reader.
2) Create unique questions. While it takes more of my time, I create the questions - some comprehension and some inference questions. In this way, I hope questions are more appealing to students, and I also avoid the temptation of students discovering the internet source I used to find questions.
3) Include video clips. Today's students are much more visual. One student stated yesterday, "Mr. Bizarri, there are no pictures in this book." And the student was correct, but if I can interject video clips of something related to the author or the book or the setting or something else, the students can have visual additions to the literature.
4) Give them the option of cheating. I know this sounds crazy, but offer students the chance to use an internet resource. I actually copy several copies of _____notes and make them available. I tell the students, if they are going to avoid reading, then I might as well know what they are going to use. I also inform students that I'm aware of film version(s) are available, but my questions always are derived from the text.
5) Give them more control. Find ways to allow students the opportunity to lead discussions and analysis. It's tempting as a teacher to try to steer students, but the experience is more genuine and enjoyable for students if they are allowed some freedom.
6) Vary the style of responses to allow for different expression styles. Some students are very comfortable in large group discussions; others prefer small group discussions; still others are terrified of uttering one word out loud in class. Find ways that all comfort levels can contribute at some point during the novel experience.
7) Enjoy the experience with them. Kids are smart and fun if we let them. They don't have to obtain every scholarly nugget of knowledge in order to improve their reading and analytical skills. And if we will allow it, they give us teachers a chance to see perspectives and viewpoints that we didn't previously consider.
8) See if you can get others involved. Can you get parents involved? How about other students in your school or in another school? I really would like to use Google Hangouts to try some interactive experiences, but our school isn't ready for such technology just yet. What could you do to make the experience even more authentic with an outside audience?
There you have it....even in the year 2017, we can attempt to have novel reads in English classes. We just have to try some different things. I hope one or more of these things might be helpful to you.
JBiz
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