Teens Choosing to Read
Fostering Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Growth Through Books

Gay Ivey (Author), Peter Johnston (Author)

9780807768686

Paperback / softback, published 24 November 2023

208 pages
22.9 x 15.6 x 1.2 cm, 0.272 kg

In a sea of troubling reporting about education, teaching, reading, and the wellbeing of teens, Ivey and Johnston bring some good news that shows what happens when we stop underestimating young people. This accessible book offers an engaging account of a 4-year study of adolescents who went from reluctant to enthusiastic readers. These youth reported that reading not only helped them manage their stress, but also helped them negotiate happier, more meaningful lives. This amazing transformation occurred when their teachers simply allowed them to select their own books, invited them to read with no strings attached, and provided time for them to do so. These students, nearly all of whom reported a previously negative relationship with reading, began to read voraciously inside and outside of school; performed better on state tests; and transformed their personal, relational, emotional, and moral lives in the process. This illuminating book leads readers on a tour of adolescents' reading lives in their own words, offering a long-overdue analysis of students' deep engagement with literature. The text also includes research to inform arguments about what students should and should not read and the consequences of limiting students' access to the books that interest them through censorship.

• Contents (Tentative)

• Acknowledgments
• Part I. Engaging Reading, a Social Phenomenon
• 1. Young Adults Reading Literature (or Not)
  Teens Can Be Enthusiastic, Engaged Readers
  Engaging Books
  The Subtleties of Supporting Teen Development
• 2. Choosing to Read
  Good (Meaningful) Books
  Disturbing Books
  Autonomy
  Talk About Books
• 3. Talk to Me—Cultivating Peer Relationships
  Supportive Peer Relationships
  Close Friendships
  Learning Relationships
  When Positive Relationships Are Absent
  The Solution? Engaged Reading
• 4. Re-seeing Family
  Families Reading
  Families and Talk
  Families, Minds, and Transformation
  Disturbing Books and Difficult Topics
  Parent Perspectives on Students' Reading
• Part II. The Breadth of Teen Development
• 5. Social-Emotional Development
  The Social Hub of Development
  Talking About Thoughts and Feelings
  On Reflection
  To Summarize
• 6. Who Will I Be? Building a Life Narrative
  Living Into a Character
  A Reflective Metaphor
  Narrative as a Cautionary Tale
  Synthesizing Principles
  Self-Regulation
  Reconstructing the Socialized Self
  Who Am I? Who Do I Want to Be?
• 7. Moral Development
  Developing the Moral Self
  Moral Judgments
  Recognizing Language as a Potential Act of Violence
  Multiple Perspectives and Moral Reach
  So . . .
• 8. Happiness, Wellbeing, and Other Trivial Matters
  Gratefulness
  Loss and Grief
  More Healing Opportunities
  Positive Emotions and Wellbeing
  Feeling, Heard, Understood, and Cared For
  Sources of Happiness and Wellbeing
• 9. Reading Competence
  Reading Strategically
  Reading Strategically, on Steroids
  Comprehending Socially
  Reading Closely
  Reading: No Solo Act
  Reading Competently
• Part III. Negotiating Literature, Teaching, and Teen Development
• 10. What Do We Think We're Doing?
  Fizzling Out of Engagement
  Unraveling of the Social Thread
  More Teaching Changes
  Knowing Books and Individuals
  Negotiating Relationships and Relational Capital
• 11. Seamless Teaching
  Seamlessness
  Characters and Change
  Inferring, Especially Thoughts and Feelings
  Literature, Themes, and Life's Dilemmas
  Teaching About How Words Capture and Shape Thoughts and Feelings
  Teaching for Intellectual Flexibility
• 12. Inquiry, Learning, and Authority
  Foundations of Collaborative Dialogic Inquiry
  Distributing Authority, Distributing Teaching
  Teaching for Identity Shifts
  Teaching: More Than the Sum of its Parts
• 13. Heckling
  Concerns of Intellectuals, Philosophers, and the Like
  Parents' (and Thus Teachers') Concerns
• 14. The Alchemy of Young Adults' Engagements Among Books
  Evidence
  The Work of Conversations
  The Work of ELA Teachers and Their Books
  The Socialness of Reading
  What Do We Want?
• Appendix A The Study
• Appendix B Young Adult Books and Other Trade Books Mentioned
• Index
• About the Author