INSTRUCTIONAL CHOICES TO HEIGHTEN INDONESIAN STUDENTS' MOTIVATION AND ENGAGEMENT IN READING ENGLISH CANONICAL TEXTS
This paper focuses on how to motivate my struggling students for whom English is a second language when they read canonical texts written in English. Students in English departments are required to read English canonical texts, but most of them find this task very challenging. One strategy teachers can use to motivate students to read is to pair the English canonical texts with young adult texts. Important in these instructional choices are the pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading activities. Pre-reading activities are intended to prepare readers to enter the story world During-reading activities are important to make students understand the stories better. Some of the duringactivities include using role plays and teaching media to increase students' understanding of the characters and the plots in the books. In the post-reading activities, students can write journals or quotes they find interesting from the book. Giving students more varieties in book choices and activities can, hopefully, make them independent good readers.
“Struggling” Middle Schoolers: Engagement and Literate Competence in a Reading Writing Intervention Class
In a report of a two-year study of seventh- and eighth-grade struggling readers, researchers employed a mixed research design to address the following guiding questions: (a) how do students' perceptions of the value and purpose of different media-rich projects, in comparison to more traditional pedagogy, relate to their levels of engagement in those projects; and (b) how do the media-rich activities help learners connect their various lived worlds and how do these activities transform their sense of competence and agency, particularly as competence has been defined in relation to traditional print-based activities? Findings indicated that participants found new literacies practices focusing on digital media more engaging than traditional practices. The class created tensions between the juxtaposed official sanctioning of these new literacies which promoted agency with traditional literacies that amplified incompetence and a deficit notion of performance.
Creating Classroom Cultures That Foster Reading Motivation.
Gambrell discusses what research and theory suggest about the role of motivation in literacy development. She describes six research-based factors that are related to increased motivation to read. W hat can teachers do to motivate students to read? Here are some responses from elementary age children who were asked what teachers should do to get their students more interested and excited about reading: • " Teachers should let us read more. " • " When we have 'Read and Respond Time' the teacher should let us read our own books and tell about them in a group. " • " Let us read more…about 10 more minutes every day. " • " Please make sure you do not interrupt us while we're reading. " • " Read to the class. I always get excited when I hear my favorite book…and my favorite book is Frog and Toad. " • " Do not let DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time end so soon. " • " Make sure there are lots of books. There are not a lot of books in our classroom. " • " My teacher gets me interested in reading. She lets me read to her! She gave me a hug because I did so well…and she said, 'Good job!' " The responses of these children highlight the critical role of the teacher in creating a classroom culture that fosters reading motivation. I have long been convinced that the central and most important goal of reading instruction is to foster the love of reading. My interest in the role of motivation in literacy de