Louise copus - dissertation 21 st june 2014

1. 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. Louise copus- dissertation 21stjune 2014

2. Or… How to move from this: To this:

3. 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)

4. 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?

5. Engagement? What is engagement?

6. Literature Reviewgender – issues to face Constructions of Masculinity vs masculinity femininity ‘Gender appropriate Perceptions of activities’ reading Competitive nature of hegemonic masculinity gender Fear

7. Literature reviewpotential strategies to engage Effortless achievement Co-operation Teacher praise Teachers offering and modelling a range of masculinities Relevance Group talk Kinaesthetic tasks Thinking about reading Extended reading / reading around the subject Independence and choice

8. 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

9. 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?

10. Initial questionnaire findings Favourite activities Favourite subject Engagement in English Would the ‘gender’ of a subject affect your engagement ? Least Favourite activities Are subjects gendered?

11. Initial interview “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.” “They let me teach my own lesson to everyone that was pretty awesome!” “My target grades are quite high and I feel like I can’t achieve them. I don’t like languages that much.” “really express my thoughts and be really creative.” “I like finding out about things that really happened.”

12. 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

13. Sowanimal farm

14. FindingsQuestionnaire 2 Questionnaire 2 • Asked students to rank activitiesthen explain choices. • Looked then at general attitudes to reading and if they had changed

15. Findingsquestionnaire results – top ranked activities

16. Findings – questionnaire results – bottom ranked activities

17. Findings – animal farm as a novel choice “The book itself was enjoyable and captivating and I have trouble finding books like that.” 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”.

18. 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.”

19. 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.” “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.” “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.”

20. Findings – Relating to historical, social and cultural contexts or to students’ own experience “The thing about reading is, it’s all just made up. You can’t use it for anything. It’s pointless.” “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 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.”

21. 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.” “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.” “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.”

22. 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.” “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.” “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 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.”

23. 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.”

24. 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.”

25. 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.”

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

27. bibliography • Alloway, N and Gilbert, P, (1997) Boys and Literacy: Lessons from Australia, Gender and Education, 9:1, p49-60 • All Party Parliamentary Literacy Group and National Literacy Trust, (2012) Boys’ Reading Commission, Available online at: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/policy/boys_reading_commission (accessed 20th Dec 2013) • Altricher, H; Feldman, A; Posch, P and Somekh, B (1998) Teachers investigate their work (2nd edition) London: Routledge • Austen, J (1813) (This edition published 1994) Pride and Prejudice, London: Penguin • Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination, edHolquist, M, trans. C. Emerson and Holquist, Austin: University of Texas • Barker, P. (1991) Regeneration, London: Penguin • Bell, J (1987) Doing your research project: A Guide for First time researchers in Education, Health and Social Sciences (5th edition) Berkshire: Open University Press • Bleach, K. (1998) Raising boys' achievement in schools, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books • Cohen, L; Manion, L and Morrison, K (2007) Research Methods in Education (6th edition) USA: Routledge • Davies, B, (1997): Constructing and deconstructing masculinities through critical literacy, Gender and Education, 9:1, 9-30 • Dowling, P and Brown, A (2010) Doing Research / Reading research: Re-interrogating Education USA: Routledge • Drake, P (2010) Grasping at methodological understanding: a cautionary tale from insider research, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 33: 1 85-99 • Dunne, M; Pryor, J and Yates, P (2005) Becoming a Researcher: a research companion for the social sciences, Maidenhead: Open University Press • Elliott, E and Dweck, C (1988) Goals: An Approach to Motivation and Achievement, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9:1, 5-12

