by Angélica Santi and María Silvina Rago
Lord! When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book. ~Christopher Morley
Students in general, particularly teenagers, undergo many changes during their process of maturation. This changes result in new preferences as regards literature as well. This paper will describe students’ preferences as regards different literary elements. According to Holly Koening,
“Teens like to explore the unfamiliar, they like to learn, they like to escape. Many teens like to challenge themselves to “read ahead” of their level-both technically and experientially.”
To obtain data about students’ reading preferences we conducted a survey with two different focus groups. We chose students attending public schools in the western area of Greater Buenos Aires. Students of 11 or 12 years of age were part of one of the focus groups. The other focus group ages ranged from 15 to 17 years old. This survey deals with different literary elements or a variety of features concerning characters, genre, type of text and preferred story-endings. An analysis of the results will help teachers choose reading material when preparing their lessons. It will also add some understanding of teens as developing beings and save time to teachers who are planning to start a reading programme.
Theoretical framework
What is your favourite ending in a story? What kind of genre do you like most? What about the main character? Do you prefer a human being or a talking animal? Any measurement tool has its own built-in biases, regardless of rigorous attempts on the parts of its creators to remain objective and the collected data can be interpreted in many ways. But asking these questions to teens themselves we can determine their likes and preferences and from there, we can then look for books that deal with all aspects of adolescence. This is a tool of great help when trying to establish a connection with them.
According to psychologists and educators, the term adolescent has been defined as the stage that starts at the onset of puberty and finishes at the end of physical growth. But this growth is not only physical, it is also emotional and intellectual and, even if changes are little noticeable on the outside, they might be dramatic in the inside. During this stage, concepts of personal identity and selfhood are formed in dialogue with society, with language and with other people, and while this dialogue is happening, ideas about and representations of subjectivity pervade and underpin adolescent fiction.
Teens as growing people have particular interests and personal emotions. Of course, each individual develops at his or her own pace depending on many factors – genetics, cultural values, upbringing, socioeconomic status, etc. – but as this development takes place within a larger construct, they share a common workload in their growing-up process.
Therefore, as future educators of young adults, the first thing we need to have in mind is the fact that teens have their own choices and preferences. Most importantly, their experiences need to be taken seriously. Only when able to understand they are in a constant process of maturation, can we benefit considerably from interacting with them. Taking into account their concerns will lead us to select the appropriate material for them.
Methods
In order to analyse the preferences of young adults at the moment of reading we elaborated a short questionnaire to conduct a survey on two groups of students attending public schools situated in lower middle class suburbs in the western area of Greater Buenos Aires (See Appendix I). These students were from different schools, twenty students from primary school and twenty more from secondary level of education. Students’ age ranged from 11 to 17 years of age, being them separated into two focus groups. For the sake of clarity we will call them Focus group 1- students of 11-12 years old, and Focus group 2- from 15 to 17. Both focus groups were allowed to answer freely according to their reading experience. Each question in the survey was formulated in order to obtain data to be analysed both qualitatively and quantitavely. These questions refer to several literary features such as characters, genre, story-endings and main character’s personality.
Results
Collected data can be interpreted in different ways. At this point, it is important to mention that using young adult readers within a classroom context do not truly turn teenagers into readers. They might be able to fulfil the task of reading any text if they are told to but avoid even the sight of a book during their leisure time. Even so, this research demonstrates that when it comes to reading, both focus groups have agreements and disagreements, similarities and differences.
Poems, newspapers and fables were the most widely chosen among focus group 1, being poems the most voted with 23%, 18% for newspapers and 14 for fables. Within the same topic, focus group 2 chose novels and short stories most, getting 26% each of them. Poems were the third choice, with a 22 %.
Horror books were among the most voted by both focus groups. The interesting point in this case is that this genre got a 44% in focus group 1but only 22% in focus group 2.
Tragic and happy endings disputed the first place for preferred type of ending in focus group 1, with a 33% and 30% respectively whereas in focus group 2, 50% chose unexpected and 20% uncertain endings.
When it comes to type of character and their personality, both focus groups agreed, preferring a teenager protagonist, giving focus group 1 a 44% and focus group 2 a 69%. Focus group 1 also gave 28% to adults, and 24% to animals and focus group 2 put adults in the second place with a 31%. As to main character personality, both focus groups also placed the adventurer type in the first place, with a 21% in group 1 and 47% in group 2. The brave kind got also a 21% in group 1 but the reflexive got the second position in group 2 with a 41%.
The graphs and charts that follow illustrate these findings:
11-12 years old
What do you like reading?
