Christmas Reading and New Year's Study Resolutions

A question that I continually wrestle with is this: As a part-time PhD student, how much study am I meant to do?  How much study can I do? What are the most effective ways of studying? Working full-time within the education system means that the holidays become, naturally, my most 'productive' times in relation to my studies. But I am conscious of the need to make this work consistently throughout the year - certainly as best as I can.

So, in writing, here are my New Year's resolutions in relation to carving out time for my research:

• Sunday night is bath night.  It must also become 'reading' night. I can get a good two hours in before the water turns cold!
• Monday mornings need, therefore, to be an opportunity for reflection. The alarm must go off at 5am to make sure that I get at least an hour and a half in of quality work in before having to get ready for school.
• Monday evenings will continue to be my main study time. 7-10pm gives me three hours, and should include attending to my university emails. That block-booking of six and a half hours over an actual time span of about twenty eight hours is crucial to maintain some sort of consistency.
• The use of my research journal must become more rigorous. I need to build in time for regular re-reading of my research journal. The first hour of the Monday night session would work well.
• The second hour for new writing - either in research journal or with ongoing writing up; currently on the literature review for my research proposal. 

My Christmas reading has been very much about research and away from the substantive topic of reading. The Routledge Doctoral Student's Companion remains my main text.  I've read to Chapter 23 now. It continues to both reassure and unsettle in equal measure.

I'm preoccupied with the continued need to define 'values', that it is no longer enough to simply identify and then establish oneself within a constructivist or interpretive paradigm. But then there is the inevitable acknowledgement of the ethical problems inherent in researching in 'one's own backyard', alongside some warnings about reflexivity as a methodological tool. Sigh.

I also feel that I have been granted 'permission' to write in the first person, and in the active voice. This is something that I definitely struggled with on my Masters course, but I think that first person active might allow my writing to be 'truer' to the particular academic genre in which I find myself.

I am conscious of the emphasis that there needs to be on argument, even in the literature review. This is very hard to construct when I don't yet know exactly what it is that I wish to 'argue', but it is something that I intend to take to heart.

So onwards and upwards. I feel that it has been a good first term, but the much harder work is about to begin as I move towards actual deadlines in relation to the research proposal.

One Giant Leap Forward and Several Hasty Retreats

Supervisor, cheer me, for I have read. It is one month since my last meeting.

Brown, J. .S, Collins, A & Duguid, P. 1989. Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher. [Online]. 18(1), 32-42. [30 November 2015]. Available from: http://edr.sagepub.com/content/18/1/32
Kalenze, E (2014). Education is Upside-Down Reframing reform to focus on the right problems. (1st ed.). Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Merga, M.K. (2015). Access to Books in the Home and Adolescent Engagement in Recreational Book Reading: Considerations for secondary school educators. English in Education. 49(3), pp. 197-214.
Nationalcollegeorguk. 2015. Nationalcollegeorguk. [Online]. [24 November 2015]. Available from: https://network.nationalcollege.org.uk/collegediscussions/28075
Revisiting Margaret Meek

I was also lucky enough to attend Tom Bennett's Research Ed English conference at Swindon on the 7th November. I heard David Didau, Debra Kidd, Professor Ray Land of Durham University who gave the keynote address on threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. I took something from each. From Andy Tharby I am utilising an ideal: imagine if every English teacher read one paper every half term over a period of ten years...Eric Kalenze's discussion of context and his urge to 'put those comprehension strategies down' was compelling.  Each sent me scuttling in a different reading direction.

But of this month's new reading, Brown's Situated Cognition was the most interesting (and the most difficult to process!) I need to investigate much further, but this could be the start of a theoretical framework in which to root my research. I am definitely shaping around the building of a reading community, and the things that are within my power in the classroom and across the department. Influenced by Brown, I am questioning what it means to be a reader in the real world, and what that might look like translated into a classroom – so still maintaining those initial threads of ideas about teacher knowledge; systems, environment and opportunities; and knowledge of the students themselves as readers all contributing to some kind of departmental pedagogy about the teaching of reading.

From the eminently companionable Doctoral Student's Companion I have enjoyed a useful chapter on the Literature Review with really concrete examples of good and bad writing - so I have begun, and will have something by the January deadline. A timely and useful prod since I feel like I actually have to do something other than read and think in a bubble but it is, still, difficult to do without formulated research questions. I have too many of them and they are simply too big at the moment. Which is where Pryor's essay on constructing research questions has been invaluable. I have undertaken the suggested map of significance exercise to try and focus thinking.

