L O U I S E C O P U S - D I S S E RTAT I O N2 1 S T J U N E 2 0 1 4

ENGAGING BOYS WITH READING. 

A QUALITATIVE STUDY EXPLORING TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES AND ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS AND CONTEXTS THAT SUPPORT THE ENGAGEMENT OF YEAR 9 BOYS WITH READING.

OR…

How to move from this:

To this:

NATIONAL PICTURE

Summer 2013 GCSE English results: Boys 56.3% A*-C grades (56.9% in 2012) Girls 71.2% in 2013 (71.5% A*-C in 2012)

(Stubbs, 2013) A report by the National Literacy Trust, in conjunction with the All Party Parliamentary Literacy group published a report into boys’ reading on Monday 2nd July 2012. As part of their findings they revealed that of the 226 schools that they had surveyed, 76% were concerned about boys’ underachievement in reading.

(All Party Parliamentary Literacy Group and National Literacy Trust, 2012)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Which teaching and learning strategies support Year 9 boys’ engagement with the reading of texts?

Which additional conditions and contexts support the engagement of Year 9 boys with reading?

ENGAGEMENT?

What is engagement?

Constructions of Masculinity vsmasculinity femininity

‘Gender appropriate Perceptions ofactivities’ reading

LITERATURE REVIEWGENDER – ISSUES TO FACE

GENDER Fear

Competitive nature of

hegemonic masculinity

LITERATURE REVIEWPOTENTIAL STRATEGIES TO ENGAGE

Teachers offering and modelling a range of masculinities

Effortless achievement

Teacher praise

Co-operation

Thinking about reading

Group talk

Extended reading / reading around the subject

Relevance

Independence and choice

Kinaesthetic tasks

METHODOLOGY

• Action Research: McNiff• Small scale, qualitative • One mixed ability year 9 class• Reading SOW• Observe, question and attempt to improve

attitudes to reading.

• Research Methods:• Research Journal• Questionnaires• Semi structured interviews

INITIAL QUESTIONNAIRE

Engagement in English Questionnaire

I am: male female

What is your favourite subject?  Why do you like it?  How much do you enjoy English as a subject? 12345  Do you enjoy English more than Maths?   Choose three words to describe what English is like as a subject:   Name three activities that you enjoy in English:--- 

 Name three that you don’t find as enjoyable.--- Do you think that some subjects can be more ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ subjects?    Is English one of these?  If so which?  Why do you think this?  Would the ‘gender’ of a subject be a factor in how you engage in it?  How/ Why? / Why not?

INITIAL QUESTIONNAIRE FINDINGS

Favourite subject Engagement in English Favourite activities

Least Favourite activities Are subjects gendered?

Would the ‘gender’ of a subject affect your engagement ?

INITIAL INTERVIEW

“I like finding out about things that really happened.”

“really express my thoughts and be really creative.”

“They let me teach my own lesson to everyone that was pretty awesome!”

“I like being able to choose how I do a task. Like I might prefer to write a paragraph but someone else might like a mind map or something better. If I choose how I get my information down then I feel like it is more suited to me.”

“My target grades are quite high and I feel like I can’t achieve them. I don’t like languages that much.”

SOWTEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES TO EXPLORE

Key teaching and learning strategies:

• Tasks encouraging independence• Tasks relating the text to its wider social,

historical and cultural contexts• Visual, kinaesthetic and ICT tasks• Talk-based tasks, peer or group, including drama• Tasks involving intellectual challenge where

students were given little or no initial information• Wider, independent and extended reading

SOWANIMAL FARM

Lesson no. in unit of work

Lesson activity Teaching and learning strategies used

1 Free writing: exploring a theme Independence, relating to context, challenge

2 Reading related books independently

Independence, reading

3 Group discussion Talk, group independence

4 Visual Character display Visual & kinaesthetic, independence, group talk

5 ICT research lesson Independence, challenge, wider reading, relating to context

6 ‘Mask’ impersonating a character Kinaesthetic, Drama and talk

7 TV news programme Independence, talk, drama, kinaesthetic

8 Debate Independence, talk, reading

9 Presenting to class on an aspect of the Russian Revolution

Talk, Independence, relating to context

10 Extended independent reading of novel

Wider reading, independence

FINDINGSQUESTIONNAIRE 2

Questionnaire 2

- Asked students to rank activities then explain choices.- Looked then at general attitudes to reading and if

they had changed

FINDINGSQUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS – TOP RANKED ACTIVITIES

FINDINGS – QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS – BOTTOM RANKED ACTIVITIES

FINDINGS – ANIMAL FARM AS A NOVEL CHOICE

Was Animal Farm an engaging novel choice?