Fairy Tales 0
Fables 3
Novels 1
Short Stories 0
Poems 5
Magazines 2
Newspapers 4
Any of the above 1
Other 6
What type of books do you prefer reading?
Horror 14
Science Fiction 4
Romantic comedy 1
Comedy 5
Thriller 4
Historical Novel 0
Biographies 3
Any of the above 0
Other 1
What kind of ending do you prefer in a book?
Tragic 9
Happy 8
Uncertain 2
Disturbing 2
Unexpected 5
Any of the above 1
Other 0
¿What kind of main character do you prefer?
Animal 6
Teenager 11
Adult 7
Any of the above 1
Other 0
¿What type of personality do you like in a protagonist?
Heroe 5
Superheroe 1
Shy 3
Reflexive 3
Adventurer 9
Brave 9
Any of the above 1
Other 0
15-17 years old
What do you like reading?
Fairy Tales 0
Fables 1
Novels 6
Short Stories 6
Poems 5
Magazines 2
Newspapers 0
Any of the above 0
Other 3
What type of books do you prefer reading?
Horror 5
Science Fiction 2
Romantic comedy 6
Comedy 5
Thriller 3
Historical Novel 1
Biographies 1
Any of the above 0
Other 0
What kind of ending do you prefer in a book?
Tragic 1
Happy 1
Uncertain 4
Disturbing 1
Unexpected 10
Any of the above 3
Other 0
What kind of main character do you prefer?
Animal 0
Teenager 11
Adult 5
Any of the above 0
Other 0
¿What type of personality do you like in a protagonist?
Heroe 0
Superheroe 2
Shy 0
Reflexive 7
Adventurer 8
Brave 0
Any of the above 0
Other 0
Discussion
Koelling (2004) concedes that at the onset of puberty, students’ identities are in a state of flux and they are in the process of forming close personal friendships, revolving around competitive comparisons in all areas of their lives. The data obtained throughout this survey confirms Koelling’s stance. In the first place, regarding type of reading and literary genre, results clearly show that 11-12 year-old students’ choices vary widely, from typical children’s preferences, such as fables or horror, to others more proper of the teenage stage, such as magazines or biographies . Secondly, when it comes to character features, many of them still choose animals and heroic or adventurous personalities. Finally, the type of ending students prefer most at this age period are either the tragic or the happy one.
By the time students reach the last stages of teen development, their thought and reasoning are ready to deal with more abstract situations where logic can also be applied. They are more inclined to experience relationships within different social environments and they are no longer afraid of going beyond their known world. Humour is also a new component of their world, as well as romance. The results of the survey confirm this as students of 15 to 17 years old chose, for example, unexpected story endings. Concerning type of text and genre, short stories, novels, comedy and horror were the most preferred ones. The type of hero that students claim to prefer is the adventurer adolescent one.
Taking these preferred characteristics into consideration, wise teachers will make their jobs easier by choosing material that will simultaneously teach them and amuse them, and perhaps encourage some of them to experiment with new features.
References
- Herz, Sarah (1996) What is young adult literature anyway? Can it be any good if students like it? From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature and the Classics. Chapter 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
- Koelling, H. (2004) Make sense of teens as growing people and as readers. Classic Connections: Turning Teens onto Great Literature. Westport CT.
- McCallum, R. (1999) “Introduction: Subjectivity, humanism and children’s literature” Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction: The dialogic construction of subjectivity. New York: Garland.
Appendix I:
¿Qué te gusta leer?
Cuentos de hadas
Fábulas
Novelas
Historias cortas
Poemas
Revistas
Diarios
Cualquiera de los anteriores
Otro
¿Cuál? ______________
¿Qué género literario preferís?
Terror
Ciencia ficción
Romántico
Comedia
Suspenso
Novela histórica
Biografías
Cualquiera de los anteriores
Otro
¿Cuál? ______________
¿Qué tipo de final preferís?
Trágico
Feliz
Incierto
Perturbador
Inesperado
Cualquiera de los anteriores
Otro
¿Cuál? ______________
¿Qué tipo de personaje principal te gusta más?
Animal
Adolescente
Adulto
Cualquiera de los anteriores
Otro
¿Cuál? ______________
¿Qué personalidad te atrae más en un protagonista?
Héroe
Superhéroe
Tímido
Reflexivo
Aventurero
Valiente
Cualquiera de los anteriores
Otro
¿Cuál? ______________
¿Te acordás de un libro que te haya gustado mucho?
Si
No
¿Cuál? Título: __________
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