28. Epstein, D; Elwood, J; Hey, V and Maw, J (1999) Failing boys? Issues in gender and achievement, (1st edition), Buckingham: Open University Press • Francis, B (2000) Boys, Girls and Achievement: Addressing the classroom issues, (1st edition), New York: RoutledgeFalmer • Freire, P. and Macedo, D. (1987) Literacy: Reading the word and the world, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd • Frosh, S, Phoenix, A and Pattman, R (2002) Young Masculinities, (1st edition), Hampshire: Palgrave • Gee, J.P. (2011) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, Oxon: Routledge • Guthrie, J. and Wigfield, A. (1997) Reading Engagement – Motivating readers through integrated instruction, Delaware: International Reading Association • Hall, C and Coles, M, (1997) Gendered readings: Helping boys to develop as critical readers, Gender and Education, 9:1, p61-68 • Hammersley, M. and Traianou, A. (2012) Ethics and Educational Research, British Educational Research Association on-line resource. Available on-line at: http://www.bera.ac.uk/resources/ethics-and-educational-research, Accessed 17th August 2013 • Harrison, C. (2004) Understanding Reading Development, London: SAGE • Hitchcock, G and Hughes, D (1989) Research and the teacher: A Qualitative Introduction to School-based Research (2nd edition) London: Routledge • Hollway, W and Jefferson, T (2000) doing qualitative research differently: free association, narrative and the interview method, London: SAGE • Jackson, C (2006) Lads and Ladettes in schools: Gender and a fear of failure, (1st edition), Berkshire: Open University Press • Kvale, S and Brinkman, S (2009) InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, (2nd edition) California: SAGE • Lather, P (1992) Critical frames in educational research: Feminist and post-structural perspectives, Theory Into Practice, 31:2, 87-99

29. Leonard, D; Daniels, H; Hey, V and Smith, M (2000) Learning and gender: a study of underachievement in junior schools, Award number: R000237346, Economic and Social Research Council • Mac an Ghaill, M (1994) The making of men: Masculinities, sexualities and schooling, (1st edition), Buckingham: Open University Press • MacLure, M (2004) ‘Clarity bordering on stupidity’: where’s the quality in systematic review? Available online at: http://www.esri.mmu.ac.uk/respapers/papers-pdf/Paper-Clarity%20bordering%20on%20stupidity.pdf (accessed 20th August 2013) • McNiff, J. (2002) Action research for professional development – Concise advice for new action researchers, http://www.jeanmcniff.com/ar-booklet.asp (accessed 1st August 2013) • McNiff, J. (1988) Action Research – Principles and Practice, London: Macmillan Education Ltd • Millard, E, (1997) Differently Literate: Gender Identity and the construction of the developing reader, Gender and Education, 9:1, p31-38 • Ofsted (2013) ‘Whiteleaf’School Inspection Report, Available online at:http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider (accessed 20th Dec 2013) • Ofsted, (2003) Yes he can: schools where boys write well, Available online at: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/yes-he-can-schools-where-boys-write-well (accessed 20th July 2013) • Orwell, G. (1945) (This edition published 2000) Animal Farm, London: Penguin • Paetcher, C (1998) Educating the other: Gender, power and schooling,(1st edition) London: Falmer Press • Pike, M. (2000) Boys, Poetry and the Individual Talent, Education in English, 34:3, 41-55 • Rubin, H and Rubin, I (2012) Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data (3rd edition) California: SAGE • Schostak, J (2002) Understanding, Designing and Conducting Qualitative Research in Education: Framing the project, Buckingham: Open University Press • Stubbs, B. (2013) Student Performance Analysis, Available online at: http:/www.bstubbs.co.uk/gender (accessed 20th Dec 2013)

30. Sutherland, J. (2010) Language use and varieties, in: Clarke, S, Dickinson, P and • Westbrook, J (Ed) Becoming an English Teacher (2nd Edition)London: Sage • Tripp, D (1983) Co-Authorship and Negotiation: The Interview as Act of Creation, Interchange, 14:3, 32-45 • Vygotsky (1978), Mind in Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press • Westbrook, J. (2013) Reading as a hermeneutical endeavour: whole class approaches to teaching narrative with low-attaining adolescent readers, Literacy, 47:1, 42-49 • Wilson, E. (2009) School-based Research, London: Sage