“I liked the book more than others studied in school because Animal Farm is a much more thought provoking book which requires you to think about it. It is more important than the others that are just about romance or an adventure.”

“It wasn’t like a book where all the characters fall in love or are really good friends or anything – there were some really evil bits and I thought that was the most interesting part”.

“The book itself was enjoyable and captivating and I have trouble finding books like that.”

FINDINGS – ROLE MODELS

“He must have been really clever and it was a really dangerous thing to do. I like studying this book because I think he was a really interesting person.”

FINDINGS -INDEPENDENCE

“Boys are very engaged by finding unusual or obscure methods of control to debate. Independent choice here works very well as an engaging strategy, boys are more engaged as they are able to choose their own area.”

“My favourite tasks allowed me to think about my opinions and interpretations of the books and to do this in a way that I chose, that was important to me.”

“I enjoy presenting my ideas and I feel that I enjoy partaking in activities I have personally planned / researched, as I have more to say about them because I have chosen them”.

“Because I got to choose my own ideas and then research them, I felt like they really were my ideas and I liked them a lot better.”

FINDINGS – RELATING TO HISTORICAL, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS OR TO STUDENTS’

OWN EXPERIENCE

“The background to Animal Farm is really engaging because it all really happened. You can really see where the links to the Russian Revolution are and it is so interesting.”

“The thing about reading is, it’s all just made up. You can’t use it for anything. It’s pointless.”

“The background of Animal Farm is so interesting because it all really happened – it’s not just some book that’s made up, it’s all real and that makes it much more engaging for me.” “I thought it was really engaging because George Orwell has really based it on stuff that really happened”.

“Then we found out the words [given in this task, e.g. ‘Freedom’] were themes from Animal Farm and it was really interesting because when we saw those themes in the book we already knew about them in a way because we had already explored them on our own.”

FINDINGS – KINAESTHETIC, VISUAL AND DRAMA ACTIVITIES

“My least favourite activities were the practical ones like the mask and the presentation as I am not fond of speaking in front of the class.”

“I felt really confident about saying stuff as well because I had my Boxer mask on and so did everyone and we were just the animals. I don’t think I’d have been as engaged without the mask because I would have been embarrassed.”

“My favourite activities were engaging because they were creative and practical and fun! And I could learn at the same time.”

“I put character display at the top because it was creative and also useful to refer back to in later lessons. I could see the point in it.”

FINDINGS – TALK / GROUP WORK

“Boys are particularly engaged in discussion about masculinity and reading. As soon as they were made aware of the existence of the idea that it is not masculine to read, they were almost fighting against it. Deep discussion on why it is masculine to read is occurring with reference to a range of authors and texts.”

“In discussion, people interpret the ideas in the books in different ways and everyone can share these and develop these and maybe change their own opinions.”

“I saw lots of people change their opinions actually and I think that is a real sign of engaging because they were clearly thinking very deeply about what people were saying.”

“I think it can be quite a noisy thing when you are really engaged because it’s often when you are talking about it and sharing your ideas with the class or your group.”

FINDINGS – CHALLENGE

“Writing was also really challenging because you weren’t given that much information but you really thought that you could succeed at it.”

“ You have to work at it as well, it isn’t easy but you feel really satisfied once you understood it, it was engaging because you had to work at it and it was a challenge.”

“If you researched it and knew what you were talking about you could win.”

FINDINGS – INDEPENDENT AND EXTENDED READING

“ I find reading very enjoyable as I don’t have to keep stopping to do a different activity, I can really get into it.”

“Some students seem to really appreciate the reading, they were totally engaged and when I tried to stop them, they didn’t hear me.”

FINDINGS – MYSTERY

“It’s like finding out this really big secret and it makes you feel really interested and clever because you know the secret about it.”

“It was like this huge web and we had to work out all our own ideas.”

LIMITATIONS

• Small scale!• Class teacher – tension• Group dynamic in interview• ‘Fun’ activities – higher ranking

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