struggling readers johannessen

Helping "Struggling" Students Achieve SuccessAuthor(s): Larry R. JohannessenSource: Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 47, No. 8 (May, 2004), pp. 638-647Published by: International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40016898 .

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Helping "struggling" students achieve success

Larry R. Johannessen

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Cognitive approaches to teaching and

learning enable students to make

connections with their out-of-school

experiences and engage them in

powerful thinking strategies*

There is growing concern in the United States about the education of the students regarded as least likely to succeed in school. Indeed, a major thrust of U.S. President Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation is designed to meet the educational needs of those students who traditionally have struggled the most in school. Variously labeled as "struggling," "reluctant," "at risk," "disadvantaged," "alienated," "resist- ant," "educationally deprived," or what Rose (1989) called "educationally underprepared," these students come disproportionately from low socio- economic status families and from ethnic and

linguistic minority backgrounds. It is unfortunate that many of these "reluctant" students are not

succeeding in our schools. For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (1999) the dropout rates in 1999 were 25.3% for

Hispanic, 13.4% for black, and 7.6% for white students, and these figures only hint at the numbers of students who might graduate from high school without having experienced much or any success at all. As Smith and Wilhelm (2002) pointed out in their recent study of literacy in the lives of young men, most of the boys in their study did not have

positive, successful experiences with literate activities in school.

Johannessen teaches at Northern Illinois University

(Department off English, 1425 W.Uncoln Highway, DekalbJL 60115, USA). E-mail ([email protected].

The basics approach The traditional solution for dealing with low-

achieving or at-risk students is through com-

pensatory education. However, this

widely accepted prescription for

teaching such students has largely failed. This prescription has sought to remedy the students' deficiencies

by teaching "the basics" through skills-based instruction; in other words, educators thought that the

best way to reach these most reluctant students was through a heavy emphasis on basic skills. Woolfolk (2001) offered the following summary of the key approaches to this type of instruction and pointed to research on effective teachers of low achievers who employ these strategies (Emmer, Evertson, & Worsham, 2000; Slavin, Karweit, & Madden, 1989).

• Break instruction into small steps and provide short

activities, chosen and sequenced by the teacher.

• Cover material thoroughly and at a moderate pace. Give plenty of practice, immediate clear feedback, and specific praise.

• Have students work as a whole class so that the teacher can supervise. Avoid individualized, self-

paced, or independent work.

• Keep a level of difficulty that guarantees high rates of success.

• Ask convergent questions - one correct answer.

• Make sure to call on everyone and stay with a student until a question is answered.

• Avoid interruptions, open-ended questions, and nonacademic conversations.

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• Emphasize short, frequent paper-and-pencil exercis-

es, not games, arts, crafts, discovery or inquiry learn-

ing activities, and interest centers because these are less helpful for learning. (Woolfolk, 2001, p. 501)

The implication of this approach is that "lower track" students lack the skills they need to have meaningful transactions with literary texts or to produce meaningful, complex pieces of writing. After all, the logic goes, "basic" students must need "basic" skills. Furthermore, it is

fairly obvious that this kind of instruction is de-

meaning and boring for the students and the teachers alike.

Using problem-solving learning tasks A more productive approach to teaching struggling students is based on cognitive views of

learning. This view challenges most of the previous suggestions and questions the value of direct instruction that focuses on basic skills. Two

prominent educators and psychologists who have such views of learning and are critical of the basics approach to teaching at-risk students are Means and Knapp (1991). They argued,

A recent summary of critiques of conventional approaches to teaching academic skills to at-risk stu-

dents, offered by a group of national experts in

reading, writing, and mathematics education, con- cluded that such approaches tend to:

1. underestimate what students are capable of doing;

2. postpone more challenging and interesting work for too long - in many cases, forever;

3. and deprive students of a meaningful or motivating context for learning or for employing the skills that are taught, (pp. 283-284)

Furthermore, Applebee (1989) argued that such basic approaches to learning tend to "focus on the mechanics of language and low-level recall at the expense of the reading and discussion of literature" (p. 35).