It transpires that, currently, the profile and status of reading for pleasure institutionally, notions of ‘authentic’ reading and ‘authentic’ situations and opportunity for reading both in terms of access and curriculum are central. I suspect that, in spite of everything that might be going on to promote reading at the surface, teachers are still subconsciously but intrinsically and implicitly condemning it as an activity.  I think about the 'Currently I'm Reading...poster campaign at school and its now tired unsustainability; the half-hearted support amongst non-English staff for things like DEAR; the fact that reading in lessons is side-lined the minute exams or any kind of internal assessment are on the scene; even the language that we use to describe the most able readers, not to mention the lack of curriculum time currently allowed to pursuing reading for pleasure. All these initiatives which might be having the opposite effect of that which is intended. Perhaps school culture creates an unintentional devaluing of books and reading.

So, I have a more clearly defined focus than I have had since the heady days of my research proposal application for study, when I thought I knew what I was doing...!

The problem is that this is most definitely a case of one step forward and two steps backwards.

Until this point I have always thought about things that I would like to do…and then worked backwards to reading and theories.  I now find that whilst I think I have now narrowed down the area of focus, I have no idea now about what to actually do!

Supervision tomorrow.  Perhaps I will be absolved.

Quintilian Victories

'The role of the teacher is to arrange victories for the students.' This quotation is attributed to Quintilian, but, my Latin being a little bit rusty, and a few internet searches being largely inconclusive, I need to investigate this further. (I find that another side effect of the PhD is not being able to take anything at face value. Helpful in terms of research, unhelpful in terms of life.)

But this notion of little victories has got me thinking. I am not interested in investigating things over which I have no control. The idea that students who are read to as five-year-olds do better than their peers in tests aged 16 is interesting, but doesn't help me greatly as an English teacher in a secondary school - unless, perhaps, I have a way of identifying who those children are. And even then it doesn't help me terribly much in terms of what to do with them.

What I am interested in doing is exploring the ways of stemming the decline in recreational reading amongst students in KS3 and KS4 in my own setting, where I do have some jurisdiction - certainly at curriculum level.

I have some hypotheses about the reasons for this decline. They are all to do, perhaps unsurprisingly, with things which are 'lacking' in some way:

1. The lack of access to self-selected recreational reading books in a more sustained way than through the school library. This is largely due to reading Margaret Merga, and, in particular, Merga, M.K. (2015). Access to Books in the Home and Adolescent Engagement in Recreational Book Reading: Considerations for secondary school educators. English in Education. 49(3), pp. 197-214.I think I have been particularly influenced by this given my current experience as the mother of three primary school age children with constant supply of school books and the parental reading log, and the inevitable deficit comparisons I can make with the experience of my own students at secondary level. Merga also points to the dearth of research in this area at secondary level, so there may well be a gap here waiting to be filled. 
2. The lack of teacher knowledge about contemporary YA fiction. Cremin has been particularly influential here, though the research is located in the primary sector there are plenty of resonances with my own experience in a large secondary English department with a team of practitioners (myself included) who are predominantly literature experts; adept at analysing and teaching the ‘set text’. The switch from Othello to Hamlet for A level has meant a summer of critical reading for many of us. We are also avid wider readers, the majority of the English department are members of one or more book groups. Philipa Hunt is another exponent of the community, shared aspect of reading ‘But even as a keen adult reader, I depend on friends’ recommendations for many of the books I read’ (Hunt, p86) But, this does not mean that they are really aware of YA fiction.  How does this link with teacher theoretical knowledge about the teaching of reading itself? And the notion of teacher identity? This is also related to the policy context – the ‘gap’ arising from limitations in National Literacy Strategy.
3. The lack of value placed on recreational reading in the curriculum itself, combined with the 'lip-service' paid in extra-curricular terms to interventions designed to encourage reading for pleasure - the author visits, competitions, reading passports, DEAR, and other events that go on throughout the school year. There is no authenticity in terms of building a reading community from the inside. (There is some Cremin influence here, too.) What can be done in curriculum terms to redress this?
4. The lack of good contemporary reading opportunities resulting from the narrowing of the curriculum, at KS4 in particular, which has removed some of the 'big-hitters' in terms of student engagement and motivation and replaced them with more challenging and less immediately accessible pre 1900 texts. This is linked with Cliff Hodges' idea, from Researching and Teaching Reading by Gabrielle Cliff Hodges Routledge, Abingdon 2016 that 'It is ironic that one possible reason for these students forgetting how to read novels is literature teaching itself, especially if novels are viewed as set texts instead of narratives written to be read for pleasure.’ (Cliff Hodges, 2016, p93)
5. The lack of respect for keen readers within the existing community. Again, inspired by Cliff Hodges and her reading of Paul Gee, noting that in one setting, ‘The fact that the adults use the same derogatory terminology as the students, even though they are group leaders of this scheme who might be expected to eschew such a simplistic perception, serves to reinforce Gee’s point about the power of figured worlds such as these and the importance of discourse analysis in helping us to make them visible and understand them’ (Cliff Hodges, 2016, p123)

So these are the places where I want to be able to arrange some little victories. The next question is 'how'?

