by Villaverde, Florencia and Núñez, Melina
Contrary to popular myth, teenagers enjoy reading. However, it is clear that they do not like reading everything they are presented to. We carried out a survey in order to know more about the characteristics that teenagers consider a good book should contain. With the results of the survey, we will explore throughout this paper the differences and similarities between Small`s characterization of a good book for teenagers and teenagers `owns beliefs. The purpose of this is to determine what kinds of books teenagers prefer reading.
Nowadays, teenagers read a wide variety of books during their lessons at school. It is important for teachers to know about the preferences of teenagers so as to choose books which call their attention and make them feel interested in what they are reading.
Many authors coincide in the importance of including certain elements in books directed to teenagers in order to engage them. Small (1992) is one of them. He points out that the main character of a story should be a teenager, the events and problems in the plot should be related to adolescents and the story should be relatively short. The survey we carried out included items related to the ones Small pointed out.
Data for this quantitative study was collected from twenty teenage students of sixteen years old, who study English as a foreign language. The students belong to a public school from the district of Moron in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The survey was divided into six sections which contained several options. Students had to decide which options were more appropriate according to their preferences. The analysis of the data included analytic deduction. We summed all the students´ answers in order to identify the options chosen by the majority. The following is a sample of the survey:
What characteristics make a good book for teenagers?
Characters
- Teenage character
- Adult character
- Adult and teenage character
- Other/ others.
Plot:
- Based on real life events
- Related to science fiction
- Other/ others
Length
- No more that 150 pages
- Up to 400 pages
- Other/ others.
Characters “are the guide who bring the story world to life and teach us to see the rich potential human beings have for goodness, love, faith, and hope, as well as for fear and evil” (Peterson and Eeds, 1990, p.31). A good selection of characters is essential to encourage teenagers to read not just a chapter but a whole story. Through a good characterization authors can make teenagers feel represented in a story and fulfill their special needs. These needs include the need to belong to a particular group of people, the need to communicate their own desires and fears to adults and the need for entertainment (Gail De Vos, 2003). Taking into account Small`s ideas, the main character in books directed to teenagers should also be a teenager and it makes sense if we take into account the need of teenagers to feel themselves represented in a story. However, after we carried out the survey, we realized that most of the students had chosen “adults and adolescents” as the preferred characters for a good story. Their answers are shown in graphic 1.
The results were unexpected because we believed that they would only choose adolescents’ characters as the key for a good story. We draw this conclusion taking into account teenagers´interest in movies and television programmes. However, the majority of students has chosen both adolescents and adults´ characters. We consider that this choice may be related to their wish to be adults and more independent.
The plot is an important part of any story. According to Baker and Greene (1987) a well-developed plot includes a brief opening that introduces the main characters, sets the scene and anticipates the action. The ending resolves the conflict, releases the tension and leaves the reader feeling satisfied. These characteristics are taken into account by many authors when writing for teenagers. However, Small points out another characteristic that a plot should include. This characteristic is related to the kind of events the plot will be based on. To Small a story directed to teenagers should include a plot based on events and problems that are closely related to teenagers. We considered Small´s idea and included it as an option in the survey. We also added a contrastive option and give students the opportunity to write other ideas if they do not agree with the ones we stated. Students´ answers are shown in graphic 2.
Taken into account the results, we could confirm that Small´s characterization of the plot coincides with the students´ choice. The majority of the students agreed in having a plot based on real events as an important factor for a good story. This result can be interpreted through Yolen´s ideas. Yolen (2000) stated that “through stories teenagers are able to try their own dreams, fantasies, fears, and concerns without experiencing real-life consequences”. This means that teenagers identify themselves with plots based on real life situations or experiences and develop a critical thinking without exposing them to risky situations.
According to Small, stories for adolescents should be relatively short. This means rarely more than 200 pages. We include in the survey three options to confirm or refute Small´s idea about the length of a good story for adolescents. The results are shown in graphic 3.
We realize that teenagers prefer reading stories of no more than 200 pages. This could represent the lack of motivation some of them have towards literature. However, we also consider that these answers could represent the attention span of adolescents.
Our research demonstrates that the majority of the students who participated in our survey has chosen the same characteristics that Small presented as regards the length of a story and the plot. A story should be short and it should be based on real life events.
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