02.+Research+Base

Secondary teachers often wonder how to increase students enjoyment of text, and would all agree with Marlene Asselin's assertion that "when students love read, they will choose to read more and their reading achievement will be greater" (15). Ever competing against the movie, the computer game, or the new sport of choice, what can we do to entice and engage students in increasingly complex reading? Many authors offer suggestions, yet an overarching theme has emerged: As students' ability to "see" into text, make connections, and develop insight increases, so does their enjoyment of literature and reading. Applegate noted that "it was not the recall of factual information that distinguished interested and less-interested readers. Instead, it was responses to questions that required deep and complex comprehension, the detection of relationships between and among ideas, or the application of ideas to new situations" (226) that correlated with enjoyment. While many schools and teachers focus on "reading as nothing more than an exercise in the Three Rs (Recall, Recognition, and Recitation),” Applegate challenges us to consider ways to improve students level of inference with challenging tasks, structuring them in such a way as to build skill level and expertise (227).

Kylene Beers discusses two types of inference: "text-based" and "knowledge-based" (63). It is through the interaction between the text and our prior experiences that we develop what she refers to as "internal text" (63)—in other words, inference. Applegate mirrors this idea, positing that it is students' "inclination to approach narratives as thoughtful links between human experience and text that determines whether children...feel impelled to engage in the activity of reading" (231). What strategies can we use to develop this internal text and help students to automatically create connections with what they know and believe, and how can these connections help students make thoughtful responses to text.

The Applegates are most interested in answering the question, //Is the ability to thoughtfully respond to a text also related to motivation to read?// While this question may seem like a no-brainer, the authors point out that before this study “little or no empirical evidence existed to support the link between thoughtful response and motivation to read” (230). The //motivation// to read is especially important because these authors found that many students who score well on standardized reading exams and are considered—exam-wise—to be “good readers” in fact harbor a “palpable disdain for reading” (231). For these students, reading is something that they have been expected to do and that they have learned to do (well) at school—in a distinctly “school” way—but reading is not something that these students in fact embrace. This fact, if at all true or widespread, carries with it this obvious problem: there may be a legion of people who in fact do not enjoy reading and are—by extension—not engaged with life and learning at a level of any depth. Further, the presence of such a large group making its way “successfully” through the education system would suggest a serious flaw in the assessment and evaluation practices of literacy teachers and policy makers.

Questioning is an overarching strategy that seems to repeat throughout the literature. Elizabeth A. Lee refers to teaching students "Right There: Think and Search: In Your Head: On Your Own" as levels of questions to ask about a piece of text (71). The first two correlate with Beers' "text-based" and the second two "knowledge-based" (63) levels of inference. With Lee's breakdown, and with teacher direction, students would be able to develop a confidence in how to access these two types of inference. Beers discusses the differences between struggling and successful readers: she states that weaker readers "believe [reading] is at most to decode the print" (69).Struggling readers do not understand that reading is a interactive relationship with the text, and thus do not develop a level of inference and insight which might led to a love of reading. How can English teachers help students develop a relationship with the ideas in stories and text?

Both Beers and Williams discuss teacher modeling as an essential tool for teaching inference. Williams considers "reciprocal teaching strategies...first and foremost a conversation between teachers and students to come to a shared understanding of text." He outlines a process of "predicting, questioning, clarification, and summarizing [which] are modeled by the teacher and then transferred to the students as they take on the role of teacher to lead the discussion about a shared text” (278). Serafini calls this type of teaching as an "instructional compass" (1). This compass, if successful, would enable teachers to assess whether students have "learned the concepts taught to them" (2) through observation of the skills in action. If our lessons are successful and out guidance accurate, then students will take away a more developed ability to infer and create insight into literature, and thus increase enjoyment. After all, the goal of most English teachers is that when the school doors close, we hope our students will pick up a book because they want to—rather than have to.

A note on the “aim to achieve balance” in choosing and presenting the strategies: analysis and inference are involved in the acts of reading both fiction and non-fiction; enjoyment is cultivated further and more deeply at perhaps the same rate that analysis and inference skills are cultivated. Since the affective state and the skill level both increase commensurately, we found no intuitive or organizationally beneficial way in which to organize and present our strategies.