1. NAKED READING:
UNCOVERING WHAT
TWEENS AND TEENS
WANT AND NEED TO
BECOME LIFELONG
READERS
with
Dr. Teri S. Lesesne (rhymes with insane)
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX
2. To the woman,
we think you’re a teacher,
With the books
on the two train
By
Some anonymous students
2
3. On the platform for the 2 train
you stand with a book in your hand
the pages open
Which is how you enter the train
Reading
Sometimes you smile, or frown
Once you even cried
on the train
when you were reading Night
and a man sitting across the aisle
said he cried too, when he read that book
and we thought,
we want to read that book
so we did
3
4. And then you were reading all those
basketball books
by Walter Dean Myers
so we read those too
speeding along on the 2 train
one time you saw us reading Slam
and you said
I love that book
and do you think Slam is going to
make it in high
school?
We do, we think he’s going to make it
4
5. Then you were reading some really hard stuff
Epistemology of the Closet, Postmodern
Narrative
Theory
and we tried those, but we think you have to have
read
the books those authors have read, if you want to
read
their books
Our favorite is when you are reading poetry
Picnic, Lightning
and you lean back against the seat
and smile
and keep reading the same page
again and again
we do that now and it’s really nice 5
6. Last week you were reading The Life of
Pi
and we rushed out to buy it
So we could be in the lifeboat
adrift in the blue, blue sea
with the boy, the Bengal Tiger, and you
If we don’t see you next year
on the train
Maybe sometime we’ll bump into each
other on the
platform
You’ll know us because
we’ll have books in our hands 6
7. But we cannot leave it up to
chance…
Matches need to be made deliberately
and, we hope, successfully
7
9. “People are so desperate to raise test
scores that we could well end up with a
nation of kids who can pass tests but
can neither read critically nor enjoy the
act of reading itself.”
P. David Pearson
NEA Today, 2004
9
10. When we begin to lose
readers
Thirty years ago
High school literary canon
Twenty years ago
Middle school slump
In the past 5 years (NCLB)
Fourth grade
10
11. How can we build readers?
THE NOAH PRINCIPLE
11
12. Before we start, close your eyes
and take a moment to think back
on…
• a happy memory from when you were 10 years old OR
a sad memory from when you were 11 years old OR
•
an embarrassing memory from when you were 12 years old OR
•
a “traumatic” memory from when you were 13-14 years old
•
12
13. Now take a moment to share one of
those memories with the person to
your right or left….
How different were your
memories from the person next
to you? They may have been
very different or there may have
been some similarities.
13
14. There is no one template for the
tween anymore than there is no
one template for any other group.
14
15. So when I began to write a book
about tweens and reading….
A title
Some research
A late night inspiration
15
18. The research?
Vickey Giles
Karen Sue Gibson
Replicated study from 20 years earlier
The questions?
18
19. What could someone do to make
you WANT to read
BEFORE/AFTER you read?
The converse: what could someone do
to make you HATE to read
BEFORE/AFTER you read?
19
20. What could someone do to
make you want to read
BEFORE you read?
K-12
Being allowed to choose
any book you want to read
20
21. Mudshark by Gary Paulsen
There are many ways to describe Ms. Underdorf.
She was brilliant and joyous, and she believed-probably
correctly-that libraries contain the answers to
everything, and that if you can’t find the information you seek
in the library, then such information probably does not exist
in this or any other parallel universe now or ever to be
known.
She was thoughtful and kind and always believed the best of
everybody. She was, above all else, a master librarian and
knew where to find any book on any subject in the shortest
possible time.
And she was wonderfully unhinged…
And so the Amazing Armadillo.
21
70. It is not very polite
to interrupt a person, of course.
But sometimes
if the person is very unpleasant
you can hardly stop yourself.
70
71. Most schools have a system
of loud bells
which startle the students and
teachers
at regular intervals
and remind them
that time is passing
even more slowly than it seems.
71
72. The expression
“Those who can’t do, teach,”
is a curious one,
because if you look at the world,
you’ll see that teachers
aren’t particularly worse than anyone else,
so perhaps the expression
might be better worded as,
“Nobody can do anything.”
72
88. I need a good book
I need a good story,
I need a good book.
The kind that explodes
Off the shelf.
I need some good writing,
Alive and exciting,
To contemplate
All by myself.
88
89. I need a good novel,
I need a good read,
I probably need
Two or three,
I need a good tale
Of love and betrayal
Or perhaps
An adventure at sea.
89
90. I need a good saga.
I need a good yarn.
A momentous and mighty
Or slight one.
But with thousands
And thousands
And thousands of books,
I need someone
To tell me
The right one.
John Lithgow
90