But what do these educators offer in its

place? The following are eight principles of instruction recommended by Hamel and Smith

(1998), Means and Knapp (1991), Smith and Wilhelm (2002), and other advocates of cognitive theories of teaching and learning (Ashman &

Conway, 1993; Johannessen, 1991, 1992b, 1999; Means, Chelmer, & Knapp, 1991; Silberman, 1996; Stern, 1992, 1995; Stover, Neubert, & Lawlor, 1993):

1. Focus on complex, meaningful questions and problems so that students' reading and writing can be in service of genuine inquiry (Hillocks, 2002). Keep the level of tasks high enough that the purpose is

apparent and makes sense to students.

2. Embed basic skills instruction in the context of more global tasks, such as including reading com-

prehension and composing skills in introductory reading and writing activities or instruction

(Johannessen, Kahn, & Walter, 1984; McCann, 1996; Smagorinsky, McCann, & Kern, 1987).

3. Make connections with students' out-of-school ex-

perience and culture.

4. Model powerful thinking strategies for students; for

example, lead the class through a discussion aimed at figuring out a difficult text passage before you ask them to try it on their own (Langer 2001a, 2001b).

5. Encourage students to use multiple approaches to academic tasks and have students describe their answers aloud to the class so that all students hear different ways to solve the same problem.

6. Provide scaffolding to enable students to accom-

plish complex tasks; for example, provide prewrit- ing activities designed to help students learn to use

specific sensory details before you ask them to write a personal narrative (Hillocks, 1975).

7. Make dialogue with students the central medium for teaching and learning (Hillocks, 2002; Langer, 2001a, 2001b). One example of this is reciprocal questioning in which groups of two or three students ask and answer one another's questions after a lesson or presentation (King, 1990, 1994).

8. Use teaching strategies that will help students internalize the questions that good readers ask when

they read (interpret) literature and good writers ask when they tackle complex writing tasks.

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In other words, a cognitive approach to

teaching and learning focuses on complex, mean-

ingful questions and problems that make connections with students' out-of-school experiences and cultures. This approach also engages students in powerful thinking strategies, provides scaffold-

ing to enable them to accomplish complex tasks, and involves high levels of student interaction in

small-group and whole-class discussions as they work through problems that encourage them to internalize sophisticated question-asking strate-

gies. This is not to suggest that basics approaches don't sometimes involve scaffolding, modeling, or

making connections to students' out-of-school

experiences and cultures. However, a key difference is that cognitive approaches focus on problem solving and authentic classroom interaction as central to instruction.

What follows are two sample activities for

teaching English language arts that incorporate the features I have just described. First, I describe an activity for teaching descriptive and narrative

writing, then one that is designed to help students

comprehend and interpret literature.

Teaching writing One activity I have used to introduce some of the observational and thinking strategies and rhetori- cal skills involved in descriptive writing is "In the Act." It is a mystery puzzler, which one of my col-

leagues and I adapted from Treat's (1983) The Clue Armchair Detective. I begin by passing out a sheet I have labeled "In the Act." The sheet con- tains a black-and-white drawing of four people in an antique store. There is a couple (man and a

woman) who are looking at some jewelry, a man

standing to the left of the couple, and a shop worker who is showing the couple pieces of jewelry. As in many antique stores there are objects and paintings everywhere. It is very crowded. I tell students that they have one minute to study the drawing. After the time is up, I either collect the drawings or have students turn them over on

their desks with the direction that they cannot look at them until I tell them they can.

Then I pass out the next two sheets, "In the Act II" (Treat, 1983). These sheets contain a par- tial drawing of the scene depicted on the previous sheet, but with the outline of the man to the left of the couple blanked out of the drawing. The di- rections for this exercise ask students to identify some very specific details about the man who is blanked out. I give students about five minutes to fill out these two sheets, which ask for everything from the man's age, to whether or not he was

"slightly" or "completely bald," to whether or not he had dirt on his shoes - if in fact he was wear-

ing shoes and not boots.

Once students have completed their sheets, I lead a class discussion of their answers. What be- comes clear as the discussion develops is that most students did not look very closely at the drawing. For example, the sheets ask students if the man was over or under six feet tall. In a typical class, students are split on this issue. About half the students say he was over six feet tall and claim that he

appeared taller than the man he was standing next to in the drawing, suggesting he was a fairly tall man. The other half of the class say he was under six feet tall because he was shorter than the por- trait that he was standing next to in the drawing, suggesting he was short because paintings are usu-

ally hung at about eye level.

