Make Them Listen 1: Content
What to do when your learners seem to engage with just one type of story
When helping educators attract their learners’ engagement in a story or class book, there are typically three main reasons why learners aren’t interested:
Over a series of three articles, we’ll explore how to overcome each of these challenges, beginning with…
Content
For World Book Day 2024, I visited a baker’s dozen schools (not all in the same day, I should add – WBD is the longest day of the year after Christmas!). As usual, the most common feedback from teachers after my sessions with their learners was a variation of, “I’ve never seen them sit so engaged for so long!”
But this year, I had a new question I liked to ask those teachers in return:
“Was that the sort of story you would expect them to enjoy?”
The suspicion behind this question arose from comments made by a secondary school Head of English in my WBD season – but I soon discovered the answer across both secondaries and primaries to be an almost universal, “No!”
For example: the most popular books among a group aged 12–13 were Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Harry Potter. I gave them an Asian ghost story which doubles as a tragic love story. When the teacher tried to dismiss them, most of the students came to me first to say that was the best story they’d ever heard.
Another example: a group aged 6–7 would only listen to storybooks if the characters were animals. I gave them a King Arthur story. They were riveted throughout, and all joined in with moments of audience participation – to their teacher’s surprised delight.
In both cases, I had actually asked the learners to help me choose a story to tell. But I hadn’t asked them for something specific like, “What do you want your story to be about?” Instead, I stuck to generic questions – such as…
· Do you prefer action or funny?
· Spooky or adventurous?
· Clever or nonsense?
The easiest way to try this yourself is to write these categories on envelopes, each containing the title of a story or book, and then invite your learners to vote.
In classrooms, the “Transferable Vote” option is one of the best for ensuring every learner feels they have helped with the decision. That works like this:
1. Stand everyone up.
2. Take a vote for 3+ categories.
3. Everyone who voted for the winning category of that vote gets to sit down.
4. The least popular category is removed.
5. If there is still a choice, everyone still standing gets to vote on the remaining categories.
6. Repeat steps 3–5 till you have a winner out of two.
If you have more time, though, a stronger option is presented in All the Better to Read You With: print off various copies of just the first page of the books you could use, give your learners time to read them, and then invite your learners to vote. You can also invite learners to make short presentations to encourage others to vote for their choice. (This option is particularly recommended if you’re selecting a class book for an entire term.)
By using a technique like this, you’re giving your learners agency over the story they hear, albeit within set limits. Another way to describe that agency is the investment of choice – and as we know from personal experience, if we invest in something, we care about it.
Gathering that investment is only half of my technique, though. The other is to let your learners believe they’re getting this opportunity to invest as a reward.
Here’s something you could say to do that – though feel free to adapt this ‘script’ for your own teaching style… and your learners!
“You folks have worked so hard and so well for the last few days, I think you deserve a treat. But I want it to be a treat that every single one of you is definitely going to love. So I’m going to do something different for you that I don’t usually do with my classes: I’m going to let you choose your treat…”
Please let me know how you get on with this technique – I’d love to hear your stories!
If you’d like the world’s most complete and dependable lesson scheme for encouraging your learners to read, please ask your favourite bookshop for a copy of All the Better to Read You With: Stories & Lessons to Inspire Reading for Pleasure.
Next up: hooking your learners into a story no matter its length…