Practical Access Podcast

S4 E14: Engagement with Literature

• Season 4 • Episode 14

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Drs. Rebecca Hines and Lisa Dieker, UCF Faculty members, share tips on how to get students more and engaged and excited to read works of literature in a virtual setting. Tune in as they share ways to make literature more engaging. 
 
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Lisa Dieker:

Welcome to practical access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines:

And I'm Rebecca Hines. And I'm excited about today's topic, Lisa, Tell, tell our listeners what we have.

Lisa Dieker:

Yeah, well, I know you're excited because this is who you are. And so I'm just going to play this clip from the person who left us a phone message on our Google Voice, and it's on literacy.

Unknown:

Hi, my name is Elizabeth. And I teach sixth and seventh grade language arts. My question is, how can I get my students more engaged and excited to read works of literature and interact with those versus literature in a virtual environment? Thank you for your help.

Lisa Dieker:

Alright, so Becky, as the language arts teachers, sixth and seventh grade, I'm pretty sure that was a setup. Quite Just kidding. I'm gonna let you run with that one, and I'll follow up.

Rebecca Hines:

Well, as you know, Lisa, even though I've been in special ed for a long time now, my original degree was in English education. And I was a secondary English teacher in I have never had more fun than that job. So I do understand this situation. Now for those of us who love teaching literature. And now we're not with the kids that kind of instill that, that energy that I think brings

Lisa Dieker:

you know, I think for me, it's it's about choice. So I know, we've never talked about that before. But I think that the choice in an online environment is never ending. And yet it might be limited. So you know, I'm going to do a quick check, check check, like, does the kids the kid eligible for Bookshare, so they can get 900,000 free books, those are for people with print aren't read chapter Book 1234, but read some information like the newspaper, like museums front page of the paper, and have some discussion on that. Because sometimes reading is about stamina. So your thoughts?

Rebecca Hines:

No, absolutely. And support is going to be critical for some of the students. Now, as a as a, as a, as a literature teacher, because it was my favorite thing to teach, I think it's what Elizabeth was referring to is like, now let's be able to draw in the passion of it. And so the thing that I did in my own classroom, and again, we can play around with how we make this work online, I

Lisa Dieker:

Yeah, I'm gonna take that in piecemeal a little bit. And I love that idea. And one of the things that Denise Ousley, so could look for Ousley O U S L E Y , and Dieker, D I E K E R publication is we did an article on not only info kids, but on a modified literature circles. Because like you, it's not about the reading. It's about doing something with the reading. And what I love

Rebecca Hines:

And I think that the the key thing there is you really mentioned, Universal Design for Learning in a nutshell. So even though we did reenact things, in part that was kind of the culture of our class, but I would always absolutely give students an option of turning this into a work of art, you know, that is graphic art or any other things? It does, it does. It doesn't have to be

Lisa Dieker:

Yeah, and I have two just real quick short tips, one just kind of innovative and strange to ponder. But if I had some really reluctant readers, which it sounds like this teacher does a shocking, I might have them either be reading to some maybe people in nursing homes or that are socially isolated now as grandparents, or better yet, even have them go teach some skills to

Rebecca Hines:

I just want to make one point about that. And this is for all of the all of the people who are not English education majors. I everything I agree with everything you said. But I caution, every listener to remember that literature is not reading. Yeah, so I just want to remind everyone, because you can love literature, and not be a great reader. So I think that one of the

Lisa Dieker:

I agree. And that's what I think is fun. Imagine reading a story you feel good about to a senior who lights up and smiles. I mean, I think oftentimes our kids really don't get that opportunity, even if it's letting the senior listen with you and have a conversation. But yeah, to me, my mother was a librarian is about the love of reading, not about grammatically getting every

Unknown:

uh, oh, my

Lisa Dieker:

goodness, what is it? It's the book of anyway, it's a great book that tells you how much a human poops in a lifetime, my son read that nonstop, you become a reader when you learn that literacy gives you information that you love,

Rebecca Hines:

right? And you become a lover of literature. When you engage with a story that evokes an emotion or makes you feel something or understand something about the world that you didn't before. And they are really different. They're really different goals. And so I did want to mention, also, Lisa that, one more time, anyone who's looking for that format to customize, and let kids

Lisa Dieker:

So I agree with you 1,000%. And we thank you for that great question. If you have other questions, you can put them on our Facebook. You can also put them on our Twitter @accesspr ctical, or you can send them to our Google Voice account which is 407-900-9305