The class discussion of the drawing is inter-

esting for other reasons as well. For example, it

encourages active participation as students point to details that they remember, or think they remember, to support their responses to the questions. The activity inductively underscores the need to observe closely (a very important think-

ing skill in descriptive and narrative writing) and also the need for specific descriptive details. Here is an example of an exchange that took place in one lOth-grade class of struggling students in a

large suburban high school in the midwestern United States. The school was split into three abil-

ity levels; this class of students was labeled "below- average" ability and contained a large

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number of second-language students with limited

English proficiency, a number of students from

minority groups, and a small number of students with learning disorders and behavior problems. The exchange began with the teacher asking students for a show of hands of how many thought the man was under 40 years of age, how many thought he was between 40 and 60 years of age, and how many thought he was over 60 years old. The vote on the age issue indicated that the class was split about equally, so the teacher asked for someone who thought he was under 40 to explain his or her reasoning.

Student 1 : 1 thought he was under 40 because he had like a mustache and a beard and pretty long hair and not many old people have long hair and a mustache and beard.

Student 2: He didn't have a beard or long hair. I think

maybe you are thinking of the man in the

painting on the wall. But the guy standing next to the couple was like a middle-aged man. He had this thin mustache and he had like slicked down hair like a business- man or something. He was between 40 and 60.

Student 3: 1 think you both are wrong. I thought he was like an older guy. He was partially bald on top of his head and he had real thick

eyebrows like some old people I have seen have.

Student 4: Yeah, and I thought he had like this age line on his face that came down from his nose and went down his cheek. This is definitely an older guy.

This brief example illustrates how the activ-

ity engages students in practicing the skills and

thinking strategies involved in descriptive writ-

ing. For example, the students have an idea about the man's age based on details that they have observed, or think they have observed, and their

reasoning as to how those details support their views on the man's age. Student 2 points out that Student 1 may be confusing the man in the painting on the wall with the man standing next to the

couple (which he was), and he points to details that he thinks he remembers that suggest that the

man is middle-aged. Student 3 counters by pointing to details she thinks she remembers from the

drawing to support her view that the man was over 60, and Student 4 adds an additional detail to support her guess. Three of the four students

point to their own observations of people in the real world to support their interpretations of the man's age. Students are actively engaged and

practicing the skills involved in descriptive and narrative writing, and they are exploring a com-

plex problem.

After I have discussed all of their answers with the students - or if they just can't wait - we look at the original sheet (drawing of the scene) again to see how well they did. A few students have usually done pretty well at observing and

noting details, but most of them usually have not. At this point, I refer to what the students have done in the activity as the ability to observe close-

ly and pick out specific details. I connect it to the real world by pointing out that this activity is ex-

actly what police investigators must do or what citizens might be asked to do if they witness a crime.

As a follow-up writing activity to give students practice with what they have learned, I have them write a description of the man, focusing on the specific details they have marked on their In the Act II sheets. In fact, I collect their In the Act

drawings and ask them to write their description without the benefit of the original drawing. This

follow-up writing gives students practice using the skills and strategies involved in descriptive and narrative writing: close observation, translat-

ing their observations into written description, and using specific details in writing. In addition, this activity is effective because it captures students' interest and attention and makes them aware of the need to have specific details. The In the Act II sheets with questions and the class discussion also provide scaffolding to help students see the importance of close observation and iden-

tify specific details, which increases the amount of student participation in class. Finally, the activity is effective because students are orally practicing

JOURNAL OF JtifJLESCEil & ADULT LITERACY 47:8 ill 2004 041



the skills they are going to use in writing, and

they are doing it in a situation in which they must contend with the demands of an audience of their

peers.

In teaching students how to write narration and description, I have found that it is most effective to include an activity such as this one as the first in a sequence of similar activities so that students can practice and internalize the procedures and strategies involved. As a result, they can then use the procedures and strategies independently when they have to create a narrative or descriptive composition on their own (Johannessen, 2001; Johannessen & Kahn, 1997).

Results Of course, the real question is, do students learn to write better with this type of instruction?

Along with student teachers from the English education program at my university, I have achieved some impressive results using this approach with middle and high school students - results that confirm previous research conducted by Hillocks (1995). Student writing is significantly improved. Most students write with much greater specificity than they did prior to instruction, and they are much more engaged in the classroom. In other words, they feel the success they have achieved. The following is a typical example from a

seventh-grade "remedial" language arts class in a middle school in a large midwestern U.S. city. The school, which tracked students into three ability levels, had a diverse population with a high percentage of African American students.

