Most teachers grapple with the problem of getting their students to read. Even if our students do slog through their assigned reading, how can we make literature more exciting and accessible? How can we help students to make connections between what they read and the 21st century lives they live? English teacher Frank Wagenblast combines the structures of Literature Circles with the context provided by presenting students with complex real-world problems. By giving his students choices, Frank pushes his students to have the kinds of experiences with texts that will make them want to be lifelong learners and lifelong readers.
"It's likely that students will feel more connected to a book they've selected themselves, thereby boosting their felt needs," Frank explains. "Beyond that, if a friend/peer has also selected the same book, the student may feel partly responsible to his/her friend/peer as opposed to feeling responsible to the teacher and possibly the parent. Students at this age are increasingly looking for ways to demonstrate their independence and/or their ability to make decisions on their own ... wanting to be able to pick out their own clothes for example for the day or at the store ... and feeling like Mom doesn’t really need to come along when it's time to pick out that new sweatshirt." Frank feels that it is very important to understand where students are in their intellectual and cognitive development, so that you can meet them there and push them to learn what they are ready to learn.
Most recently, Frank’s students completed a Holocaust/Genocide unit. "First, every student reads Night ... that’s a non-negotiable," he explains. "Then there are two related texts that are fiction: Briar Rose and Nightfather, and a nonfiction text, First They Killed My Father." Frank chose these texts because he feels that they will be accessible to young adult readers. "Additionally," he says, "each of the texts uses the lens of a young narrator." Frank was surprised to see that students did not necessarily chose to read the texts that were the shortest or that seemed the easiest. He was also surprised to discover that many students were especially interested in 
reading nonfiction.
How did Frank set up the literature circles structure and make it easy for his students to understand? "I generated a ditto explaining the various roles students would have over the period of time we’re involved in the lit circles. There are 6 roles: director; connector; researcher; close reader; artistic connector; character analyst," Frank explains. "Students know the expected completion date. They decide the pages to complete by the next meeting. They write down responses while they are wearing the hat of whatever role it is that they have for that reading. We'll meet in lit circles twice a week ... Tuesdays and Fridays over a period of four weeks ... for a total of 8 meetings. Each student will have had the opportunity to function as each of the 6 roles at least once." Frank helps students keep track of the literature circles as well as other course work by providing them with an activity list and schedule that is updated daily.
Frank also makes student-selected poetry reading part of the daily routine in his classes. "I can't take all of the credit for having students read self-selected poems in class," he says. "Although I was actually doing this with students before Billy Collins was poet laureate, his introduction of the Poetry 180 concept and his suggestion that a poem be read aloud to the entire student body in every school on every school day certainly deserve recognition and credit. Realizing that having a poem read aloud over the loudspeaker each day was not too likely, I made it a part of the daily routine in my classes. On a typical day, a student has the responsibility to bring in a self-selected poem (song lyrics are fine ... some of our best poets, Bob Dylan for example, write song lyrics ... pays the rent). If the student has any reservations as to whether the contents may be inflammatory, offensive, inappropriate etc, he/she needs to check beforehand with me. It's more likely that I will speak to the class before the reading and explain what they're in store for, than that I would forbid the reading altogether." 
By placing this responsibility on his students, does Frank often find that he needs to fill time for unprepared students? Not often. "Yes, students sometimes forget ... but it's much less often than you might guess. In that case, rather than turning it into a negative, I say something like, 'Oh, that's good, I feel like reading one myself today.' And then I do. I always have a wide variety of poems and poetry anthologies available and I genuinely do like to read aloud to the students ... but I much prefer when they do."
When given the opportunity to work with self-selected texts, students connect to literature in ways that might surprise even veteran teachers. For example, Frank says, "singing is encouraged ... eventually, someone invariably will take me up on my offer and sing to the class. Of course, everyone loves it. Perhaps most especially me. I like to say little things as encouragement like 'remember you're among friends' and 'remember we're pulling for you not rooting against you.' I also encourage reading a self-written piece. This is the highest level and the riskiest. This may take a little more time than singing but it sometimes precedes it. Of course I make a big deal about it and flood the air with positive 'eedback. It’s a lot different than saying, 'Give the answer to # 16 on the homework last night.' I’ve seen this light something in individual students that is extremely gratifying and difficult to extinguish once ignited. I have seen self-image improve, self-respect ... it is dlrectly related to this [experience]."
And while he is allowing students to make these connections ... with themselves, with others, with texts ... Frank is covering a lot of curricular ground. "Of course, by the end of the year," he says, "students have been exposed to a wide variety of selections by a wide variety of writers in a non-threatening atmosphere. They like poetry more/they fear it less ... They also eventually get a lot of technical stuff from me ... a quatrain or iambic pentameter or enjambment ... and I think they retain it better than if I gave them a list of poetic terms to memorize."
Is all the time and effort he spends on making sure that students have the opportunity to make choices about what they read? "Building trust and positivity takes time and effort but in the long run it's so worth it," Frank explains. "The class atmosphere is unquestionably affected in a positive way by the daily poetry reading. So are the teacher/student and teacher/students relationships and the student/student relationships as well ... I respectfully submit that it is my carefully considered opinion that they also like themselves more ... like each other more, if only just a little, if only for just a little while."