METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the researcher demonstrates how the study was conducted. The rationale, the participants' background, and the setting are introduced first. Next, the researcher explains the use of research instruments, including field notes, a voice recorder, response logs, and discussion role sheets. After that, teaching procedure and data collection, as well as data analysis, are presented.
The Rationale
Since the ninth graders in Taiwan face the entrance exams for senior high school, they must make much effort to get well prepared. Therefore, they are seldom chosen to be research participants. Although reading is a way to enrich oneself with
knowledge, pleasure, and growth, students are often forced to put aside extended reading materials for exams. In this case, they often lose the best chances for extensive reading, which would boost their English proficiency.
In this present study, the researcher explored how seven Taiwanese ninth graders conducted a student-centered literature circle for 12 weeks. The focus was on their responses to texts. How they responded to the stories from the first literature circle to the last one is highly concerned. Different from quantitative research, a qualitative
research design is employed to analyze the participants' responses collected from individual semi-structured interviews, response logs, and field notes.
Participants
Seven ninth graders (three boys, and four girls) from a junior high school in Tainan participated in this study. The researcher was one of the participants’ English tutor, and the other participants were the girl’s classmates who voluntarily joined this literature circle. The students' names were kept confidential to protect the participants’
privacy. Therefore, students were identified as S1 to S7, the first four girls, and the last three boys.
To prepare reading materials of appropriate readability for upcoming literature circles, the researcher first investigated these students’ English abilities with a survey.
The researcher collected their scores of Mid-term English exams at school. Three of them scored above 90 points, while three of them had 76 to 89 points. Only one student had scores below 60.
In addition, the researcher also inquired in a survey if the participants had any English certificates such as General English Proficiency Test (GEPT). Only two of the students who had a higher level of English proficiency passed the elementary level of GEPT, whereas the other students did not pass any standardized English proficiency
test at the beginning of the literature circles.
As revealed in the survey conducted before the literature circles, most of the students did not read English picture books because people around them did not do so.
They said that they were more willing to read if they could discuss and learn with friends together. Besides, they also agreed that they did not have much leisure time for reading due to the busy life at junior high school. Last, from the survey of family reading activities, the parents of the three students who had higher English
proficiency would discuss with their children if they found some texts which were worth sharing, but the parents of the other four students seldom took them to libraries, bookstores and book exhibitions.
The Setting
This research was carried out at the researcher’s apartment for 12 weeks. The arrangement of seats is presented in Figure 1. All the students sat around an oval table so that they could face each other in discussion. These seats were not assigned, so the students could choose randomly and decide whom they wanted to sit next to in each session. The researcher sat on the left-hand side by the door to observe all the participants' reactions while taking field notes for further investigation.
Figure1 The Setting of the Room
Research Procedures
Before the study was conducted, the researcher sent consent forms to help the participant’s parents to understand what the study was for. The consent form was shown as a Chinese version in Appendix A and an English one in Appendix B. Before the literature circle was conducted, the researcher sent a consent form to get the agreement from the participant’s parents and gather information for a preliminary survey about students’ background, including English learning experiences, books favored, reading activities at home, and attitudes toward picture books reading had
been investigated to help the researcher understand the participants’ English reading background and problems. After that, based on the students' reading preferences shown in the survey, the researcher chose twenty picture books for selection.
Next, the literature circle was introduced to students in a mini-lesson. In the beginning, the researcher showed all the picture books with a summary. In that way, students could understand what the story was about before they read the picture books in detail. Then, the researcher gave students some time to discuss and vote for what they wanted to read for upcoming literature circles. To help all the participants have a fundamental understanding of the literature circle, the researcher briefly introduced how to conduct a literature circle. Afterward, the researcher gave participants a role sheet with seven discussion roles and response logs for writing down their opinions.
When introducing the literature circle in the mini-lesson, participants could take notes and raise questions. Further, the researcher also offered participants some suggestions for related information collection. For example, both Youtube and English dictionaries were introduced for them to prepare some information for further discussion.
After the mini introductory lesson for the literature circle, a picture book called
Princess Smartypants was read for a practice literature circle. This picture book was chosen because it has a storyline similar to the fairy tale of Cinderella, a story most children know. Therefore, it was selected to arouse the students’ interest in reading
picture books and enhancing their reading comprehension while they conducted their first discussion role task. When the practice literature circle was carried out, all the students could choose their discussion roles randomly and finish their tasks with their role sheets while reading. During the practice literature circle, the researcher played the role of a facilitator to assist them in understanding the procedure and their tasks, leaving some time for students to ask further questions. Thus, the researcher could make sure each student understood how to prepare for further literature circles in this study.