Students in the class were given a parallel pre- and posttest writing task. The assignment asked students to write about a personal experience that had an impact on them, and they were

given a class period to complete their narratives without help from the teacher. The student in the

following example chose to write about the same

experience for her pre- and posttest. The posttest was given after several days of instruction and included activities such as the one I discussed

previously. I have not corrected either composition for spelling or other errors.

Narrative writing assignment pretest

One day my girlfriend, Swaney and me were walking on a highway, when this car came by and tried to hit

us, but Swaney saw the car coming and she screamed and pulled me out of the way. Then the car turned around and started chasing us and both of us started

running and we jumped over the guide rail and rolled down the hill. We ran through a tunnel and at the other end the man was standing there waiting for us so we turned around and ran the other way. We saw a man driving a car that we knew and he took us to the

police station and they we after the man and captured him. Later we found out that he was an escaped con- vict from a mental prison.

After that I was so scared I couldn't sleep for a few

nights and I had bad nightmares. Now I'm real scared of the same spot where that happened and I'll never

go back there again.

Posttest

Me and Nancy were walking down a highway one

night. It was dark and dreary and the sky was filled with dark clouds floating all around the sky. When all of the sudden this car came speeding by us like a bolt of lightning and then it stopped and backed up. Right then I knew it was heading straight for us. My heart was bounding with fright, my knees shaking nervous-

ly, I felt like crying or screaming but I was frozen.

We started running, but the car was still following us. Then the car stopped and the man got out, he was a

tall, skinny man with big dark sunglasses. I didn't have to turn around to see if he was still there. I could hear the heals clicking along the sidewalk and his breathing getting heavier as he got closer.

We ran faster and faster. I could feel my muscles

breaking from exhaustion and the pain in my legs, like I had a thousand pins and needles in my body. Finally we ran up to a house and the people let us in and called the police. The police caught the guy. The guy was on dope and he was so crazy he kept saying he wanted to kill us because we deserved it.

From then on, no more highways at night for me.

The posttest is longer than the pretest, and a

comparison of the content of the two papers re- veals a much improved use of specific sensory details to describe the experience. What is most

642 J0UIN1L OF AOOLESCEiT I ADULT LITE«1C¥ 47:8 MAY 2004



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impressive is the effective use of figurative language to convey meaning. In fact, some of the details and images are quite striking, such as when the student describes the strange man's

"[heels] clicking along the sidewalk and his

breathing getting heavier as he got closer." These

sensory details vividly describe her fear and help to build suspense in the narrative.

Teaching literature

To engage disadvantaged students in inquiry and

problem solving when teaching literature, I have found that scenario-based activities are particu- larly effective. The following scenario-based activ-

ity deals with the concept of heroism. It is best done just before students are about to start a work of literature in which the concept of heroism is critical for understanding the text. Activities that feature everyday situations enable students to make connections between their own

experiences and the specific world of the literary work. In addition, scenario-based activities at-

tempt to spark students' interest in the text they are reading. The "Heroism: What Is a Heroic Act?" scenarios (adapted from Johannessen, 1992a) are designed to get students to do some serious thinking about the characteristics of or criteria for a heroic act and to confront view-

points that may differ from their own before

reading a work dealing with this concept.

To begin the activity I have students com-

plete Part I on their own (see Figure). Then, after students finish the scenarios, I have them work in small groups to reach a consensus on their rank-

ings and complete Part II of the activity by writ-

ing out their definitions of a heroic act. However,

reaching a consensus is no easy task. As students

try to convince others that they are "right," they must argue the reasons for their choices. In decid-

ing why, for instance, example A in the Figure is more or less heroic than example B, students discover characteristics that they think an action must have to be heroic and criteria that can be used to judge whether one action is more or less

heroic than another. After the small groups com-

plete their discussions, I lead a class discussion of their findings. At this point the debate begins all over again as the groups defend their rankings and their definitions. As the debate continues, I lead students toward a discussion of the qualities or criteria for deciding if an action is heroic. As students generate ideas, I list them on the chalk- board and have students copy them down for the next step in the activity. The students generate ideas such as the following: for an action to be heroic, there must be real danger; the action must involve serious consequences; and the potential hero must express a willingness to sacrifice for others.

