John T. Guthrie - Engaging Adolescents in Reading

Copyright 2008 by Corwin Press

All rights reserved. When forms and sample documents are included, their use is authorized only by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit entities that have purchased the book. Except for that usage, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Engaging adolescents in reading / edited by John T. Guthrie.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4129-5334-4 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-4129-5335-1 (pbk.)

1. Reading (Secondary)United States. 2. Reading (Middle school)United States. 3. Motivation in educationUnited States. I. Guthrie, John T. I. Title.

LB1632.E54 2008

428.40712dc22

2007040310

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

T he mission of this book is to open the window to a new understanding of reading motivation. Across the nation, teachers in secondary schools face unmotivated students daily in their classrooms. Presenting the supreme challenge to teachers, these students do themselves a disservice by adopting an oppositional stance to reading and writing. Despite the predominance of this dilemma, teachers are little informed by research on how to engage their students in long-term reading. In this book, we portray the spectrum of students reasons for avoiding reading that pervade classrooms and schools. Likewise, we illuminate the students feelings, reasons, and emotions for engaging in literacy.

This book aims to arm teachers with solutions to this dilemma. We depict five vital classroom practices for engaging adolescents in reading. Each practice is linked to a key motivational quality such as interest, ownership, confidence, collaboration, and the desire to understand texts fully. These approaches to teaching are deep, yet doable. Each motivational strategy can be initiated tomorrow in any subject matter that involves books and texts. Beyond one day, they can become the foundation of a renewed structure for teaching in a school. In contrast to the commonplace approach of helping adolescents by teaching them strategies for reading, what students need is motivation, and what teachers seek are ways to engage the passions and commitments of learners. Meeting teachers profound needs for new hope is an aim of this book.

The knowledge base of this book is scientific. Since 2000, researchers in psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and education have joined forces to build a science of motivational development and how classrooms foster it. Above all, this scientific knowledge is based on experiments and quantitative studies. In the absence of field trials, we have speculation but no confirmed knowledge. Although hundreds of field trials for motivating students and engaging adolescents in reading have been published in the past decade, these fertile resources have not been accessible to teachers until this volume. More than two hundred journal articles of the highest scientific caliber have been fused into the framework of this book. Contributors to this book have read, digested, interpreted, synthesized, and portrayed the findings of this knowledge base superbly.

Written by teachers, with the collaboration of the editor, this book sparkles with concreteness. Voices of students and the stories of teachers permeate its pages. Vivid vignettes crafted by remarkable educators carry the messages of how teachers engage adolescents in reading. Not transitory flashes, these illustrations embody the deepest principles that flow from the knowledge base in motivational development and engagement in literacy. Within these pages, the reader can see how motivation looks to a teacher and how it feels to a student to be engaged in reading.

The audience for this volume begins with educators who are seeking to reach their students. Further, literacy leaders who refuse to accept the crisis of student disengagement that too often results from todays cloistered curricula will find potentials for change. Administrators who are dissatisfied with the current outcomes of high-stakes testing will be informed. Optimistic educators who expect that higher standards can be met through deeper engagement in reading will find their beliefs confirmed in this volume.

Literacy leaders in secondary schools increasingly demand to know the critical ingredients of instruction for reading improvement. This book discusses the textbooks, teaching frameworks, and student activities that enable learners to shift into becoming active readers. Associated with this volume are needs-assessment questionnaires and evaluation rubrics designed to guide schools toward a new literacy agenda. Policy makers at the school, district, and state levels can take the directions recommended for engaging all learners in literacy. Just as expertise in music or sports is not an overnight happening, high school reading achievement is a long-term venture. The blueprints for beginning that journey and sustaining its progress are enclosed in these pages.

Educational practices at the heart of this volume are contained in often five years or greater, leading students to feel helplessness, teacher actions can bridge the student-textbook abyss.

In , we plot the next steps for teachers who seek to transform their classrooms. Using self-monitoring questionnaires for teachers and students, teachers can form inquiry groups in schools and districts. By initiating these next steps, teachers expectations for reaching all students can attain a new level of optimism.

M y personal background is the educational psychology of reading, its processes, and its improvement in classrooms. For the focus on motivation, I owe a debt of gratitude to my colleague, Allan Wigfield, a motivation expert, for 15 years of collaboration and delightful seminars with students.