Are students’ interests peaked by the assigned reading in their English classes? Do they even like English class or reading? Do students perform better when they are interested in the book they are reading? I surveyed Galway students grades 7-12 as well as the English teachers in order to find the answers to these questions.
When I asked the students if they enjoyed English class, I was surprised to find that most of them did. 42.6% of the students said they like the class and 33.3% said they “sort of” like the class. The remaining 24.1% do not like English class. I think that the level of enjoyment that students have for a class definitely affects their attitude towards it and willingness to learn. I personally don’t really like math or science and I tend to perform worse in those classes, too.
I think that the amount of books that students read outside of class also have an impact on their performance in and the way that they view English class. 48.9% of students answered that they have read less than 5 books outside of school in the last year. 24.1% said they read 5-10, 9.2% read 10-20, 6.4% read 20-30, and only 11.3% said that they read more than 30 books in the last year. Galway isn’t doing awful compared to statistics, though. The National Education Association’s study in 2020 showed that only 17% of thirteen year olds read every day for fun, and 19% of seventeen year olds. This is a sharp decrease in percentages from 1984, where 35% of thirteen year olds said they read every day for enjoyment, and 31% of seventeen year olds did.
I also asked the students which books they liked the best and which they liked the least. The overall favorite book was S.E. Hinton’s coming of age novel, The Outsiders, with 92 of the 141 students who responded saying that they enjoyed reading it. When it came to Junior High books, the most popular were The Outsiders, Johnny Tremain, Hatchet, and Percy Jackson. The least favorites were The Phantom Tollbooth, The Egypt Game, Copper Sun, and A Long Walk to Water. The high school level fan-favorites are Born a Crime, All American Boys, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Macbeth. High school students were pretty divided on what books they disliked. The most commonly disliked books are Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, and To Kill a Mockingbird.
I was curious whether or not students ever skipped parts or the entirety of an assigned reading for any reason. I found that 61% of students have. I asked them to give a reason as to why, if they had skipped reading. The most common reasons were that they weren’t interested in the book and found it boring, they didn’t have time to complete the assigned reading on top of other homework, procrastination, lack of motivation, they didn’t think they needed to read the entire book, or they didn’t understand it. Some particular students said:
- “Sometimes I forgot about a book, or thought that the writing was a little repetitive and still got the gist by skipping some pages. Other times, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish it and skipped pages until I thought I could still write an essay or do a seminar based on what I read.”
- “It was a lot to read in one night on top of other homework. It is hard to read a topic that doesn’t spark interest and retain what you’re reading.”
- “Only this year in English because I didn’t have time to read it, I’m really slow at working.”
- “Because I do not like reading alone, it doesn’t help me focus.”
- “Not interested or not enough time to read between due dates.”
I find this information quite sad if I’m telling the truth.
When surveying Galway’s English teachers I learned that, like the students, they also have books that they like and dislike. One teacher said that they enjoy teaching, “books that stretch my students to grow in some way, academically, socially, emotionally.” That same teacher dislikes teaching, “books that offer only one perspective or vantage point.”
All of the teachers said that they think students perform better when they are interested in the assigned reading. Here is what they had to say about the topic:
- “The students become invested in the characters so they really care about them, and are excited to read and write about them.”
- “In order for students to put forth the effort required to think about the book and the author’s purpose, they first need to be engaged with the story and characters.”
- “Interest makes a difference in effort. That being said, I have found that reading stamina is almost non-existent and there has been a rise in apathy if something is not hyper-tailored to a student’s interest. I don’t see a lot of curiosity or openness in general.”
- “That said, students may initially be resistant or disinterested for any number of reasons that are separate from the potential of a book to interest them. A teacher draws their readers into the experience of reading to engage with the text and in so doing, inspire interest in the text.”
Just like the students, I asked the teachers how they felt towards English classes when they were in school. One teacher answered, “Junior high was fairly forgettable. I only remember reading “The Pearl” and Animal Farm in 8th grade, “Annabelle Lee” in 7th grade. High school is when I became more interested, particularly once I was in my AP courses. I also really loved my English teachers in 10th and 12th grade. They were two of my favorite teachers of all time. I always respected my English teachers, but those were the two I really bonded with (my 12th grade teacher was also my 11th grade Creative Writing teacher, which was a college course, but workshop based, so I got to know him in a less formal way). I also went to a very big high school (graduated over 1,200 kids in my class) with a typical class size of 30 kids, so it was not very common to know your teachers very well (it was also a time of more formality in teacher-student relationships). Teachers in my high school all floated or shared rooms, nor did my school have any study halls, so it was not even like you could drop by and see someone casually.”
Galway is very lucky to have such an amazing team of English teachers. I would like to thank the 4 of them that responded to my survey!
