"Why aren't you reading your book?"
"Ms. E - it's boring."
"Oh - stop reading it and find a better one.
What don't you like about it so you can avoid other similar titles?"
GoodReads recently did a poll to investigate what makes people abandon their books. This can be a tricky topic for English teachers. First, we read for different purposes. Academic reading is an area that cannot be abandoned for many different reasons. Whatever the hurdle, the reader has to be resilient enough to jump it. However, reading for pleasure is a whole different thing.
We start to figure out our true personalities in high school. While peer pressure definitely still has its place, students in our English classrooms are encouraged to pick what they love - even if you're the macho, dreamy boy all the girls crush over we still want you to keep reading your selected book, The Pregnancy Project, because for some reason it entertains, interests, and intrigues you. As a reading teacher, I feel it's my job to give teens the space to explore whatever it is that piques their interests. But if the Pregnancy Project suddenly sucks halfway through the book, I say quit it.
I could chat about the contents of this chart forever!
What's extra fascinating to me are the non-quitters - 38.1% always
finish, no matter what. This represents most academics I know, and
sometimes it outcasts me.
In my classroom, I'd say that number is definitely smaller if only for the reason of age and developing their tastes in books. It would be interesting to collect this same data with my 10th graders at the beginning of the year and at the end. Would a year of great classroom library choices develop a student's tastes in reading enough to not quit so quickly out of boredom? Is a boring book always going to be boring to you no matter how long you've been reading, making the analysis null?
Wait. Forget that bottomless pit of questions I could create. Maybe what's great about this chart is simpler. There's so much stigma around quitting and a learned helplessness around it with reading. Looking at this chart, it's clear that there are socially acceptable reasons to stop a book. Quitting doesn't define your ability in this situation. But teens, especially struggling readers, think it does.
Maybe there's nothing too spectacular or research-based to learn from analyzing this chart in relation to my own classroom, except to share it with my students and validate their decisions as readers.
GoodReads recently did a poll to investigate what makes people abandon their books. This can be a tricky topic for English teachers. First, we read for different purposes. Academic reading is an area that cannot be abandoned for many different reasons. Whatever the hurdle, the reader has to be resilient enough to jump it. However, reading for pleasure is a whole different thing.
We start to figure out our true personalities in high school. While peer pressure definitely still has its place, students in our English classrooms are encouraged to pick what they love - even if you're the macho, dreamy boy all the girls crush over we still want you to keep reading your selected book, The Pregnancy Project, because for some reason it entertains, interests, and intrigues you. As a reading teacher, I feel it's my job to give teens the space to explore whatever it is that piques their interests. But if the Pregnancy Project suddenly sucks halfway through the book, I say quit it.
I want my students to have endurance and determination, but pleasure reading is not the place to do this. Instead, let's use that precious non-academic reading time to our best of abilities and hook our students. Let's give them the space to develop their identity as a reader, just like we know our own identities when it comes to music, fashion, and art. Sometimes one needs to explore new styles, quit, and restart to build self-awareness.“Time is what we want most,but what we use worst.” - William Penn
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| GoodReads: Pyschology of Abandonment |
In my classroom, I'd say that number is definitely smaller if only for the reason of age and developing their tastes in books. It would be interesting to collect this same data with my 10th graders at the beginning of the year and at the end. Would a year of great classroom library choices develop a student's tastes in reading enough to not quit so quickly out of boredom? Is a boring book always going to be boring to you no matter how long you've been reading, making the analysis null?
Wait. Forget that bottomless pit of questions I could create. Maybe what's great about this chart is simpler. There's so much stigma around quitting and a learned helplessness around it with reading. Looking at this chart, it's clear that there are socially acceptable reasons to stop a book. Quitting doesn't define your ability in this situation. But teens, especially struggling readers, think it does.
Maybe there's nothing too spectacular or research-based to learn from analyzing this chart in relation to my own classroom, except to share it with my students and validate their decisions as readers.
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