Meanwhile, the researcher reminded the students of some details about literature circles. For example, each group member should meet for an hour once a week for each literature circle. One picture book was discussed in two weeks. In the literature circles, students were allowed to express what they read and share their opinions freely.
After a literature circle, the participants needed to complete their response logs.
All opinions were welcome. They could express any views about the texts and related ideas about the literature circle. The researcher worked as an assistant to take notes of the observed situations. After all critical elements were introduced, the literature circles were conducted for 12 weeks based on the rules and processes described below.
In this case study, before a new literature circle was started, every student would read the assigned reading material and prepare their task for specific discussion role which they chose. Then, they would write their discussion role sheet with some questions or opinions which led the peers to have more talks and better understanding of the texts at home before they joined a literature circle. After discussions in literature circle, each student could express their thoughts and opinions on a response log. Then the following literature circles were conducted in the same way.
Selection of Reading Materials
English learning cannot rely only on traditional textbooks; teachers need to understand the proficiency level and the needs of each child to give them appropriate extended English materials to improve their reading abilities. Therefore, before reading materials were selected, the researcher surveyed to investigate the
participants’ reading preferences. The researcher showed different types of English picture books for them to choose from. As for the readability of each picture book, a high-frequency vocabulary listed for junior high school English curriculum that had been published by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan was adopted. Then, the students could choose from the picture books with short summaries written by the researcher. Finally, after discussion, the participants voted and selected the books they
wanted to read for future literature circles.
After the book selection, the students decided to read six English picture books:
Piggybook, Henry’s Freedom Box, My Mom Is Trying To Ruin My Life, Wings, You
Are Special and Just The Way You Are. Summaries of the stories are offered below.
Book 1: Piggybook. An English picture book by Anthony Browne, described the Piggotts’ life. Mr. Piggott and his sons always requested Mrs. Piggott to satisfy their needs and left all the housework to Mrs. Piggott without offering any help. Besides, they thought their work was more important than Mrs. Piggott’s job. One day, Mrs.
Piggott couldn’t stand it anymore, so she left home, leaving a note saying “You are pigs” on the mantelpiece. Then, both Mr. Piggott and his sons needed to rely on themselves. Soon, they regretted for their past behaviors. Later, Mrs. Piggott came back home to do the things she loved.
Book 2: Henry’s Freedom Box. This Caldecott Honor picture book was written by Ellen Levine and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. It is a true story from the
Underground Railroad, which was a network conducted secretly to assist slaves to run away from the South of the United States to the North of the United States and
Canada before and during the Civil War. As a black slave, Henry wasn’t allowed to know his birthday, but to obey orders from his master with all his heart and soul.
Henry’s master sent Henry to his son when he was very ill. Henry worked for his new
master in a tobacco factory and got married to another servant, Nancy. Then they had their three kids soon. At first, he thought they would live happily together, but things dramatically changed since Nancy’s master lost plenty of money and sold Nancy and their children to a slave market. At that time, Henry lost all his family and did not have any chances to see them again. Being free was what Henry wanted eagerly, so he asked a doctor for help. Then, Henry had his plan to escape from his boss and mailed himself in a box to a place where there were no slaves.
Book 3: My Mom Is Trying To Ruin My Life. This picture book was created by Kate Feiffer and illustrated by Diane Goode. It depicted a little girl who thought both of her parents were trying to ruin her life. Her mom would do lots of embarrassing things in public, which made her feel so embarrassed, and her dad would demand her to do things that she did not want to. Therefore, this girl was figuring out how to escape from her parents and hoped the policemen would put them into jail. However, she realized that her life would be ruined since her beloved family would be gone. If it did happen, there would be no one to take good care of her, and she was so scared that she went to her parents’ room and told them she loved them.
Book 4: Wings. Wings by Christopher Myers was about a flying boy called Ikarus Jackson. He was a lonely boy who had a pair of wings, and people regarded him odd for his appearance. Owing to his strange outlook, he faced some potential
vulnerabilities. For example, people made fun of him, and his classmates regarded his wings redundant. His teacher considered his wings as an object blocking the
blackboard and distracting the other students in the class. Therefore, the teacher asked him to leave the class until he came up with a solution for his wings. However, one day, a girl complimented him and told everybody Ikarus Jackson was her friend.
Finally, Ikarus Jackson showed his first smile on his face.
Book 5: You Are Special. You Are Special by Max Lucado was about the Wemmicks, small wooden people who gave stars or dots as a mark for one’s
behaviors and outfits in a village. Punchinello was trying to win gold stars from others, but he got gray dots due to his imperfect deeds. One day, he met Lucia, who didn’t have any stickers on her body. She told him to meet their creator Eli on a hill. Then, Eli told him as long as he did not care what the others said, all the stickers on his body would fall.