Students rarely agree on their rankings. As a result, a natural follow-up writing activity is to have students pick one of the incidents that the class is having a problem with and argue why the

person's action in the incident is or is not heroic

according to the criteria the class has generated. I ask students to make sure that they explain in their written compositions why the person's action is more or less heroic than the one or two other incidents that the class was unable to agree on during class discussion. Another possible writ-

ing task is to have students write their definitions of a heroic act, but they should include all of the criteria or characteristics of a heroic act that the class generated. Students might also be asked to

pick a real person and explain why that person is or is not a hero based on the criteria that the class has generated.

This activity serves as an excellent introduc- tion to works that deal with heroism, including the mythic, epic, and modern hero. My colleagues and I have used it successfully with students from

grades 7 to 12 in rural, suburban, and inner-city settings. As students read literature after the activ-

ity, I ask them to apply the criteria we generated and determine where within these rankings a particular character would fall. By examining these scenarios before they begin reading, students de-

velop a more sophisticated understanding of he- roes. In other words, this kind of activity results

JOURNAL OF IDOLESCEil ft ADULT LITiiiOY 47:8 MAY 2M4 643



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Scenario-based activity worksheet

Heroism: What is a heroic act Part I: Rank the following actions from the one you think is the most heroic to the one you think is the least

heroic. Be prepared to explain your reasons for ranking each action the way you did.

123 45 678 9 10

A. An accident leaves a gymnast paralyzed. For five years she spends 12 to 14 hours a day in therapy to try to

regain the use of her legs. Her hard work results in a miraculous recovery, and she wins a gold medal in

the Olympics. B. A school teacher, invited to be a part of the seven-person crew of the space shuttle, dies as the rocket ex-

plodes shortly after takeoff. C. An 11 -year-old boy who sees two men sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, threatening to stab her if she

resists, rides off on his bicycle and gets the police. The officers arrive too late to prevent the rape, but the

boy's actions probably saved her from being killed. D. A lifeguard rescues a 6-year~old boy from drowning in a public pool by dragging him out with a hook.

E. A scientist makes a discovery that will help cure thousands of people with heart disease. F. A woman is swimming in the ocean. Sharks are spotted near her, so her husband runs into the water to

save her. Part of his leg is severed by sharks, but he manages to pull his wife and himself to safety. G. A man runs into a burning building that is about to collapse to rescue a child trapped inside. As he is run-

ning out with the child, a portion of the building falls, killing them both. H. When a boat capsizes in a storm, four people are clinging to a small raft that will hold only three. An old

man with a fatal disease knows he will die in a few months, so he gives up the raft for the others. He drowns in the waves.

I. A bystander helps a woman who is drowning in a river after a plane crash. The water is very cold, and only a few minutes of exposure could result in death. He is able to save the woman but freezes and drowns in the process.

J. A man finds that the company he works for has been cheating customers. He reports his finding on a tele- vision news program. Shortly thereafter, he is fired from his job.

Part II: In the following space write your definition of a heroic act. Your definition should identify at least two

key characteristics or rules that could be used to judge whether or not someone's action is a heroic act.

Note. Adapted from Johannessen (1992a)

644 JOURNAL OF liOLESCEil ft ADULT LITERACY 47:1 MAY 2004



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in more purposeful reading. They have some-

thing to look for - the attitudes, behavior, moti- vation, and actions of characters presented in literature. I have found that focusing on analysis of various characters' possible heroic actions is an effective way to get students to think about the extent to which a character's action is or is not heroic. One interesting follow-up discussion ac-

tivity is to have students rank the same scenarios as they think a particular character or the author of a text would rank them. Then, I have them defend their choices with evidence from the literary work. Once students have completed a book, I have them write about a major character we have studied, such as Jonas in Lois Lowry's The Giver

(1993), Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a

Mockingbird (1960), Tim O'Brien in If I Die in a Combat Zone (1987), or Santiago in Ernest

Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952), and explain why that character is or is not a hero

using the criteria that the class has developed during the activity.