My supervisors have also been setting up some victories for me: in the timeline created at my last supervision meeting we have plotted out a route which includes the literature review for the proposal being complete by January. Gulp.

Million Dollar Questions

I'm reading again. And this time, a handbook.

Specifically, The Routledge Doctoral Student's Companion edited by Pat Thomson and Melanie Walker.

It is simultaneously reassuring and terrifying.

The introduction and first chapter deal with positioning oneself as a researcher, and therefore moving from a deficit model – ‘I am not a statistician’; as well as the tensions within the process of moving between professional self and researcher-as-professional.  The personal versus the economic, for example.

So – I am dimly aware of the ‘enchantment and delight that comes with and from engaging with challenge and ideas and making then one’s own’ (29) but I’m not feeling it yet because I am confused about everything and can no longer blame the lack of access and all the other technical, practical and logistical issues that were bothering me a month ago.

I’m heartened by Chapter 2’s reduction of ‘the expectation that graduate students conduct original research that generates new knowledge’ into ‘research with more modest claims for reducing ignorance’ (37) alongside the recognition that the former is ‘formidable – especially for people just beginning their acquaintance with the old knowledge’ (28). Also that ‘focusing on particular blank spots always generates some corresponding blindspots’(35). The explanations went some way towards convincing me that my very ignorance – which feels utterly, utterly overwhelming at this stages, could actually be part of the key to enabling me to contribute something in the field.

It was also helpful to consider the form and function of the literature review as ‘providing the introduction to a lesson’, and ‘orienting other scholars to what the author thinks they ought to know and why this might be important’ (37). 

Chapter 3 forced me to consider what it is that I am actually curious about and acknowledge what might be inherently problematic in that. I am interested in 'things to do with reading', but I am interested in them with the express aim of getting better at teaching it, delivering it, facilitating it and I can’t even begin to figure out which one of those verbs I would prefer to use. I feel how I think I would feel at the million dollar question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where I suspect I would begin to my conviction in knowing my own name. But I think that this might be problematic: that at this stage I have a purpose beyond wanting to find out a thing for its own sake.  I may need to consciously and actively position myself differently from the outset.

I’m sitting on a plane as I write this and so I am ‘suspended’ – quite literally, but also metaphorically and I need to figure out how I can regularly create this suspended space in which to think given the incredible demands of the job and, well, life.

I must, perhaps, ‘temporarily suspend entrenched epistemological and disciplinary knowledge, so that my mind and the doctoral meetings could become authentic spaces of pedagogical possibility’ (47) And wonder, simultaneously, how long it will be before I can genuinely use the word ‘epistemological’ without feeling ever so slightly fraudulent, and without having to redefine it internally at each use.

The most interesting shift is probably that I care about this stuff, finally – in a way that I very much didn’t when I was studying for my Masters and the focus was on the ‘thing’ itself and that I am finally ready to engage in ‘ongoing conversations about the nature of knowledge’(45).

Summer Holiday Versus Term Time: The Reality of Part-Time Study

Over the summer, before the start of this course, I devoted myself wholeheartedly to reading. My summer reading list looked like this:

Anderson, R. C., Wilson, P.T., & Fielding, L. G. (1988). Growth in reading and how children spend their time outside of school. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 285-303.

Clark, C. & Akerman, R. (2006) Social inclusion and reading An exploration. London: National Literacy Trust

Cliff Hodges, G. (2010). Reasons for reading: why literature matters. Literacy. 44 (2), p60-68.

Cowley, S (2014). The Seven E's of Reading for Pleasure. Bristol: Sue Cowley Books, Ltd. p32-34.

Cremin, T. (2014). The UKLA Projects: Teachers as Readers. In: Cremin, T. Mottram, M. Collins, F M. Powell, S. and Safford, K. Building Communities of Engaged Readers. Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.