Book 6: Just The Way You Are. It was another story by Max Lucado about a king who wanted to adopt some children who lost their parents. One day, five orphans heard a king was going to adopt them. Four of them worked hard to prepare their best talent to impress the king. Among these kids, the youngest kid who had no gifts and talents asked her brothers and sisters for help. However, they were so busy with their preparations that they ignored her. Therefore, this youngest girl only showed her
genuine heart for the king. When the king visited, the girl’s brothers and sisters were too busy for their preparations to meet him. Then, the king explained that all he needed was the one who stayed the way he/she was without any eager attention.
Finally, the king adopted the little girl who stayed pure and sincere.
Research Instruments
Questionnaire.
A well-designed questionnaire about children’s reading behavior and attitude was adopted from Yao (2008) and revised by the researcher. Yao’s version contains four parts, including five items about background information, fifteen items about family reading activity, nine items about reading attitude, and ten items about reading behavior.
In the revised questionnaire which would be applied as a background survey, four sections were retained. For the first part of background information, the researcher added eight items about English learning experiences, one item about English picture book reading preferences, and one item about the school the
participants attended. These items were added because the researcher wanted to build up an initial understanding of the participants’ English abilities and preferences for future preparation for English picture book selection. In the second part, the
researcher kept the same items about family reading activities. For the third part, the researcher created 25 items about reading attitude toward picture books. For the last part, the researcher revised it into 15 items to learn more about the participants’
reading behaviors. Finally, the revised version of the questionnaire would also help the researcher to understand each participant’s reading attitude and habit before the literature circle was conducted. The results were not collected for quantitative analysis but rather for an initial survey to know more about the participants. The revised questionnaire was shown as a Chinese version in Appendix C and an English one in Appendix D.
Field Notes.
During the literature circles, the field notes would be taken for the researcher to record her observations. The focus would be the student’s reactions and responses in the discussion sessions. For example, how the students cooperated in literature circles and how they gave their opinions to each other. Other unexpected occurrences and learning phenomena would be the points to record. By collecting this data, the researcher would interpret the development of all the participants. Besides, the researcher would discuss some potential problems they might face and offer some suggestions for further studies.
Voice Recorder.
Individual interviews were conducted in the last literature circle. In personal interviews after the last literature circle, a voice recorder was used for the whole process to collect all the participant’s opinions about this reading approach. In that way, this instrument was helpful for the researcher to analyze the participant’s responses after class.
Response Logs.
A response log was designed for participants to write down all their responses and ideas related to texts after each literature circle session. The students were
encouraged to express as many opinions as they could without language obstacles, so both Mandarin Chinese and English were both languages acceptable for response logs.
After one picture book reading, each participant had to complete a response log.
Discussion Role Sheets.
Discussion role sheets have both cognitive and social functions to assist readers in having better comprehension and active discussion. By offering readers clear and interlocking tasks, group discussion might create a positive interdependence reading atmosphere. Further, with different assigned tasks for different discussion roles, readers would collect rich and various information to discuss in the literature circle.
Therefore, this cooperative learning method would easily guide beginning readers to
understand how the discussion should be undertaken. The role sheet of Daniel (2002a) was presented in detail as below.
(1) The discussion director should write a list of significant questions that might inspire the other members to discuss more.
(2) The vocabulary enricher should find words which are unfamiliar, intriguing, or relevant for the other members to learn.
(3) The inferior should explain why, and which storyline leads him or her to predict and find clues from texts while he or she is reading.
(4) The illustrator should draw pictures about the story and show it to the group members. Then, he or she needs to tell everybody about his or her thoughts.
(5) The summarizer should prepare a summary of the story to help other participants to recall the plot instantly.’
(6) The connector should find out connections between the story, himself, and the outside world.
(7) The literary luminary should read aloud the paragraphs or sentences that impress him the most.
Data Collection
The participants' reading attitudes and the meanings that texts bring to them
through the literature circle were the focuses of this study. A questionnaire, semi-structured individual interviews, video recordings, and response logs were employed to collect data.
Questionnaire.
Before the literature circle was applied, the researcher did not know much about these participants, except for one girl. Thus, the researcher applied the revised
questionnaire for an initial survey to know more about the participants’ background, reading activities at home, and their attitudes toward English picture books
Based on the results of the study, students’ perceptions of English reading would be considered as their preliminary attitudes before they joined literature circles. Then the researcher would find out the changes of their opinions after conducting
semi-structured individual interviews.
Video-recordings.
There are 12 discussions about six English picture books. Videotapes can capture the whole process to record how participants discuss and respond to peers, both verbally and non-verbally. With a video recorder, the researcher could replay and
There are 12 discussions about six English picture books. Videotapes can capture the whole process to record how participants discuss and respond to peers, both verbally and non-verbally. With a video recorder, the researcher could replay and