Having a set of possible heroic actions for students to consider is key to success. If students are simply asked to write a definition of a heroic action (without having to weigh one possible heroic action against others), they usually strug- gle to come up with a definition beyond the

superficial. As a result of seeing 10 different possible actions and having to rank them in order, students are forced to examine each one carefully. This means that when they get to a literary work and examine a character like Atticus Finch in terms of the criteria they have generated, they are much better able to comprehend why shooting a rabid dog isn't heroic, but defending Tom Robinson in the face of the town's racism is quite heroic. After engaging in this activity, most students tend to include much more supporting evidence from the text in their compositions and to

explain how their evidence supports their inter-

pretations. Furthermore, their compositions show that they have given considerable thought to the question of what heroism is and what the author is telling us about the issue.

In addition, students are much more involved in class activities and the literature they are

reading. One struggling ninth-grade student wrote in his evaluation of the unit and the student teacher, "I had heard that this book [ To Kill a

Mockingbird] was really stupid, but I don't think it was. I learned a lot about family, prejudice, and what it means to be a real hero and not a false one." Another student said, "This is the first time I have read a book in school that I felt like I understand what it is about. Thank you." Finally, another student said, "I think everyone should read this book. I now know what a real hero is."

This approach stands in striking contrast to the traditional study of literary works that focuses on memorizing "the elements of literature" and

biographical information about the author and the times, which fails to prepare students for their

reading or to help them understand what they read. As Smith (1991) argued, such teaching is

"very reductive" (p. 10) and does little to prepare students to cope with the complexities involved in understanding literary texts. Part of the reason for the success of the scenario approach is that the work students do in the activity provides a context or scaffold for understanding the literature that the traditional approach does not. Students focus their inquiry on the nature of heroism; reading and writing serve them as they try to answer the question, "What is a heroic act?"

Teaching for independence The goal of these kinds of activities is for struggling students to be able to use thinking strategies on their own when they do not have a teacher around to break down the tasks into small parts, to guide their thinking processes, or to provide scaffolding. I want students to read a literary work and write a composition in which they are able to

analyze a theme or a character's actions, provide specific supporting evidence from the text, and

explain the significance of their evidence.

With the basics approach, the assumption is that the teacher needs to guide and direct students,

JOURNAL IF IDOLESCEiT & ADULT LITERACY 47:8 ill 2004 645



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break tasks down into small bits, provide direct in-

struction, and keep things simple to ensure student

success. One major problem with this approach is

that students might be successful with the

"small" steps, but will they ever be able to take

the "big" steps on their own? In contrast, cognitive approaches assume that students are capable of accomplishing complex tasks on their own.

Therefore, instruction that uses these approaches

encourages students to move toward independence from the teacher and instruction.

In other words, the purpose of having students engage in activities like these when they write or when they read literature is that they help students to internalize the kinds of questions that good readers and writers ask when they read

and write about literature. In addition, they help students connect the literature they are reading to the world outside of school. Problem-based activities teach students how to tackle complex writing tasks on their own and how to analyze literature, and they help students learn how to turn their in-

terpretations of literature into analytical essays. In a very real sense, struggling students are learning essential basic skills that they need to become successful readers and writers.

Instruction that makes a difference At the heart of the cognitive approach to teaching and learning is the idea that instead of focusing on the mechanics of language and accumulating facts and information, teachers need to provide instruction that will enable nonacademic, at-risk students to learn how to learn. As Smith and Wilhelm

(2002) argued, this "learning-centered" approach

aims to capitalize on the expertise that students bring with them to class, and to teach them what we know as more experienced readers and writers so they can become more expert in ways of reading, writing, and

thinking that are valued in the classroom and work-

place, (pp. 192-193)

The cognitive approach is risky for many teachers because it veers away from conventional

ways of thinking about teaching and learning for

struggling students; teachers who use this approach to teaching may be questioned by admin-

istrators, parents, students, and even peers for

employing what might be viewed as unconven- tional methods in the classroom. However, using the eight principles of instruction (listed earlier) to guide our teaching can help us to provide the kind of instruction that will enable even the most reluctant of learners to succeed and to achieve to their fullest potentials. I believe the cognitive approach to teaching will enable us to learn with our students and grow as teachers.

REFERENCES Applebee, A.N. (1989). The teaching of literature in programs

with reputations for excellence in English (Tech. Rep. No.

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struggling readers johannessen

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