Imagine all the students in your English class arrived each day having read the novels, plays, poetry or short stories that they were working on.
Imagine not being frustrated because the lesson you so carefully prepared didn’t work because the students hadn’t done the reading.
Imagine greeting excited students who had finished the book early and were keen to find another one.
Utopia!
How do I get my students to read?
This is one of the enduring issues that teachers of English and literature everywhere constantly struggle with. If you have a magic solution to this problem we would all love to know what it is.
I don’t think it exists though.
However, decades of teaching have shown us that there are things we can do to help engage our students with the wonderful world of literature.
That is why we have spent the last couple of months finishing off a short ecourse and ebook that look at 5 of the main problems we have found that are barriers to student engagement.
We’ve been learning too.
The reason we haven’t posted for a while is that I have been learning how to use a variety of digital products that allow us to share this information with teachers of English and literature easily. This is important as if it is not good quality and it is not easy to use it is not of much use to anyone.
That learning curve has been huge. I have been pretty keen about using digital technologies and thought I was competent. This is a whole other level though and there have certainly been times when I thought my head would explode. I may not have perfected it yet but it is getting there.
The email course is not hard and comes to your inbox over about 10 days. ( time in between to absorb the information.) The strategies that are suggested are not difficult either, but can make a huge difference.
So we can help.
I know if you are reading this you are a diligent and passionate teacher who will try anything if it would really get the students engaged. Our mission is to help you do that and we will continue to provide helpful quality resources to that end.
We would love you to have a look at the e-course and see what you can take out of it.
What have you got to lose?
Having spent the last couple of months focussed on reading traditional texts I am going to spend some time talking about Film as text. I love doing film texts with students because there are so many fun things you can do with them.
Until next time
Teach Well
Carolyn