Dean, G (2003). Teaching Reading in Secondary Schools. 2nd ed. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd. p18-57.

Educator’s Briefing (2008) Scientific Learning Corporation. Adding ten minutes of reading time dramatically changes levels of print exposure . Available: http://www.scilearn.com/sites/default/files/imported/alldocs/rsrch/30388RAExtra10min.pdf. Last accessed 1st March 2015.

Giovanelli, M and Mason, J. (2015). 'Well I don't feel that': Schemas, worlds and authentic reading in the classroom. English in Education. 49 (1), p41-55.

Hearn, B. (1993). Making Connections: Children's Books and Cohesion. In: Pinsent, P The Power of the Page. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd. p45-54.

Hunt, P. (1993). Finding the Right Book for a Reader. In: Pinsent, P The Power of the Page. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd. p83-86.

Kelly, R. (2014). What does Reading for Pleasure mean to us?. Available: http://readingmatters.org.uk/what-does-reading-for-pleasure-mean-to-us/. Last accessed 28th February 2015.

Krashen, S (2011). Free Voluntary Reading. Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited.

Laurenson, P. McDermott, K. Sadleir, K, Meade, D. (2015). Promoting Reading for Pleasure. English in Education. 49 (1), 5-24.OECD: Reading for Change

Meek, M (1971). On Being Literate. London: The Bodley Head Children's Books Random House.

Meek, M (1994). Learning to Read. London: The Bodley Head Children's Books Random House.

Nunn, J. (1993). Moving On: Becoming a Mature Reader. In: Pinsent, PThe Power of the Page. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd. p87-95.

Pennac, D (2006). The Rights of the Reader. London: Walker Books Ltd.

PISA, Reading for Change PERFORMANCE AND ENGAGEMENT ACROSS COUNTRIES http://www.oecd.org/education/school/programmeforinternationalstudentassessmentpisa/33690986.pdf

Stanovich, K E (2000). Progress in Understanding Reading. New York: The Guildford Press. 

Westbrook, J. (2013). Reading as a hermeneutical endeavour: whole-class approaches to teaching narrative with low-attaining adolescent readers. Literacy. 47 (1), p42-49.

And I've made careful notes from each. The summer holiday was six weeks long. There are twenty items on here. I think this is quite an impressive amount of reading in that time.  In fact, by the beginning of September I was feeling quite good about how 'under control' my preparations were. 

And I had this idea that once back at work, if I could just manage a chapter of a book or journal article a day, I'd keep on track.  Half an hour, perhaps?

We are three weeks in to term and my reading list in that time looks like this:

That's not a mistake.  It is quite simply a blank space. I just haven't got anywhere near it in the madness that is the start of term.  So I need a rethink.

It's Saturday night. The rugby's on. I'm writing a blog post. Strictly Come Dancing's back. My first supervision is on Tuesday. 

Keep calm and carry on reading.

On Your Marks, Get Set...

...But not quite 'go'.

It is a week since my induction and I don't feel entirely inducted, as yet.

The start of my course has been less of an academic dream and more of an administrative nightmare. Registration, passwords, logging on to a new system; all have been problematic, tiresome and frustrating. The uncollected emails have been piling up as I busy myself with the mundane chores of adjusting once more to distance learning.  With the patient support of the university IT department I have finally managed to access much of what I need today, but I've missed the first forum readings, haven't quite got myself going in the way that I had imagined, and feel generally not part of things - not least because I am one of only two part-time students beginning at the same time as a much larger group of full-time researchers.

Am I disheartened? Not yet. Because as soon as I talk to anyone (and I mean, anyone) who will listen on the subject of my research, I'm off. Passionate, enthusiastic, driven - as perhaps only the naive, wide-eyed beginner can be. Galloping off on my hobby horse with the potential to be a party bore (assuming I am not already, which, frankly, is something of a hypothetical leap. It's already a long time since I've been to a party - how would I know?)

The summer was reading, reading, reading and then a little more - but with the benefit of hindsight - all of one week of it, I would have got more 'administratively' prepared than I am currently, would have sorted the registration hiccups, would have already invested in some software to support my writing. I have also spent an eye-watering amount of money on books, and as the costs mount up I realise that the other thing I should have done is save a little more.

And all this has taken place during the whirlwind that is the first three weeks of a new school year, alongside the open evenings, twilight INSET, Year 11 tracking demands, November exam entries and everything else that as an English HOD I need to do. Somehow I have to read and write and think amidst all this. What have I done?

I'm not entirely sure. And so it seems like a good idea to launch a new blog at the same time.