| Popis: |
Motivation, willingness to read, and ability to enjoy reading are dimensions of readingfound in any literacy activity. While research supports the notion that most teenage readers areless motivated than they were when they were younger, current trends indicate they do find timeto read for pleasure when they want to do so. Connections between students and books can bestudied in more detail when popular book series are chosen and utilized by the students to engagein reading. If phenomenological literacy events are better understood, educators will be betterprepared to motivate student readership in their students.Thus, the goal of this study was to answer the following question: What characteristicsof literary elements of a book series most motivate secondary school students to engage inreading? A total of 57 students (30 males, 27 females) completed the study by responding to aresearcher-generated Literary Elements of Book Series (LEBS) inventory. Twelve differentitems were included on the inventory to determine student preferences for book series:characters, plot, theme, location, types of conflict, time period, type of story, marketing tools,titles for their own series, tone of conclusion and outcome of story. Most items had options fromwhich students could select a response or select the “other” category and write in their ownresponse.The commonalities found in responses overall all show that the gender of the participantdid not greatly influence the choices made as males and females often gave the same responsesand student-generated answers. The findings and discussion found in this study revealedexpected results based on current research while yielding some surprising trends in studentpreferences regarding reading motivation. |
