Why Johnny Won't Read, Part 3, by Dean Smith

     The study initially began in my 9^thgrade classes.  I randomly assigned three short stories: “The Sniper” by O’Flaherty, a story of average length and average difficulty; “The Cask of Amontillado” by Poe, a story of average length but which is very difficult as far a vocabulary and syntax are concerned; and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Connell, a very long story but one which is of average difficulty.  

     When students returned the next day, I asked them to tell me how much they read of their assigned story: none of it; some of it; half of it; most of it; or all of it.  I then gave them a simple quiz over the plot to double check who really read and who didn’t.   The most obvious conclusion I was able to draw is that the students who reported reading the story did better on the quiz.   OK, this is a no-brainer, but it helped me verify that their self-reporting was fairly honest and accurate.  

     Second finding was that students are more apt to read an easy story than a difficult one, and students are more apt to read a shorter story over a longer one.  Granted my sample population was small (n=47), but I feel fairly certain that a larger sample size would only solidify these results and conclusions. 

    So, what’s the point?  If we’re going to assign a classroom reading or novel, we might have more success if we use shorter pieces over longer ones and easier pieces over more difficult ones.  In American lit, I’ve always had more success with teaching Of Mice and Men over The Grapes of Wrath.  Why? Because Of Mice and Men is shorter, easier, and the students actually read it.  

     Instead of The Scarlet Letter, I use Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.”  They usually struggle so much with The Scarlet Letter because of the vocabulary and syntactic complexity (i.e. long, convoluted sentences), that many of my students end up bagging the novel and relying on the classroom discussions to get the gist of what’s going on, or they’ll go to SparkNotes to read the chapter summaries.  By using “Young Goodman Brown,” I can deal with the same themes, do the same kind of literary analysis, and know that the students have actually attempted the reading especially if we do a lot of it in class anyway.  Do I do this with all of my classes?  No.  But I will do it with the middle and lower level students.  The AP/Honors kids get The Scarlet Letter because that’s what AP students should be reading.

     When I first reported these results at an NCTE conference, I was met with one of two reactions.  Some people nodded knowingly and approvingly, and others were aghast. The latter group seemed to think I was suggesting that we take all of the rigor out of our classrooms.  They argued that students need to struggle with the great works like The Scarlet Letter in order to become better readers, to become culturally literate, and to learn to perform in-depth literary analysis.  

     The problem is, just because we have assigned the book, doesn’t mean students are reading it.  This led to an additional part of my study.  Stay tuned.